Books with author Katherine Lodge

“TENER, HACER, & PONER” are the most frequently used and irregular Spanish verbs. This book provides many examples of Spanish simple present, simple past, future, perfect, pluperfect, conditional tenses, command, subjunctive mood, and passive voice, a helpful resource, like a mini Spanish Grammar Book for writing Spanish sentences and learning verb conjugation.

Present Perfect Tense can be used to focus on the result of the action, even though it is often translated as simple present or past tense in English. For verbs of movement, verbs expressing a change of state, and a few other verbs need “SEIN”, not “HABEN” as helping verb to form future tense. Using infinitive clauses with um…. zu, we can express the goal or purpose of an action. If we use um zu, “um” is placed at the beginning of the infinitive clause. Usually the infinitive clause is placed at the end of the sentence, however, sometimes it is placed in the front to be the subject of the sentence. Certain verbs adjectives, adverbs, and nouns are often use with an infinitive clause.

All German nouns need to be capitalized, classified as masculine noun - m.n., feminine noun - f.n., neuter n, and plural noun; and classified into four cases - nominative - Nom, accusative - AKK, dative - Dative, and genitive - Gen. Nouns in Gen & Dative case need to be declined also. This rule can easily confused a learner with plural nouns. To change a singular noun to plural, certain rules will apply, some only add n, en, e, s, se, er, ien,…; some nouns change one vowel only; some change one vowel and also add e or er. To foreigners, this is mind boggling.However, systemic learning may improve learning efficiency and decrease the probability of making mistakes.

Illustrated exampled are grouped by main verbs in this book.In the attempt to achieve consistency in verb tenses, a general rule of thumb is that,when the main verb (or another dependent verb) is in the present, present perfect, future tense, imperative mood, and/or present subjunctive, and when the verb in the dependent clause refers to action that takes place at the same time or after the main verb, whether in actuality or not, present subjunctive should be used; if the dependent verb refers to action that takes place before the main verb, or has been completed (whether in actuality or not), the the dependent verb should be in the present perfect subjunctive.(Working backward from the present subjunctive to obtain the infinitive, and working backward from the imperfect subjunctive to obtain the past or imperfect tense and then the infinitive, this kind of practice is an efficient way to learn verb conjugation. )

Learning when to use the subjunctive mood can be particularly challenging for English-speakers or Chinese-speakers learning Spanish partly because the subjunctive mood is nearly absent in English or Chinese. This books shows under what conditions subjunctive mood should be used in Spanish. After que or ojalá, and when the wish is a possible possibility, present subjunctive should be used; following ojalá and the wish is contrary to facts, imperfect subjunctive should be used.

Learning when to use the subjunctive mood can be particularly challenging for English-speakers or Chinese-speakers learning Spanish partly because the subjunctive mood is nearly absent in English or Chinese. This books shows under what conditions subjunctive mood should be used in Spanish. After que or ojalá, and when the wish is a possible possibility, present subjunctive should be used; following ojalá and the wish is contrary to facts, imperfect subjunctive should be used.

We can use the conjugated helping verb of “haber” plus past participle to form various perfect tense. The most often used verbs with PP are “estar” and “ser”, resembling the passive voice construction in English. However, “PP” can be an adjective following a noun, or used independently. The past participle can also immediately follow certain other conjugated verbs. Gerund can be used to make compound verb to form present or past progressive tense. They can also follow other conjugated verbs, such as verb of perception. Participial phrase is formed by a Gerund or PP. Spanish verb of becoming is a very common expression, and useful to show changes in emotion. The most common way in Spanish to express “to begin, or to start” is also included in this book.