Hello everyone and welcome to the first blog of my mini series on how to cheat Spanish. Well, it's not exactly cheating but rather advice, tricks, and methods I use to make Spanish a lot easier to learn.

Many of you have seen me talk in Spanish in the chatrooms, especially when Luis is around. But why? Besides torturing Luis behind everyone's back, learning another language is always nice and has benefits.

*It can help you get a job easier. They want bilingual people in the workforce.
*You can make new friends (maybe). My neighbor's parents don't speak English very well but I can meet them half way with Spanish.
*Stop certain people from talking behind your back and cuss them out. Pretty sure this applies to every language. Did you know bilinguals do talk behind your back?
*Tell Hispanic players how to play the game. The last statement does apply to this one too but yes. If you have Hispanic noob players in your team (like in WoW, Counterstrike, etc), you can cuss them out in their own language for being noobs instead of getting "jajaja"ed at.
*Order something in Taco Bell. (Okay this one is a joke. Pretty sure every Mexican will kill me now for this joke).
*Feel and look smarter.

Now before I begin, let me make this clear. The purpose of this blog series is to make Spanish easier to learn by using tricks that I've learned. This blog series will not teach you formal Spanish grammar like a real teacher. If you are in high school, I recommend taking Spanish class. If you don't have Spanish class, either go on Youtube and look up "Spanish grammar" or use http://www.spanishdict.com.

The most important thing you need to know about Spanish is Verb Conjugation. What is Verb Conjugation? Basically, it combines the subject (the one doing the verb) and the verb (the action being done) into a single word instead of two. Spanish and many Latin-based languages use verb conjugation. You want to learn Spanish, French, Italian, and Portugeese (I did that on purpose), you have to learn verb conjugation.

Anyway, how does verb conjugation work? Let me give you an example using English. Let's take the words "You are". That's two words, right? But we can merge them into a single word. "They are" can be shortened to "They're". Even if it was shortened, you would know "They're" is still "They are".

Now for a Spanish example. Let's take the word "hablar", meaning to speak/talk. "Hablar" is in the base form, meaning it's not verb conjugated. How do you verb conjugated it? You drop the -ar and replace it with -o, -as, -a, -amos, -an.

So, hablar becomes:

Hablo=I speak. Hablas=You speak. Habla=He/she/it/Luis speaks. Hablamos=We speak. Hablan=They speak.

Simple, right? Just drop the -ar and replace it with the right subject you're trying to conjugated the verb with.

Now things will get a bit complicated (como el genero de Luis) but stay with me. Every Spanish verb ends with either -ar, -er, or -ir. When you conjugated verbs, you drop the -ar, -er, or -ir endings with the right subject ending. Below is a chart (sort of) on how to conjugated -ar, -er, -ir verbs.

For I or Yo:
Replace -ar, -er, and -ir with -o. This applies to every Spanish verb.
-Example:
Hablo = I speak. (Hablar = To talk or speak).
Debo = I should/must. (Deber = Should or must).
Vivo = I live. (Vivir = To live).

For You or Tu:
Replace -ar with -as.
For -er and -ir verbs, replace them with -es.
-Example:
Hablas = You speak. (Hablar = To talk or speak).
Debes = You should/must. (Deber = Should or must).
Vives = You live. (Vivir = To live).


For He/she/it/Luis or El/ella/Luis:
Replace -ar with -as.
For -er and -ir verbs, replace them with -e.
-Example:
Habla = He, She, It, Luis speaks. (Hablar = To talk or speak).
Debe = He, she, it, Luis should/must. (Deber = Should or must).
Vive = He, she, it, Luis lives. (Vivir = To live).

For We or Nosotros:
Replace -ar with -amos.
For -er verbs, replace them with -emos.
For -ir verbs, replace them with -imos.
-Example:
Hablamos = We speak. (Hablar = To talk or speak).
Debemos = We should/must. (Deber = Should or must).
Vivimos = We live. (Vivir = To live).


For They or Ellos/Ellas:
Replace -ar with -an.
For -er and -ir verbs, replace them with -en.
-Example:
Hablan = They speak. (Hablar = To talk or speak).
Deben = They should/must. (Deber = Should or must).
Viven = They live. (Vivir = To live).

That's all I have for now. It took me about 3 days to make this, mainly due to laziness and I don't skimp on blog quality. If you have any questions, consult me or Luis.
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If you head already hurts from this lesson, don't click the spoiler below. It's just an extra lesson but I don't want to overcomplicate the blog.