The Everything Spanish Grammar Book: All The Rules You Need To Master Espanol (Everything®) (36 page)

ESSENTIAL

Composing a Letter

Overall, writing in Spanish isn’t very different. You can use the same formats you’ve always relied on when composing poems, short stories, essays, and other forms of writing. None of these forms are very rigid in their structure and there aren’t really any conventions you need to be aware of.

The one exception to this rule is letter-writing. Learning how to compose formal and informal letters will come in handy if you’d like to have a Spanish-speaking pen-pal, if you’re planning to study or work abroad, or if your business has international branches and you need to communicate with them for professional reasons.

Formal Letters

Begin your letter by writing the place (where you are) and date in the top right hand corner. You can use the following format:

Nueva York, 2 de enero de 2005

Buenos Aires, 20 de marzo de 2006

Springfield, Ohio, 15 de septiembre de 2007

Next, include the “dear –” line. If you know whom you’re writing to, you can simply use
Señor
(or
Señora/Señores/Señoras
); another option is to add
estimado
(esteemed):

Estimado Señor

Estimada Señora

Estimados Señores

Estimadas Señoras

If the addressee is unknown, you can write
A quien corresponda
(to whom it may concern). The biggest difference here is that there’s no punctuation (comma or colon) at the end of this line.

Insert an extra space and continue with the body of the letter. There are no rules here. Write down what needs to be communicated and don’t forget to be polite and use the
usted/ustedes
form of address.

To close the letter, choose any of the following formal closings:

Again, there’s no punctuation following the closing. Simply sign your name underneath. If you need to add a post scriptum (P.S.) line, it should be labeled P.D.
(post data).

Informal Letters

If your letter is informal, there are a few things you would do differently. One common way of addressing your reader or readers is with the adjective
querido
(dear):

In closing, appropriate sign-offs include the following:

C
HAPTER
19
Spanish in
Everyday Life

CONGRATULATIONS! You’ve made it through the rules, exceptions, and general guidelines that make up Spanish grammar. The last chapter in this book is your opportunity to apply what you’ve learned to specific situations and to review basic vocabulary.

Physical Characteristics

¿Cómo te ves?
What do you look like? To answer, you can use the verb
ser
(to be) and
tener
(to have), plus a series of adjectives that describe your stature, hair and eye color, and so on. For example:

Yo soy alto y delgado. Tengo el pelo corto de color castaño y
los ojos azules.

I am tall and thin. I have chestnut-colored hair and blue eyes.

Here’s some useful vocabulary for describing yourself and others.

Estatura y tamaño (Height and Size)

El cabello (Hair)

Los ojos (Eyes)

Other Adjectives

Family Relations

La familia
(the family) plays an important part in the lives of the people living around the Spanish world. To get all the relationships straight, here’s some relevant vocabulary:

ESSENTIAL

You can practice the vocabulary by reviewing your family tree. For example:

Me llamo Jorge. Soy ingeniero. Mis padres son Juan y Renata.
Mi padre es médico; mi madre es enfermera. Yo estoy casado con
María. Ella es una actriz de teatro. Mi esposa y yo tenemos dos
hijos: Elena y Daniel. Elena es estudiante en la escuela secundaria.
Daniel asiste a la universidad. También tengo una hermana, Marta.
Ella vive en Colombia. Trabaja en un banco. Marta tiene un hijo,
Cristóbal. A Elena y Daniel les gusta visitar a su tía y a sus primos
en Colombia.

How much were you able to understand? To help you make sense of it, here’s the translation:

My name is Jorge. I’m an engineer. My parents are Juan and Renata. My father is a doctor; my mother is a nurse. I am married to María. She is a theater actress. My wife and I have two kids: Elena and Daniel. Elena is a high school student. Daniel goes to college. I also have a sister, Marta. She lives in Colombia. She works at a bank. Marta has a son, Cristóbal. Elena and Daniel like to visit their aunt and cousins in Colombia.

Now, how about trying to describe your own family? What are they like?

Back to School

Whether you’re in high school, college, or back in school to brush up on your Spanish, you can really impress your instructor if you are comfortable with some classroom vocabulary. You probably know a lot of these terms—review the ones you do know and commit to memory the vocabulary you haven’t encountered before.