Our words
This system uses some words of its own. We made them up to make Spanish easier to hold in your head. A grammar book or a Spanish speaker won't use them this way, so here is each one next to what a textbook calls it.
- The Timeline
- OursThe map of nine numbered places that holds every form of a verb. It grew out of a timeline method taught by Julian Franco; this version has been reworked and extended, so it is not the same as his.
- In a textbookThe tenses of a verb, usually shown as separate tables.
- Slot
- OursOne numbered place on the Timeline. Slot 4 is now, slot 1 is the past, slot 6 is the future.
- In a textbookA tense. Slot 4 is the present.
- 1a and 1b · photo and video
- OursThe two pasts in slot 1. 1a is a photo: it happened. 1b is a video: it was going on.
- In a textbookThe preterite and the imperfect.
- 6a and 6b
- OursThe two futures in slot 6: going to, and will.
- In a textbookThe near future (ir a + a verb) and the simple future.
- Below the line · the hypothetical timeline
- OursSlots 7, 8 and 9: would, commands and wishes.
- In a textbookThe conditional, the imperative and the subjunctive.
- The seed
- OursThe form that slots 8 and 9 grow from: take yo in slot 4, drop the -o, swap the vowel.
- In a textbookNo single name. It is the stem of the present subjunctive.
- Trigger
- OursA phrase that opens slot 9 for the verb that follows it.
- In a textbookAn expression that takes the subjunctive.
- Piece
- OursA ready-made chunk you memorize whole and plug into a sentence.
- In a textbookA word or a phrase.
- Engine
- OursA verb that is already conjugated and takes another verb after it. It does the changing so the next verb doesn't have to.
- In a textbookA conjugated verb followed by an infinitive.
- Action
- OursThe verb after the Engine, in its dictionary form. It never changes.
- In a textbookAn infinitive.
- Thing
- OursWhatever finishes the sentence: an object, a place or company, with its little word attached.
- In a textbookA noun with its article, or a phrase that starts with a preposition.
- Opener
- OursA word that sets the scene at the start of a sentence.
- In a textbookAn adverb of time.
- Connector
- OursA word that joins a second part to a sentence.
- In a textbookA conjunction.
- Descriptor
- OursA word that describes a Thing.
- In a textbookAn adjective.
- Core Frame
- OursThe system's main sentence pattern: Opener + Engine + Action + Thing.
- In a textbookNo name. It is one common sentence pattern.
- The board
- OursThe tap-to-build exercise inside a lesson. The Build tool is the full version for practice.
- In a textbookNot a grammar idea.