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Scraped a 4h Spanish fundamentals YouTube video (transcript + OCR on 14810 frames), extracted structured content across 52 chapters, and generated fill-in-the-blank quizzes for every grammar topic. - 13 new GrammarNote entries (articles, possessives, demonstratives, greetings, poder, al/del, prepositional pronouns, irregular yo, stem-changing, stressed possessives, present/future perfect, present indicative conjugation) - 1010 generated exercises across all 36 grammar notes (new + existing) - Fix tense guide parser to handle unnumbered *Usages* blocks - Rewrite 6 broken tense guide bodies (imperative, subj pluperfect, subj future) with numbered usage format - Bump courseDataVersion 5→6 with TenseGuide refresh on upgrade - Add docs/spanish-fundamentals/ with raw transcripts, polished notes, structured JSON, and exercise data Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 4.6 (1M context) <noreply@anthropic.com>
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02. Spanish Fundamentals
Source: video link
A foundational vocabulary and orthography overview: alphabet, accents, question words, prepositions/adverbs, pronouns, days, months, seasons, time words, and numbers. Most of this chapter is pure memorization — the building blocks before grammar.
Key Rules
- The Spanish alphabet has 27 letters (adds ñ to the English 26). Some traditions also count ch and ll as letters (29).
- H is silent — hablo is pronounced "ablo".
- ll is pronounced like English "y" (e.g., llave = key).
- Accents (´) over vowels mark which syllable is stressed; they can also distinguish two otherwise-identical words (e.g., él "he" vs. el "the"; tú "you" vs. tu "your"; sí "yes" vs. si "if"; qué "what?" vs. que "that"; dónde "where?" vs. donde "where" relative).
- Questions need an inverted ¿ at the start and ? at the end. Same for ¡ … !
- ¿Por qué? = "Why?" · porque = "because" (one word, no accent).
- Question words pluralize/gender: ¿Quién? → ¿Quiénes? · ¿Cuánto/Cuánta/Cuántos/Cuántas?
- Days, months, and seasons are not capitalized in Spanish.
- Watch out for año (year) vs. ano (anus) — the ñ matters.
- Mañana means both "tomorrow" and "morning" (context-dependent).
- Pero (but) vs. perro (dog) — the double rr matters.
- Como can mean "like / as" or "I eat" (1st-person of comer) depending on context.
Pronouns
| Singular | Plural |
|---|---|
| yo (I) | nosotros / nosotras (we) |
| tú (you, informal) | vosotros / vosotras (y'all, Spain informal) |
| él / ella / usted (he / she / you formal) | ellos / ellas / ustedes (they / y'all formal) |
Focus on yo, tú, él, ellos in early practice — vosotros and nosotros show up much less often in conversation outside Spain.
Question Words
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| ¿Dónde? | Where? |
| ¿Cuándo? | When? |
| ¿Qué? | What? |
| ¿Por qué? | Why? |
| ¿Quién? / ¿Quiénes? | Who? / Who (pl.)? |
| ¿Cuál? | Which? |
| ¿Cómo? | How? |
| ¿Cuánto/a/os/as? | How much / how many? |
Prepositions & Adverbs
FANBOYS:
| English | Spanish |
|---|---|
| For | para |
| And | y |
| Nor | ni |
| But | pero |
| Or | o |
| Yet (still) | pero / sin embargo |
| So | así que |
| By | por |
Other adverbs/prepositions:
| English | Spanish |
|---|---|
| If | si |
| Then | entonces |
| Also | también |
| From, of | de |
| With | con |
| To | a |
| In, on | en |
| Each | cada |
Days, Months, Seasons
| Days | Months | Seasons |
|---|---|---|
| lunes | enero, julio | verano (summer) |
| martes | febrero, agosto | otoño (autumn) |
| miércoles | marzo, septiembre | invierno (winter) |
| jueves | abril, octubre | primavera (spring) |
| viernes | mayo, noviembre | |
| sábado | junio, diciembre | |
| domingo |
Time Words
| English | Spanish |
|---|---|
| second | segundo/a |
| minute | minuto/a |
| hour | hora |
| week | semana |
| month | mes |
| year | año |
| yesterday | ayer |
| today | hoy |
| tomorrow / morning | mañana |
Numbers
| # | Spanish | # | Spanish |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | uno | 11 | once |
| 2 | dos | 12 | doce |
| 3 | tres | 13 | trece |
| 4 | cuatro | 14 | catorce |
| 5 | cinco | 15 | quince |
| 6 | seis | 16 | dieciséis |
| 7 | siete | 17 | diecisiete |
| 8 | ocho | 18 | dieciocho |
| 9 | nueve | 19 | diecinueve |
| 10 | diez | 20 | veinte |
Past 20: veintiuno, veintidós, veintitrés… (one word). 30 = treinta, then treinta y dos, treinta y tres, etc. 40 cuarenta, 50 cincuenta, 60 sesenta, 70 setenta, 80 ochenta, 90 noventa, 100 cien, 1.000 mil, 1.000.000 millón.
Ordinal positions (gendered):
| English | Spanish |
|---|---|
| 1st | primero/a |
| 2nd | segundo/a |
| 3rd | tercero/a |
| 4th | cuarto/a |
| 5th | quinto/a |
| 6th | sexto/a |
| 7th | séptimo/a |
| 8th | octavo/a |
| 9th | noveno/a |
| 10th | décimo/a |
Notes & Gotchas
- Cuarto can also mean "a quarter (1/4)" in expressions of time.
- Segundo can also mean "in second place" (position) — context decides.
- Unos / unas in front of a number means "some / a few" (e.g., unos minutos = a few minutes).