Any spanish speakers out there?

Very interesting, thanks for explaining! I was quite confused when it said to translate "Si, por favor" and I wrote "Yes, please, please" and it counted it wrong. The other phrase that I got wrong because of where they place words was "I like juice orange"…meaning, "I like orange juice" :)

Another question…take for example, the word "Como" for "I eat". What would an animal be in terms of that? How would you translate "The horse eats"? I can't figure out which variation of "eat" is correct.

Well, your problem here has to do with verb conjugation. There are three types of verbs: those that end in -ar, those that end in -er, and those that end in -ir. Depending on the person(s) or thing(s) the verb is referring to, these verbs can be conjugated differently.

Verbs that end in -ar (such as "hablar," to speak) are generally conjugated as such:
yo ("I"): Hablo
tú ("you"): Hablas
él, ella, usted ("he," "she," "you sir [ma'am]"): Habla
nosotros ("we"): Hablamos
ellos, ellas ("them" [masculine and feminine]): Hablan

Verbs that end in -er (such as "comer," to eat) are generally conjugated as such:
yo: Como
tú: Comes
él, ella, usted: Come
nosotros: Comemos
ellos, ellas: Comen

Verbs that end in -ir (such as "venir," to come) are (sometimes) conjugated as such:
yo: Vengo
tú: Vienes
él, ella, usted: Viene
nosotros: Venimos
ellos, ellas: Vienen

The information here that you need is in the second table, the verbs that end in -er. Whenever you need to conjugate a verb for something that is not human (a horse in your case), use the third form, the one that is also used for "he," "she," and "you sir (ma'am)." So in order to say "the horse eats," you would say, "El caballo come." Sorry for that long explanation–but I hope it helps! :)

Wow! You're really good at Spanish, Nicolas :) So, "comer" is the root word? I didn't know that. And yes, it does make sense!

Next question - why do sometimes you have "nosotros" and sometimes it's "nosotras". Why is that? I can't connect anything when they put in A and O.

BTW, do you have a favorite Spanish word, on how it sounds? I think mine is penguin…I like how it sounds in Spanish. :D

Am I bothering you with to many questions? You sure are being VERY helpful!

Oh, it's no bother. And I disagree… I'm not THAT good at Spanish. :)
As for your question, the reason that sometimes you use "nosotros" and sometimes "nosotras" is because one is masculine and one is feminine. However, you can only use "nosotras" when you are a girl and you are referring to yourself and other girls. This means, of course, that I could never use that word. :P "Nosotros" tends to be used more often, because if there is even one boy in the group, you have to use it. :)

Spanish verbs are easier than English verbs in that when they are regular, all you have to do is know the rule. The problem is, a lot of them are irregular. My Spanish teacher just got me a book called The Big Red Book of Spanish Verbs. It has 555 fully conjugated verbs in it, plus 2,300 verb index! Conjugating verbs tends to be almost every Spanish student's downfall, including mine. :-(

Wow… That must be a BIG red book! :) That would be very useful, I'm sure! :)

Though, I haven't really done that much with conjugated verbs yet…I'm still working on the basics - like learning what the Spanish words are :)

Okay, here's another question for all you Spanish experts out there – how do you know when to use the feminine/masculine forms of things (for example - "our")? I'm SO confused by all that…I can explain my question more, if it doesn't make sense.

EDIT - Wow. Spanish is getting a harder fast. You know that when this Spanish sentence - "Son blancos los zapatos de ustedes?" means "Are your shoes white?" in English.

Quite confusing. It should be "Are white the shoes of you?". I'm glad we don't talk like that in English :D

Yes, Spanish can be quite confusing sometimes! :) But you start to get used to it after a while. :)

As for your question, you have to pay close attention to the context of a sentence to know whether to use a masculine or feminine form of an adjective or pronoun. For your example, "our," or "nuestro/nuestra/nuestros/nuestras," you have to pay attention to both masculine/feminine and singular/plural. If the thing that "we" own is a car, you would say "nuestro carro." For a house, "nuestra casa," for two cars, "nuestros carros," and for two houses, "nuestras casas." So with "our," who "we" are does not matter; what matters is what is "ours." :)

Now I'll briefly explain how to determine whether to use masculine or feminine form with adjectives referring to people. Here's an example: "young girl" would be "vieja chica," while "young boy" would be "viejo chico." So again, adjectives (those that can be masculine or feminine, that is) change based on the masculinity or femininity of the noun that follows it.

I hope this helps–if I didn't completely answer your question, go ahead and ask another one. :)

So…am I getting it - if something starts with "la" you use the feminine form of whatever word (for ex. "nuestaras") and if it starts with el/un you would use the masculine? Is that how to determine something like "car"?

Lastly (for this comment) - when I write a sentence in Spanish, can I make it, so that it makes sense in Spanish? Do I have to write it like "Son blancos los zapatos de ustedes" for "Are your shoes white" - or when I write, can I rearrange things that way they make sense? And if not, how would I now how to write weird/not weird? :D

For the first question, the answer is yes. If any Spanish word has "la" ("the") or "una" ("a") before it, it is feminine. If it has "el" ("the") or "un" ("a") before it, it is masculine. If none of those words are before it, you'll probably have to use a Spanish dictionary. :)

For your second question, the answer (unfortunately) is also yes. If you rearrange the words so that it makes sense in English, it no longer makes sense in Spanish. :) I also have quite a bit of trouble arranging words correctly, so I won't be able to answer your next question perfectly. I guess you'll just have to keep taking whatever class you're taking until it becomes natural to arrange sentences correctly. :)

"until it becomes natural to arrange sentences correctly. :)"

Or, incorrectly for us :D

Yeah, no kidding…. :) I hope it will become more natural after I take Spanish 3; I'm in the middle of Spanish 2 right now. :)

Fun = I got two big Spanish books from our library and 1 Spanish dictionary - my little sis is enthralled by them for some reason :)

You mean books written in Spanish or books about the Spanish language? :D And which "little sis"? :)

Oh, my little 3-year-old sis, Faith. If you ask her which two things she knows she promptly replied "Spanish and reading". She repeats after me whenever I work on Spanish and therefore thinks she knows it; and she has one book that she has pretty much memorized and therefore thinks she can read :D

¿De dónde todos mis amigos españoles a ir? ¿Han caído una vez más de la faz de la tierra?

¡Yo estoy aquí! Pero no parece haber nada de que hablar… :)

Estoy aquí también. Y usted parece tener por lo menos algo de que hablar, de lo contrario ¿por qué se comenta? Aunque tengo que admitir que (espero que nadie se ofende por esto) que la conversación pasa en la actualidad es una especie de sentido.
¿Cómo es esto para un tema: ¿Qué programa de españoles, en su caso, se utilizan? Por mi trabajo escolar, uso transparente de idiomas en línea, que está disponible a través de nuestra biblioteca pública. En el pasado, he utilizado Rosetta Stone, pero estoy esperando para tomar el examen CLEP en español, y nos enteramos de que Rosetta Stone no cubría lo suficiente.
Ese fue un mensaje muy largo. :-)

Hey Nicolas – I thought that "Como" was the word for "I eat". But now, it says it's the word for "how". Help, please!

Lastly, could you explain the difference between the word "Quienes" and "Quien"?

For your first question, the reason that there is more than one meaning of the word "como" is for the same reason that there is more than one meaning for the word "bat" in English; I guess that's just the way the language works. :)

As for your second question…. I actually don't know. (Gasp!) I don't know the difference between those two words… sorry I couldn't be of help. :}

And this is why I'm glad I have Google Chrome! With Chrome, you right-click on words in another language, and you can translate them to English!

You can? how?

I said how in my post above! ^^^^^^^^

Oops! I misunderstood you and was trying to convert English to another language :P

¿Es usted cuenta españoles?

Yo hablo españoll!!!!

Hola!
Me gusta leyendo esta foro, porque yo también, estoy estudiando espanol. Ha alguin usado estos dos sitios: http://freetranslations.org/
http://www.spanishdict.com/

Me gusta a usar los quando no sé cómo a escrito una palabra o oración.

Yo amo http://www.spanishdict.com/!!!

I've heard of that book!!! My Spanish teacher wants me to get it!!!

I have a question for someone who really knows spanish even just a little :)

Why are some Spanish words mixed around? I was told to translate the Spanish sentence "They are not men" to English. So I did that. But then, it counted it wrong because "not" was supposed to go before "are". What is the consistency of switching the words? That way I don't keep getting them wrong…

I am not an expert on Spanish, at all, but I at least do know that the Spanish equivalent for "not" is always supposed to go before a "be" verb in a sentence. That may or may not be of any help to you, but at least now you know that the rule is consistent… :D

Hey, thanks Nicolas! I appreciate it! Now I at least know when to expect the rule change :)

Can you speak Spanish at all? Like, carry on a conversation at least a little bit? I can't till I can!!

I haven't really tried, but I think I could carry on a small conversation. It depends, of course, on which way the conversation goes, but I think I could go along with it for a little while. :)

Neat!

Well, I just found out that one of the men in our Church can speak Spanish fluently (he used to be a missionary in Peru for a bit) so now I can ask him some questions, instead of bugging you all the time with them! Thanks for all your help!

Ha, it was no bother at all. Nor was it all the time, either. :) I'm glad to have helped; but I'm sure that the man in your church will be much better at helping than I. ;)

Ola!
(If I even spelled it right, sorry. That is the only word I know in Spanish besides olla, which means pot.)

Me estoy engañando con esto. Estoy usando Google Translate, lo siento a todos. Creo que los sonidos del español fresco, así que quería probarlo!
¿Están todos bien conmigo usando Google Translate?

La única razón por la que puse esa pregunta en él porque me gusta el revés signo de interrogación. :)

Sorry, it's actually "Hola", but pronounced "Ola". ;)

"Hello" and "pot". Not the first two words I learned, but… ;-)
EDIT: Actually, you know at least two words in Spanish that, as long as your native language is English, you don't have to learn.

'no' and what's the other one??

"laptop"

"Baseball" is another word that's basically the same in Spanish as in English. At least, they're pronounced the same; in Spanish it's spelled "beisbol" (with an accent over the "e".) :)

You're right! I didn't think of that one.
Hannah- I guess I can't really blame you anymore. About a week ago, I learned the Spanish for "Cookie Monster". Talk about random! :-)

Actually, there are a bunch of words that are basically the same in Spanish as they are in English: favorito, radio, clase, paso, tomate, pera, restaurante, and profesor, to name a few. Though they are not exactly the same, you could probably figure them out without looking in a dictionary, even if you didn't know very much about Spanish. :-) A lot of the names of countries are similar in different languages too: Los Estados Unidos, Espana, Portugal, etc.
I think that is pretty cool. :-D

Well, Spanish is based on Latin, and English has a lot of words borrowed from Latin, so that makes sense. :)

I just saw your username (Hija de el Rey), and if it's in Spanish, I'm almost positive that the "de el" should be contracted to "del". (Just like "a el" contracts to "al".)

;) Yes I can see where you are coming from but either is correct. Also its like saying "does not" instead of "doesn't." Either is correct.

I learned that "del" and "al" were mandatory contractions. That's what I'll hold to, but I guess I'll not pick on anyone who doesn't. :)

All right (Is that any more incorrect/correct then alright) :) Where do/did you learn Spanish if I may ask?