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7 In alphabetical order which comes first – Juan or Jorge?
8 This is the order of the days of the week on a calendar:
Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday
Which day comes first in a dictionary? Which comes last?
9Thursday comes before Tuesday in a dictionary. Why?
10 Put the seven days of the week into alphabetical order. If the first letters are the same, and the second letters are the same, look at the third letters.
11June, July, August: which comes last in the dictionary?
Step three:
Pick the right translation
The translations are easy to spot in this dictionary because they are blue on the English-Spanish side and red on the Spanish-English side.
Spanish words can be masculine or feminine, and singular or plural. In the dictionary you will come across the abbreviations masc and fem, which tell you the gender of a Spanish word. PL tells you the word is plural. The dictionary also shows you the Spanish word for ‘the’ (this can be el, la, los or las). In the Language plus supplement, NOUN is abbreviated to N and ADJECTIVE is abbreviated to ADJ.
When you look up ‘doll’ you can see that the word for ‘doll’ in Spanish is muñeca. You can tell that the Spanish word for ‘doll’ is feminine because it is given with la and the dictionary says that it is ‘fem ’ (feminine).
So ‘the doll’ is la muñeca and ‘a doll’ would be una muñeca.
Sometimes there is more than one translation, and each one has a number. If there is more than one translation, don’t just pick the first one! Check to see which is the right one.
12 Which is the Spanish word for a ball that you kick – la pelota or el balón? Look for the clue.
ball NOUN
1 la pelotafem (for tennis, golf, cricket)Hit the ball! ¡Dale a la pelota!
2 el balónmasc (PL los balones) (for football, rugby)Pass the ball! ¡Pasa el balón!
Parts of speech (#u926c5250-06ce-519c-86d8-f0bb6ea9fef9)
Step four:
Parts of Speech
Sometimes, to pick the right translation, you need to know the part of speech of a word, for example whether a word is a noun, an adjective, an adverb or a verb.
NOUNS
Nouns are naming words for things or people. You often use the words ‘a’ or ‘the’ with a noun – eg a girl, a boy, the school, the windows.
Nouns can be singular, eg an accident, the playground, my dad, football – or plural, eg sweets, the children, my friends.
13 How many nouns are there in this sentence? What are they? The car has got a flat tyre and a big dent in the door.
ADJECTIVES
An adjective is a describing word which tells you what things are like: flat shoes are shoes that don’t have high heels. A flat tyre is a tyre with no air in it.
14 How many adjectives are there in this sentence? What are they? She’s got brown hair and blue eyes.
Some words have a noun meaning and an adjective meaning. In the dictionary there is a box to tell you about this. The different meanings usually have different translations in Spanish.
patient
patientcan be a noun or an adjective.
A NOUN
el/la pacientemasc/fem
B ADJECTIVE
pacientemasc & femThe teacher is very patient. El maestro es muy paciente. Be patient, Joshua. Ten paciencia, Joshua.
ADVERBS
An adverb is a word which describes a verb or an adjective:
She writes neatly. The film was very good.
15 How many adverbs are in this sentence? What are they? The children sat quietly and played happily.
VERBS
Verbs are sometimes called ‘doing words’. They often go with words like ‘I’ and ‘you’, and with names, eg I play football, what do you want?, Hugo likes mashed potato.
Verbs tell you about the present,
eg I’m listening – the past, eg I scored a goal – and the future, eg I’m going to get an ice cream.
16 How many verbs are there in this sentence? What are they? School starts at 9.00 and finishes at 3.30.
Some words have a noun meaning and a verb meaning. In the dictionary there is a box to tell you about this. The different meanings have different translations in Spanish.
rain
raincan be a noun or a verb.
A NOUN
la lluviafemin the rain bajo la lluvia
B VERB
to rainlloverIt’s going to rain. Va a llover. It rains a lot here. Llueve mucho aquí.
It’s raining. Está lloviendo.
17 What is the Spanish word for ‘rain’?
18 Why is ‘It’s going to rain.’ in part B?
19 How do you say ‘It’s raining.’ in Spanish?
20 Is ‘llover’ a noun or a verb?
Learn useful phrases
In the dictionary you’ll see phrases that are especially important in orange boxes. Try to learn these when you come across them, and you’ll soon know lots of useful things to say in Spanish.
What time is it? Qué hora es? It’s lunch time. Es la hora de comer. How many times? ¿Cuántas veces? Have a good time, Amanda! ¡Que lo pases bien, Amanda!
Find out about life in Spain
There are also boxes which tell you about Spanish customs, and about differences between life in Spain and Britain.
Did you know?
churrosare a kind of fritter that people often eat on the streets in a paper bag or order in a café typically with a cup of thick, hot chocolate:chocolate con churros.
Even more words
At school you will learn to talk about subjects such as the time and the weather, your family, your pets, and your clothes. The most important words for talking about these subjects are shown in the dictionary itself, and even more words are given in Language Plus, the middle part of the dictionary. Have a look!
Answer key (#u926c5250-06ce-519c-86d8-f0bb6ea9fef9)
Answer key
1 ver and teléfono
2 It is the Spanish side. It has Spanish words on it and Spanish–English written at the side near the top.
3 Spanish-English
4 The last word
5 aburrirse
6 Arturo, Carmen, David, Isabel, Jorge, Juan, María
7 Jorge – because ‘o’ comes before ‘u’
8 Friday; Wednesday
9 Because the second letter of Thursday is ‘h’, which comes before ‘u’, the second letter of Tuesday.
10 Friday, Monday, Saturday, Sunday, Thursday, Tuesday, Wednesday
11 June
12 el balón – The clue is (for football, rugby).
13 four – car, tyre, dent, door
14 two – brown and blue
15 two – quietly and happily
16 two – starts and finishes
17 la lluvia
18 It is an example of the verb and so is in the verb section of the entry.
19 Está lloviendo.
20 a verb
Spanish – English (#u926c5250-06ce-519c-86d8-f0bb6ea9fef9)
A a
a PREPOSITION
Language tip
Whenais followed by a masculine noun, aand the articleelturn intoal.
1to(with places)Fueron a Madrid. They went to Madrid.
2(with movement)Me caí al río. I fell into the river. Se subieron al tejado. They climbed onto the roof. Marta llegó tarde a la estación. Marta arrived at the station late.
3(with distances)Está a quince kilómetros de aquí. It’s fifteen kilometres from here.
4at(with time, ages, speed)a las diez at ten o’clock a medianoche at midnight
a los veinticuatro años at the age of twenty-four Íbamos a más de noventa kilómetros por hora. We were going at over ninety kilometres an hour.
5(with dates)Estamos a nueve de julio. It’s the ninth of July.
6(with prices)Los huevos están a un euro con cincuenta la docena. Eggs are one euro fifty a dozen.
