When you first start learning a foreign language, one of the essential goals to bear in mind is to make the most out of what you learn. Embrace this principle and it will enable you to appreciate your accomplishments, however small they may seem.
For the purpose of this article, let’s focus on verbs. This time, I want to share with you a way to experience the mutant talent of verbs.
Verbs are the engines of a sentence, the ones that convey the most meaning. I recently posted an article that relates to this one. However, just as a car cannot run without all that makes it such, a sentence just cannot be solely verb driven.
In my view, there is no better way of expanding your vocabulary than focusing on verbs first.
While it’s essential to understand verb conjugation, there’s a world beyond just learning them by heart. Today, we’ll explore a method that unleashes the true potential of verbs –drilling for meaningful language use.
What’s a drill, then?
In short, drilling is a language learning technique based on repetition. Though you can’t base your learning solely on it, it’s a very suitable way of getting familiar with the different verbs forms, which in Spanish are abundant and can be confusing.
Under previous language learning approaches, drills used to be thought the cornerstone of teaching, but if used robotically as they used to be [monkey see, monkey do] they are actually of no or very little help.
These drills require you to make sense of what you are doing/saying.
What’s so good about then?
They will also help you build confidence, because few things make us feel more confident than the things we’ve experienced before. In this way, you can get your tongue -and mind- around difficult sounds or spelling changes, which gives you the chance to focus on pronunciation (we all speak our target languages perfectly in our minds, right?)
Start easy
Conjugations can initially seem intimidating, with countless forms across various tenses. But here’s the good news –you don’t need to know them all at once, nor do you need to master every single verb. Quality over quantity is the key.
First, you want to feel very comfortable with verbs and their meanings. Tackle them in small groups of between 8-15.
Verb mating
So, for the sake of this type of practice we will need to mate verbs with other types of words (parts of speech), namely:
- Nouns
- Pronouns
- Articles
- Adjectives
- Adverbs
- Prepositions
- Conjunctions
We want to give them some context, some company, because, as we’ve said, you are never going to use verbs in isolation.
Making a smart choice upfront
The basic cocktail is: smart verb choice + smart tense choice + smart pattern awareness.
Let me show you what I mean taking Spanish as our example. In my opinion, in Spanish, the Presente Indicativo and the Pretérito Indefinido are the two most relevant tenses, i.e. the ones that will allow you to convey the most messages.
As a beginner, a good indicator of the relevance of a verb is frequency. Do you know which are the 5 most frequent verbs in Spanish?
Take a guess, don’t look down yet.
Have you got 5? Here you are:
- Ser
- Estar
- Tener
- Poder
- Hacer
The procedure
By now, we know which verbs to start focusing on and the tenses in which we will conjugate them.
The aim of these activity is to make meaningful sentences, i.e. sentences that have a personal relevance. Learning is more effective when it resonates with your life. Instead of dry, generic sentences, craft meaningful ones that reflect your experiences and feelings.
“Tengo un gato” is OK if you do have a cat, but if you don’t it’s much more useful to say «No tengo un gato»
This also creates awareness of the fact that you need the indefinite article un before gato, or any other thing you posess.
If you spend enough time with a frequently used verb like TENER, you’ll see that sometimes you just go:
“Tengo hambre/sueño/miedo.”
That’s great, because it informs the cognitive side of your brain about different possibilities.
In this case, you’d come up with an explanation like “if it’s a feeling, then I don’t need the article”.
Extending the idea
You can try these type of drills to extend these newly born sentences to include, for example, ADJECTIVE – NOUN collocations.
- Tengo un gato [color]
Tengo un gato negro
- Tengo un gato muy [personality]
Tengo un gato muy mimoso
- Tengo un gato bastante [age]
Tengo un gato bastante viejo
As you explore all possible paths, you can extend your original sentence
For example:
Tengo un gato negro y muy mimoso que se llama…
Wrapping everything up
Drills, when used meaningfully, are not mechanical. They’re a bridge between knowing and using language.
They let you play with structures, provide you with a sound strategy to learn new vocabulary, and turn abstract grammar into something that relates to you.
So, grab your pen, pick a few verbs, and start writing your own sentences in Spanish. You’ll be surprised how quickly your sentences start to feel natural and how much you’ll learn simply by putting verbs to work.
Thanks for stopping by,
And happy Spanish learning.
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- Bancar and AguantarDo you know the difference between these two verbs? Then you’d better read this post!