Conjugation of the Verb Amar, to Love Observations on Verbs ending in ar Exercise on Verbs terminating in ar Conjugation of the Verb Temer, to Fear. Irregular Verbs of First Conjugation Irregular Verbs of Third Conjugation. Exercise on the Irregular Verbs. XVI. ON POSSESSIVE AND DEMONSTRATIVE PRONOUNS. Exercise on Possessive and Demonstrative Pronouns XVII.-ON RELATIVE AND INTERROGATIVE PRONOUNS Exercise on Relative and Interrogative Pronouns XVIII. ON THE INDEFINITE AND DISTRIBUTIVE PRONOUNS A GRAMMAR OF THE SPANISH LANGUAGE. PART THE FIRST. CHAPTER I. PRONUNCIATION. Sounds of the Letters in the Alphabet. THE Spanish Alphabet has twenty-seven letters; the nearest approximation to their sounds in English will be found beside The vowels, in English, admit great diversity of sound, all of them having two, and others several sounds: not so in * The th here designated should be the same as the th in the word thin. B Spanish. The sound which these letters have in the alphabet, they carry with them into words, thus rendering their pronunciation easy and uniform. A. A, expressed in the alphabet by ah, resembles the English a in Father, and thus are sounded ama, a housewife; lava, lava. E. E, in the alphabet a, has the sound of English a, in such words as fate, name: thus evo, eternity; feble, weak, feeble. I. I resembles the sound of English e in theme, scene: as pigre, lazy; dito, saying. 0. O should be pronounced as in the English words home, shone: thus obra, work; bola, ball. U. U has the sound of English oo in the words boot, moon: thus uno, one, should be pronounced oono. The sounds of the consonants cannot be so easily expressed to the English student as those of the vowels, as there are some of them, which have no equivalent in his own language; I will endeavour to explain them in clear terms where I can find no example to assist him. I may, however, remark here, that if a young man be desirous of speaking the language he intends studying, he should get half-a-dozen lessons, at least, from a good master, to break him into the pronunciation, even should he resolve to complete the study by himself; for he will otherwise infallibly give sounds to the letters and words, which must of necessity be false ones, (as no two languages resemble each other sufficiently to give a perfect idea of the sounds of one by another,) and will adopt a vitiated mode of pronunciation, which will either never be corrected, or may require months of labour to undo. Sounds of the Consonants. B. This consonant has nearly the same sound that it possesses in English, except that it is not so decided; it should fall more gently from the lips, and not be uttered with the same firmness. The Spaniards make so little distinction between the sound of the band v, that ill-educated people use these letters indiffer |