Fluent in 3 Months: How Anyone at Any Age Can Learn to Speak Any Language from Anywhere in the World

can (able to)
should
would like to
must / have to
want to
Since my conversations tend to be mostly one-on-one as a beginner, the “I”
and “you” (singular) conjugations are my first priority. After this, I start to use

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“we,” then “he/she/it” and “them.” (Generally, “he/she/it” verb forms, known
as the third-person singular, follow the same conjugation pattern in many
languages.)
Many languages have both polite and informal personal pronoun forms,
which may sound complicated, but to simplify things, I suggest you focus on
the polite form of “you” and ignore the more intimate alternative, at least at
first. It sounds weird to refer to a close friend or a young person with the polite
form in many countries, but if you plan to use the language with strangers, it’s
better to go with this form. When you start to feel a little comfortable in the
language, learn the alternative and try to switch between them appropriately.
Romance Languages
Let’s begin with Romance languages! That is to say, French, Spanish,
Portuguese, and Italian (as well as Romanian, Catalan, Galician, Sardinian,
Corsican, and many others). These all descended from vulgar Latin, the
language spoken across the Roman Empire. They have a huge number of
cognates in common with one another, but here I want to discuss the cognates
they have in common with English.
You see, even though English is not a Romance language, since England
was occupied by the Normans in 1066, the aristocrats and royalty in England
spoke Norman French for several centuries after that. This meant a huge influx
of Norman French vocabulary came into English, the majority of which
resembles modern French and other Romance languages.
The trick is recognizing which words to use, and when you know the
context in which English “borrowed” these words, this becomes a lot easier.
Aristocrats are more likely to use formal vocabulary, and the English
equivalents of these words tend to be more French-like. So when speaking any
of these Romance languages, think of a formal alternative to that word in
English and this may indeed be the same in your target language. For instance,
if someone knocks on your door, you might tell that person to “come in,” or
you could say “enter.” In French, it’s entrer; Spanish, entrar. If you want to
share your thoughts with someone, you tell your “point of view,” share your
“opinion,” or give this person your “perspective.” In Italian, opinione; in
Portuguese, perspectiva. Although here, point de vue in French is also not far
off. Instead of showing someone a city, you could be the person’s “guide,”
which is the same word used in French: guide. Learning vocabulary can be

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easy, but it’s better when it’s “simple” (which is the same in both French and
Spanish: simple).
“Enter,” “opinion,” and “simple,” compared to “come in,” “thoughts,” and
“easy,” are words I might use in more formal situations in English—like in a
job interview or in a debate—but they are not words I would use at a party, for
instance. There, they would seem a little pompous. But in Romance languages,
these words are quite commonly used. With practice, you learn to rephrase a
sentence in your head and look for alternative words for what you want to say.
Doing so in Romance languages gives you an edge in many situations.
More specifically, though, words of a particular type or ending are much
more likely to be cognates. For instance, words that end in “-tion” in English
are very likely to be the same in French, albeit with a French pronunciation. In
Spanish, the ending becomes -ción; in Italian, it’s -zione; and in Portuguese,
-ção. There are plenty of words like this: action, application, communication,
destruction, fiction, frustration, information, inspiration, invention, invitation,
nation, option, perfection, population, protection, solution, tradition, and many,
many more.
There’s also “-tude” (gratitude, magnitude), “-sion” (explosion,
expression), “-ment” (encouragement, segment), “-age” (garage, camouflage),
and loads more. Granted, you’ll find the occasional “false friend,” whose
meaning may be subtly or very different, but in general you can rely on these
to increase your vocabulary within an incredibly short period of time.
As well as these recognizable words and endings, a branch of Romance-
based words relate to similar English words and, though they may be spelled
differently, give you a familiar starting point. From “communication,” we get
the French verb communiquer (“to communicate”). From “information,” we
get the Spanish informar (“to inform”; used more frequently than the
equivalent in English). From “encouragement,” giving us incoraggiamento, we
also get Italian’s incoraggiare: “to encourage.”
Spanish
Spanish is a very straightforward language in that it is phonetic (each letter
has one sound in every situation, with a few exceptions like ch, ll, and u after g
and q), and it is one of the easier languages when it comes to remembering
what the gender of words is, as they tend to end with an a for the feminine and
an o for the masculine. Exceptions to this (such as -ma being masculine in el

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problema) are listed in most language courses. If you aren’t sure, just use the
masculine form, as this is not a mistake that hinders communication.
One slightly trickier feature of Spanish is its complex conjugation system.
This isn’t as bad as it seems at first glance, because Spanish follows very easy-
to-recognize patterns (an o may change to a ue when that syllable is stressed in
the word, for instance). Before getting used to these conjugations, though, a
beginner should probably focus on using modal verbs followed by the
dictionary (infinitive) version of a verb as often as possible to be more
confident that the sentence is correct, while always keeping in mind that it’s
okay to make a few mistakes here and there.
Some Spanish modal verbs worth knowing are in the list below. Note that
you can add an s to the polite “he/she/it/you” forms shown here to get the
informal “you” forms, or add an n to them to get the “they” verb form.
Remember that when there is no written accent or consonant other than s or n
at the end, the stress will always be on the second-to-last syllable, so it’s
puedo, but then podemos.
poder:
to be able, can, may
puedo
I can
puede
he/she/it/you (polite) can
podemos
we can
querer:
to want
quiero
I want

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quiere
he/she/it/you (polite) want(s)
queremos
we want