The Basics – Lesson 1

What you’ll learn in this lesson

Welcome to the first official lesson of the course! Today we start with the very basics of Spanish: how to say hello, how to ask how someone is doing, how to answer, and what to say when your Spanish isn’t great yet. That’s 10 basic Spanish words and phrases in total.

If you’ve never learned Spanish before, that might already feel like a lot. Don’t worry: we’ll take it slow and easy. And if you haven’t watched the introduction to the course yet, I recommend starting there.

This lesson is part of the fundamentals section of the course (the green lessons). In these lessons you learn the words and phrases you’ll hear and use all the time.

How to say hello in Spanish: hola

The first word is one you probably already know: hola, which means hello or hi.

Notice how it’s pronounced: “ola”, not “hola”. That’s because the H in Spanish is always silent. We do write it, but we never pronounce it. You’ll see this in lots of Spanish words.

How to ask “how are you?” in Spanish

There are lots of ways to ask someone how they’re doing. These two are the most common:

You’ll notice two strange things here: the upside-down question mark at the start (¿) and the accents on letters like the o in cómo and the a in estás. You’ll see these all the time in Spanish. For now, just be aware of them: there are separate lessons about both later in the course.

Spanish is spoken in a lot of countries, and just like English has American, British and Australian English, each country has its own ways of saying “how’s it going?”. In this course I use ¿cómo estás? and ¿qué tal?, because they’re very common and understood everywhere. In a country like Colombia, people might use other expressions, but they’ll still understand you perfectly.

How to answer: bien, ¿y tú?

Now that you can ask how someone is doing, you also need an answer. The easiest one is:

Again you see the upside-down question mark, and an accent on the u of tú (you). Don’t worry about these yet.

How to say thank you in Spanish: gracias

Another very famous word: gracias, which means thank you or thanks. Combine it with what you just learned, and you have another great answer to “how are you?”:

Listen closely to how I pronounce it in the video: “gra-thias”, with a “th” sound. That’s how it’s said in most of Spain. In Latin America you’ll hear “gra-sias”. Both are correct! Pronunciation is a big part of Spanish, and there’s a separate lesson about accents later in the course.

“I don’t understand” in Spanish

This is one of the most useful phrases for beginners:

Is the full sentence still a bit much? Then just say no entiendo. I used this one a lot when I had just moved to Spain. As soon as you say hola and ¿qué tal?, people start talking to you in fast Spanish, and you only know five words. With this phrase, they realize you’re still learning, and they’ll slow down or switch to English.

“My Spanish is bad”: mi español es malo

One of the first Spanish phrases I ever learned:

See the ñ in español? That’s not a normal n: it’s called an eñe. The Spanish alphabet is almost the same as the English one, but it has this one extra letter. It sounds like the “ny” in canyon.

“Do you speak English?” in Spanish

After saying your Spanish isn’t great yet, you might want to ask if the other person speaks English:

Hablas starts with an H again, so remember: it’s silent. Not “hablas” but “ablas”.

How to say goodbye in Spanish

And finally, two ways to say goodbye:

The H in hasta is silent too. And Spanish speakers often say it really fast, so depending on the country, you might hear something like “ta luego”.

All 10 basic Spanish words and phrases from this lesson

Spanish	English
¡Hola!	Hello!
¿Cómo estás?	How are you?
¿Qué tal?	What’s up?
Bien, ¿y tú?	Good, and you?
Gracias	Thank you
■■■■■■■■	■■■■■■■■
■■■■■■■■	■■■■■■■■
■■■■■■■■	■■■■■■■■

+ 5 more words & phrases

Get all 10 words & phrases on one printable page, with examples and my tips. Free, straight to your inbox.

Get the free PDF ↓

Bonus from the video: bien, gracias (good, thank you) and ¿hablas español? (do you speak Spanish?).

Example conversation

Here’s how you could use everything from this lesson in one short conversation:

Practice: what do you say?

Try to answer out loud first, then check your answer.

1. How do you say “hello” in Spanish?

Hola. Remember: the H is silent, so you say “ola”.

2. Someone asks you “¿Qué tal?”. What do you answer?

Bien, ¿y tú? or Bien, gracias.

3. Someone talks to you very fast and you’re lost. What do you say?

Lo siento, no entiendo. Or simply: no entiendo.

4. How do you ask “do you speak English?”

¿Hablas inglés? (with a silent H: “ablas”).

5. Why is “mi español es malo” better than “no hablo español”?

With mi español es malo, people know you speak a little, so they keep talking Spanish with you. With no hablo español, they usually switch to English right away.

Quiz: test yourself

Ready? Answer the questions to see how much you remember.

Before you go to lesson 2

Don’t jump to the next lesson right away. First, stop for a moment: go over the words and phrases from today and practice them. Say them out loud!

From my own experience, speaking is the hardest part of learning a language, harder than understanding or studying. That’s why I want you to start speaking right from the beginning.

Feeling a bit overwhelmed? Totally normal. You can do this course at your own pace. You’ll see videos of people who claim to learn a language in one week or three months, but language learning (like anything good in life) just takes time. Slowly but surely. ¡Hasta luego!