El Patio Spanish

Elementary 2 (Aula 1 Plus) is the second of 4 Elementary levels.

Together, the Elementary levels form the A1 level of the Common European Framework of Reference (CEFR). Click here for more information about the CEFR.

And click here for an overview and detailed explanation of all our levels.

The first milestone for most students is understanding the way verbs work in Spanish. It's not entirely different to English but it's not the same either.

And if you approach Spanish from a language where verbs are much simpler, it can seem unbelievable that for every single verb there are six forms that change with the person or people we're talking about.

Now that you've seen the basics, take a little moment to make sense of this for yourself. Use the resources here to support you.

If you understand the basic structure of verbs and can learn the regular verb endings at this stage, you’ll be well prepared for future levels.

When memorising the verb forms, learn the personal subject pronouns as you go.

These little words are optional in Spanish but are useful when we need to clarify who we're talking about. When you say habla, are you talking about él, ella or usted?

Learn the question words: ¿Dónde? ¿Qué? ¿Cómo? ¿Quién? ¿Por qué? ¿Cuánto? ¿Cuánta? ¿Cuántos? ¿Cuántas?

Having a basic understanding of the way gender works in Spanish is important. If you can identify the gender of a word, this will help you when it comes to using it and combining it with other words.

Learning new words along with their article (el / la / los / las) is an excellent way to keep track of whether a word is masculine or feminine.