Spanish is a language that lets you talk with people in Spain, in much of Latin America, and in many communities around the world. It helps you to greet, ask for something, ask questions, and understand short messages from day one. To start, just recognize frequent words, fixed phrases, and the basic word order of the sentence, which you will see in Word Order.

To greet, you can use hola, buenos días, buenas tardes and buenas noches. To introduce yourself, you say me llamo + name or soy + name: Me llamo Ana; Soy Luis. If you want to know someone else’s name, you can say ¿Cómo te llamas? and respond with a short sentence. These expressions appear often in Primeros Pasos and also in Oraciones Interrogativas.

In Spanish, a simple idea typically follows subject + verb + complement: Yo estudio español; María compra pan; El niño duerme. The subject can be omitted when the verb already shows who performs the action: Vivo aquí; Trabaja hoy. To start building clear sentences, use words in that order and keep the verb and the accompanying complement close. If you want to see more models, Oraciones afirmativas show complete sentences that follow this pattern.

To ask a simple question, you can use ¿qué?, ¿quién?, ¿dónde? or ¿cómo?: ¿Dónde vives?; ¿Qué quieres?; ¿Cómo estás?. In short answers, a simple sí, no or a keyword suffices: Sí, en Madrid; No, gracias; En casa. When you talk to another person, the intonation changes at the end of the question, and the structure is easily understood in Oraciones Interrogativas.

With common vocabulary you can name people, things and nearby places: persona, amigo, casa, mesa, agua, pan, escuela, calle, trabajo. These words are combined into very simple sentences like Mi casa es grande, Quiero agua or La mesa está aquí. They also help describe what you see and what you need, together with the forms you will learn in Oraciones afirmativas.

In a basic conversation, you can understand phrases like ¿Tienes tiempo?, Está bien, Voy a casa, No entiendo and Hasta luego. In a café, on the street, or when writing a message, these phrases appear frequently and are usually direct. If you see an exclamation like ¡Qué bien! or ¡Hola!, the emotion is recognized right away, as explained in Oraciones Exclamativas.