Units 1 and 2: These chapters contain basic greetings, words and expressions that will give you a practical start in learning the language. A primary purpose of Units 1 and 2 is to give students a good grounding in pronunciation. Because of the importance of pronunciation, each utterance in these units is spoken by six different speakers, representing Mexico, Spain, the Caribbean, the Southern Cone. We have also included pronunciations from non-native speakers with good pronunciations to give you a basis for comparison. The song for Unit 1 is La Adelita, perhaps the most famous song from the Mexican Revolution; for Unit 2 La Malagueña from Spain.
Unit 3: Gender of singular nouns and adjectives. The song for Unit 3 is Alma Llanera, a classic song from the Llano region of northern South America.
Unit 4: Number in nouns and adjectives, and the irregular verb estar. The song is En mi viejo San Juan, from Puerto Rico in the classic "trio" genre which is found in music from almost every Spanish-speaking country.
Unit 5: The irregular verb ser. The song is Guitarra, guitarra mía composed by Argentina's immortal Carlos Gardel and sung by the legendary Trío Los Panchos.
Unit 6: Present tense forms of regular verbs ending in -ar, and the use of definite articles with titles in reference to persons. The song is El amor de mi bohío, a Cuban folk song.
Unit 7: Present tense forms of regular verbs ending in -er, the demonstrative forms este, ese, aquel, and the distribution of ser and estar. The song is Yo vendo unos ojos negros, a folk song from Chile.
Unit 8: Present tense forms of regular verbs ending in -ir, obligatory contractions, and noun-adjective agreement. The song is the Mexican National Anthem Himno nacional de la República Mexicana, representative in both style and lyrics of patriotic music from all over Latin America.
Unit 9: The irregular auxiliary verb haber, regular -do forms in the present perfect construction, full forms of possessives, and adjective position. The song is Cristo ya nació en Paracaguina, from Nicaragua.
Unit 10: Personal a, direct clitic pronouns, -do forms functioning as modifiers, theme class in present tense forms.
Unit 11: Shortened forms of possessives, the negative particle with verbs, unemphatic "some, any" from English.
Unit 12: Subject pronouns, pronouns after phrase relators, components of phrases, statement intonation patterns in normal and contrastive statements, adjective agreement in remote positions.
Unit 13:-ndo forms and the present progressive construction, possessive constructions with de, nominalized possessive constructions, question intonation patterns in information questions, placement of negative participles.
Unit 14: Present tense forms of the irregular verbs ir, dar, and ver, the periphrastic future construction, question intonation patterns in yes-no questions, theme class in -do forms of verbs.
Unit 15: Indirect clitic pronouns with one object, indirect clitic pronouns with two objects, question intonation patterns in yes questions, review of possessive constructions.
Unit 16: Redundant constructions with indirect clitic pronouns, question intonation patterns in "no" questions, review of possessive constructions.
Unit 17: Past I (preterit) forms of regular verbs, question intonation patterns in affirmative confirmation questions, possessive phrases with quien.
Unit 18: Past II (imperfect) tense forms of regular verbs, past II tense forms of irregular verbs, question intonation patterns in negative confirmation questions, review of word order in information questions.
Unit 19: Past I (preterit) and II (imperfect) in the same construction, question intonation patterns in "echo" questions, review of Spanish simple tense for English verb construction in interrogatories.
Unit 20: Direct and indirect clitics in the same construction, exclamatory qué, cómo; question intonation patterns in choice questions, review of postposed full-form possessives.
Unit 21: Irregular preterit verb forms (verbs with extended stems, or verbs taking regular er or ir endings, verbs with modified stems, verbs with suppleted stems), statement intonation intonation patterns in deliberate statements, review of theme class in imperfect tense forms.
Unit 22: Present tense irregular verbs with stem vowel changing, statement intonation patterns, sentence modifiers, review of theme class in preterit tense forms.
Unit 23: Present tense irregular verbs (velar stem extensions and mixed stem-vowel changing), present tense of miscellaneous irregular verbs (caer, traer, oir, hacer, decir, saber), statement intonation patterns in leave-taking, review of the obligatory clause relator que.
Unit 24: Reflexive clitic pronouns, reflexive clitic pronouns with progressive and periphrastic future verb constructions, expressions for time of day, review of gender class assignment of certain nouns.
Unit 25: Reflexive and indirect clitic pronouns in the same construction, review of verb-subject order in dependent clauses.
Unit 26: Reflexive and indirect clitic pronouns in the same construction, review of verb-subject order in certain dependent clauses.
Unit 27: Formal and informal command forms for regular verbs, formal and informal command forms for irregular verbs, review of nominalized possessives.
Unit 28: Regular and irregular indirect command forms, hortatory command forms, review of Past I (preterit) tense forms.
Unit 29: Clitic pronouns with command forms, clitic pronouns in constructions with infinitives and with -ndo forms, review of present perfect construction.
