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Do You Speak Spanish | Rosetta Stone®

Learn how to say, “Do you speak Spanish?” and other useful Spanish phrases using the award-winning Rosetta Stone app.

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Do You Speak Spanish in Spanish?

If you want to say “Do you speak Spanish?” in Spanish, you would generally say, “¿Hablas español?” (singular informal) or “¿Habla español?” (singular formal).

Getting a firm grip on the ins-and-out of “speak” and other verbs or expressions in the Spanish language can sometimes seem intimidating, but you can do it—especially if you already speak related languages like Italian, French, or even English. Both Italian and French are quite closely related to Spanish, all coming directly from the Latin language—whereas the English language makes use of many French and Latin or Italian words and phrases that are cognates (essentially linguistic siblings/cousins of one another). That’s why you’ll probably observe that there are a significant number of English terms like the word “education” that sound close in languages like French (éducation) and Spanish (educación). Many students of Spanish also find that the language has a simple pronunciation system, with few irregularities. Fortunately, this is unlike in English (known to be among the most difficult to learn). The Spanish alphabet is also quite closely matched to English and most of the other major western European languages. There are only three additional letters you’ll need to learn in Spanish: ch (chay), and ll (elle), and ñ (eñe).

With Rosetta Stone’s immersive approach, you’ll learn the language, not just the words. What makes Rosetta Stone unique is that we prepare you to use your new language in the real world. So it’s not just about the features, but what you’re able to do because of them. That way, you’ll be ready to handle any situation while sounding great.

It takes time and effort, but if you combine individual practise in the Rosetta Stone award-winning mobile app and practise with other Spanish language learners in Live Tutoring, you can have absolute control over your learning speed and, ultimately, your long-term progress.

Start to Understand Spanish

As a beginning learner of the Spanish language learner, your best path to success is to first learn the words and short phrases that are the building blocks of common, everyday Spanish conversation. Learning these basic words and short phrases, including who, what, when, where, why, yes, no and please, will go a long way toward your ability to understand and be understood in Spanish conversation. Here’s a list of some of those basic Spanish building block words and short phrases that you’ll want to learn first:

Hola / Hello
Adiós / Goodbye
Me gusta / I like
No me gusta / I don’t like
Sí / Yes
No / No
Por favor / Please
Gracias / Thank You
Lo siento / Sorry
Salud / Bless you
¿Quién? / Who?
¿Qué? / What?
¿Por qué? / Why?
¿Dónde? / Where?\

As you may have noticed—Spanish does have a few crucial differences in pronunciation that can make it a bit of a challenge for some learners, at least early on. One example is found with the letter r which is pronounced differently and takes some practise for most new learners. This distinct sound is formed by tapping the tip of the tongue on the roof of the mouth, about a third of the way back in the mouth. Some Spanish language experts counsel new Spanish learners to practise making the “tt” sound, as it sounds in the English word butter.

In order for you accurately develop your Spanish pronunciation skills, you’ll need to receive real-time feedback on your efforts. Real-time feedback will help you to make immediate corrections to your pronunciation. And then after you’ve got your pronunciations correct, you’ll want to practise until you can easily and naturally produce the sounds that make up the Spanish language. Rosetta Stone’s proven and patented speech-recognition engine, TruAccent, is embedded into every Rosetta Stone language lesson. The powerful TruAccent™ engine will give you the real-time feedback on your pronunciation you need to perfect your speech. TruAccent works by comparing your pronunciation to that of native and non-native Spanish speakers—then providing precise and instant feedback on your pronunciation. What’s more, TruAccent is flexible and adjustable so you can fine-tune your Spanish accent. The speech-recognition engine was developed by closely analyzing and carefully processing the natural speech of native Spanish speakers. That makes TruAccent one of the most powerful tools available to help you become a confident and capable Spanish speaker.

Once you’ve mastered the basics words, short phrases and pronunciations of the Spanish language, you’ll be able to move on to learning the longer phrases that make up so much of everyday conversations. Rosetta Stone’s bite-sized and easily digested language lessons are built to guide you down this path. Rosetta Stone language lessons are designed to lead you to comfortably speak in Spanish in everyday life. You can be sure that Rosetta Stone will provide you with the learning strategies, tools and tactics to help you confidently speak and understand the Spanish language.

Try Our Award-Winning App

Surround yourself with Spanish (Latin America) whenever, wherever with the Rosetta Stone app.

Download a unit and knock it out on the train or a flight. Select a 5-10 minute lesson and sneak it in while you wait in line or for your ride to show up. And explore dynamic features, like Seek and Speak, where you can point at an object in the real world and get a translation.

The best part? You don’t have to choose between app or desktop. Both come with your subscription and sync, so you can switch between devices seamlessly.

Spanish (Latin America)