Spanish for Beginners 2: People and Places
Learn how to describe people and what they wear, and talk about your family and home in the second Spanish for Beginners course.
77,951 enrolled on this course
Duration
4 weeksWeekly study
4 hours100% online
How it works
Spanish for Beginners 2: People and Places
This free online course is the second of six in the Spanish for Beginners program. It will introduce you to the language that you need to:
- describe people, both physically and in terms of their personality;
- talk about what people wear (clothes, accessories and colours);
- talk about your family;
- ask for people’s contact details (address, telephone number, e-mail);
- describe your home and the furniture in it;
- talk about what you want when looking for accommodation.
Talk about people and places in Spanish
During the four weeks of the course, you will learn the vocabulary and phrases you need to talk about people and places, and the present tense of some of the basic verbs, such as se/estar (to be), tener (to have) and querer (to want), and the expression ‘hay’ (there is/there are) to describe places.
You will also learn how to ask questions in Spanish. You will continue to develop your speaking, listening, reading and writing skills, through the activities, the audio and the video resources.
You will find tips and advice on how to develop our study skills, and some cultural information about people and places in the Spanish speaking world.
Take your Spanish learning offline by purchasing two hours of downloadable audio files and transcripts made by the course creators at The Open University. These MP3s are a great way to practise your Spanish listening and speaking wherever you are. They cover examples and exercises in the same topics as the course.
Syllabus
Week 1
Describing people
Welcome to Spanish for Beginners 2 − Week 1
Before you start with the first week, let’s meet your fellow learners.
Describing physical appearance
Learning how to talk about a person’s physical appearance.
Describing a person’s character
Talking about people’s character and learning the verb ser (to be)
Saying what you wear
When describing people you may want to talk about the clothes they wear. In this activity you will learn how to describe what someone is wearing.
Over to you
Test what you have learned this week and find how to get the most out of it.
Week 2
Families and relatives
Talking about your family
In this activity you will learn about family members.
How many relatives do you have?
In the following steps you will learn numbers 0 to 15 and to say how many relatives you have.
Numbers up to 100
In these steps you will learn numbers up to 100 and train your ear to distinguish numbers that can easily be confused. You will also get some further practice in pronouncing vowels.
Saying people’s ages
Now you will learn how to ask and say people’s ages.
The letter ñ
Learning about the letter ‘ñ’ and how it’s pronounced
Over to you
Test what you learned this week and find how to get the most out of it.
Week 3
Addresses and houses
Phone number and email address
Asking and giving your phone number and your email address. In these steps you will learn how to give some more personal information, such as your phone number and your email address.
Postal address
Writing and asking for someone’s address. In these steps you will look at some postal addresses in Spain and Latin America and you will find out how to write and ask for someone’s address.
Describing your home
Where do you live? In these steps you will learn how to talk about where you live and how to describe your house.
Over to you
Get the most out of what you learned this week.
Week 4
Accommodation
Specifying requirements, wishes and needs
In these steps you will learn how to specify requirements, wishes and needs when looking for accommodation.
Describing different types of accommodation
In this section you will learn how to describe the interior of a room, practise some vocabulary relating to furniture and say where things are in relation to other objects.
Numbers from 100
In this activity you will learn more numbers while shopping around for new furniture.
Alfonsina Storni
In this activity you are going to listen to an extract from a poem by the Swiss-born Argentine poet Alfonsina Storni.
Over to you
Get the most out of what you learned this week.
When would you like to start?
Start straight away and join a global classroom of learners. If the course hasn’t started yet you’ll see the future date listed below.
Available now
Learning on this course
On every step of the course you can meet other learners, share your ideas and join in with active discussions in the comments.
What will you achieve?
By the end of the course, you‘ll be able to...
- Develop skills in basic Spanish for interacting in common communicative situations
- Engage in simple communication in Spanish
- Apply the language introduced in the course in order to talk about people and places in Spanish
- Apply the language introduced to describe people, both physically and in terms of their personality
- Apply the language introduced to describe your home, the furniture in it and talk about what you want when looking for accommodation
Who is the course for?
This course is aimed at people with little prior knowledge of Spanish who want to learn the basic language and find out about the Spanish-speaking world. The course assumes that you have already studied the first course in the Spanish for Beginners program. This course is taught through English.
Who will you learn with?
I'm a lecturer in Spanish at the Open University. I'm fascinated by languages, how they work, and how we learn them.
I've been teaching Spanish with the OU for the last 14 years. Over this time I've built up a wealth of experience in distance learning for adults. I also have expertise producing learning material.
Who developed the course?
The Open University
As the UK’s largest university, The Open University (OU) supports thousands of students to achieve their goals and ambitions via supported distance learning, helping to fit learning around professional and personal life commitments.
Established
1969Location
Milton Keynes, UKWorld ranking
Top 510Source: Times Higher Education World University Rankings 2020
Ways to learn | Buy this course | Subscribe & save | Limited access |
|---|---|---|---|
| Choose the best way to learn for you! | $79/one-off payment | $244.99 for a whole year Automatically renews | Free |
| Fulfill your current learning need | Develop skills to further your career | Sample the course materials | |
| Access to this course | tick | tick | Access expires 29 Mar 2025 |
| Access to 1,000+ courses | cross | tick | cross |
| Learn at your own pace | tick | tick | cross |
| Discuss your learning in comments | tick | tick | tick |
| Tests to check your learning | tick | tick | cross |
| Certificate when you're eligible | Printed and digital | Digital only | cross |
Cancel for free anytime |
Ways to learn
Choose the best way to learn for you!
Subscribe & save
$244.99 for a whole year
Automatically renews
Develop skills to further your career
- Access to this course
- Access to 1,000+ courses
- Learn at your own pace
- Discuss your learning in comments
- Tests to boost your learning
- Digital certificate when you're eligible
Cancel for free anytime
Buy this course
$79/one-off payment
Fulfill your current learning need
- Access to this course
- Learn at your own pace
- Discuss your learning in comments
- Tests to boost your learning
- Printed and digital certificate when you’re eligible
Limited access
Free
Sample the course materials
- Access expires 29 Mar 2025
Find out more about certificates, Unlimited or buying a course (Upgrades) Sale price available until 3 March 2025 at 23:59 (UTC). T&Cs apply. | |||
Find out more about certificates, Unlimited or buying a course (Upgrades)
Sale price available until 3 March 2025 at 23:59 (UTC). T&Cs apply.
Learning on FutureLearn
Your learning, your rules
- Courses are split into weeks, activities, and steps to help you keep track of your learning
- Learn through a mix of bite-sized videos, long- and short-form articles, audio, and practical activities
- Stay motivated by using the Progress page to keep track of your step completion and assessment scores
Join a global classroom
- Experience the power of social learning, and get inspired by an international network of learners
- Share ideas with your peers and course educators on every step of the course
- Join the conversation by reading, @ing, liking, bookmarking, and replying to comments from others
Map your progress
- As you work through the course, use notifications and the Progress page to guide your learning
- Whenever you’re ready, mark each step as complete, you’re in control
- Complete 90% of course steps and all of the assessments to earn your certificate
Want to know more about learning on FutureLearn? Using FutureLearn
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