About Spanish nouns

All the nouns in Spanish are either masculine or feminine and when we use an adjective they must agree  with the gender of the noun. Also the adjective must agree in number so if the noun is plural so is the adjective.

Generally speaking masculine adjectives end  in "o" and feminine adjectives end in "a". There are also a lot of adjectives that do not have an "a" or "o" ending eg. verde= green in which case there is no  difference when you use them with masculine or feminine nouns.

About Spanish adjectives

As in most Latin languages the the adjective goes after the noun. In English it is the opposite.
E.g. In English we say: "A red book" but in Spanish we say "A book red"
E.g. A red book = Un libro rojo.

About Spanish sentences

This is a vast simplification but I will attempt to show you the principal difference between a Spanish and an English sentence from a beginners point of view. First let's look at how we form an English sentence. If you have not learned another Latin language the principal  thing that you will find difficult in Spanish is that the object can come before the verb.

Subje ct ver b obje ct I lov e you

Obje ct ver b Te am o

The first thing that you will notice is that it appears that there is no subject. This is because the the subject is contained in the verb in Spanish ("amo = I love") and the subject pronouns are only used when you really want to emphasize the subject. For example if you want  to say "I am English" you would say "Soy inglés" You wouldn't normally say "Yo soy inglés"

When I first started learning Spanish one of the most difficult things to get used to was that the object can come before the verb. As you can see in the example in the table The  word order for "I love you"  would be "you I love" The sooner you get used to  this the better.

Generally speaking the word order of an English sentence is more rigid than a Spanish sentence.

About negative sentences

In English we change the order of the  subject and person in order to make a question: e.g. (affirmative) = They have eaten  (interrogative) = Have they eaten?
In Spanish there is no change in the word  order. You know that someone is asking a question because there is a change in  intonation at the end of the sentence.

In written Spanish there are question  marks both at the beginning and at the end of the question. e.g. ¿Tienes fuego?  (Do you have a light?)