Course Introduction

¡Hola a todos y bienvenidos al curso de español de Lengua de Fuego! Estamos muy emocionados de que puedas descubrir este hermoso idioma con nosotros. Aprenderás conceptos como los sonidos del español, palabras gramaticales esenciales, conjugación, cómo hacer preguntas, negación y más. Esperamos que, después de terminar este curso, comprenda los conceptos esenciales necesarios para comprender y usar el español en su vida cotidiana. ¡Disfrutar!

Translation: Hello, everyone, and welcome to Tongue of Fire’s Spanish course! We’re very excited that you’ll be able to discover this beautiful language with us. You will learn concepts like the sounds of Spanish, essential grammatical words, conjugation, how to ask questions, negation, and more! We hope that, after finishing this course, you’ll understand the essential concepts necessary to understand and use Spanish in your everyday life. Enjoy!

A bit about Spanish: Spanish is the second most spoken language in the U.S, and it’s also the most widely learned in the U.S. due to the abundance of nearby Hispanic nations. Spanish is a Romance language, meaning that it is descended from Latin. It developed primarily from the dialects of spoken Latin in the Iberian Peninsula and began to take shape as a distinct language around the 9th century. It became standardized and spread widely through the expansion of the Spanish Empire starting in the 15th century. Today, Spanish is typically ranked as the fourth most spoken language in the world and is the official language in more than 20 countries, mostly in Latin America. It’s widely learned and appreciated in America for its practicality, its clear and rhythmic sound, and its deep cultural influence across music, food, and everyday life.

Spanish is generally considered one of the easier languages for English speakers to learn because it shares characteristics with English such as the Latin alphabet, subject-verb-object word order, and many similar words. It has its challenges, though, including difficult sounds, noun gender, and somewhat complicated conjugation. We’ve done our best to clearly explain how to tackle each of those challenges individually throughout this course.

This course is designed to help you understand all of the linguistic concepts that you’ll need to speak Spanish at an intermediate level. It teaches the overarching concepts and rules of Spanish grammar rather than individual words, which you can learn through our curriculum on the Words page. Please note that simply reading the lessons is not enough to learn Spanish: regular practice is essential to turning the knowledge in the course into practical skills. You can get that practice on the other pages of this site, such as AI, Word Drills, and Conjugation, as well as by immersing yourself in the language by talking with people in Spanish and by reading, watching, or listening to Spanish media. We strongly recommend taking notes and/or making physical flashcards as you read these lessons to help yourself better understand and retain what you learn.

Throughout the course, we’ve styled all Spanish text like this and other listenable text like this. Whenever you see either type of text, you can click it to hear its pronunciation.

We hope you find Tongue of Fire’s Spanish course clear, fun, and enlightening. ¡Buena suerte!