Spanish Grammar for Intermediate LearnersCEFR B1 Level
Master advanced concepts like subjunctive mood and passive voice.
Advance your Spanish skills with B1 intermediate grammar. Learn subjunctive mood, passive voice, conditional sentences, and nuanced grammar rules. Designed for confident learners aiming for fluency in Spanish.
Past Tenses: Preterite vs Imperfect
Master the Spanish past tenses: pretérito indefinido (preterite) for completed actions and pretérito imperfecto (imperfect) for descriptions, habits, and ongoing past actions. Learn when to use each tense.
Future Tense
Master the Spanish simple future tense (futuro simple) to express plans, predictions, and probability. Learn the regular conjugations with their distinctive -é, -ás, -á endings, plus common irregular verbs like tener, poder, venir, and saber.
Perfect Tenses
Master Spanish compound tenses: pretérito perfecto (present perfect), pluscuamperfecto (past perfect), and futuro perfecto. Learn haber conjugation and irregular past participles.
Subjunctive & Conditional
Learn the Spanish conditional tense (condicional simple) for polite requests, hypothetical situations, and wishes. Master conditional conjugations and understand when to use it with si clauses. Explore the connection between conditional and subjunctive moods.
Relative Clauses
Master Spanish relative clauses using que, quien, el cual, cuyo, and donde to add information about nouns. Learn when to use each relative pronoun and understand the difference between defining and non-defining clauses. Create sophisticated, flowing sentences.
Possessive Pronouns and Adjectives
Master Spanish possessives: short forms (mi, tu, su) before nouns, long forms (mÃo, tuyo, suyo) after nouns or as pronouns. Learn agreement rules and how to clarify su/suyo ambiguity.
Passive Voice
Learn to form the passive voice in Spanish using ser + past participle and the reflexive passive with se. Understand when Spanish prefers passive constructions and when active voice is more natural. Master agreement rules and agent expressions with por.
Advanced Prepositions
Master tricky Spanish prepositions: por vs para, a personal, compound prepositions, and verbs with specific preposition requirements. Understand the nuances that distinguish intermediate from advanced speakers.
Comparatives and Superlatives
Master Spanish comparisons: más/menos...que, tan...como, tanto...como, irregular comparatives (mejor, peor, mayor, menor), and superlatives (el más, -Ãsimo). Express equality, superiority, and extremes.
Reported Speech
Learn to report what others said using indirect speech in Spanish. Master the tense shifts that occur when moving from direct to reported speech. Understand reporting verbs like decir, preguntar, and contar, and practice transforming questions into indirect questions.
Modal Verbs and Periphrases
Master Spanish modal verbs and verbal periphrases: poder, deber, tener que, hay que, soler, acabar de, ir a, estar + gerund, and llevar + gerund. Express ability, obligation, habit, and aspect.
Past Perfect Tense
Master the Spanish past perfect (pluscuamperfecto) to describe actions completed before another past event. Form it with the imperfect of haber + past participle. Essential for storytelling, reported speech, and expressing sequences of past events.
Infinitive vs Gerund
Learn when to use the infinitive (hablar, comer) versus the gerund (hablando, comiendo) in Spanish. Unlike English, Spanish uses the infinitive far more often. Master verb combinations with prepositions and understand the progressive tenses with estar + gerund.
Advanced Reflexive Constructions
Master advanced Spanish reflexive constructions: impersonal se, passive se, accidental se, and verbs that change meaning with se. Understand the multiple functions of the reflexive pronoun.
Adverbs & Adverb Position
Master Spanish adverbs for manner, time, place, frequency, and degree. Learn to form adverbs from adjectives using -mente and understand the flexible but rule-governed position of adverbs in Spanish sentences. Discover alternatives to long -mente adverbs.
Advanced Conjunctions
Master advanced Spanish conjunctions and connectors for complex sentences. Learn conjunctions that require subjunctive, correlative structures, and discourse markers for fluent expression.
Genitive Case
Learn to express possession and relationships between nouns in Spanish using 'de' (of). Understand the possessive construction with 'de', double possessives, and the important structure 'el/la de'. Master how Spanish handles what English expresses with possessive 's and genitive forms.
Advanced Subordinate Clauses
Master complex Spanish subordinate clauses: conditional sentences (si clauses), reported speech, purpose and result clauses, and concessive clauses. Build sophisticated sentence structures.
Advanced Pronoun Usage
Master advanced Spanish pronoun constructions: redundant pronouns, emphatic structures, pronoun order with multiple verbs, leÃsmo/laÃsmo, and special uses of lo as neuter pronoun.
Verb Chains and Infinitive Constructions
Master Spanish verb chains where multiple infinitives combine with modal and auxiliary verbs. Learn the patterns for poder, deber, querer + infinitive, and understand how to build complex verbal expressions in Spanish.
Subjunctive Mood (Subjuntivo)
Master the Spanish subjunctive for expressing wishes, doubts, emotions, and hypothetical situations. Learn present subjunctive formation, common trigger expressions, and how to use it in subordinate clauses.
Advanced Imperative Structures
Master advanced Spanish command structures: indirect commands with que, impersonal imperatives, softened commands, and imperative in complex sentences. Express requests with nuance and politeness.
Advanced Adjective Usage
Master advanced Spanish adjective structures: nominalized adjectives, adjective clauses, participial adjectives, and complex adjective phrases. Use adjectives with sophistication and precision.
Por vs. Para and Spatial Prepositions
Master the distinction between 'por' and 'para' - two of Spanish's most challenging prepositions. Learn when to use each for purpose, cause, direction, and time, plus other key spatial prepositions.
Participial Adjectives
Learn to use past and present participles as adjectives in Spanish. Past participles (-ado/-ido) describe states or results of actions: cansado, abierto, roto. Present participles are rarely used as adjectives; instead, use related adjectives. Master agreement and common participial expressions.
Complex Sentence Structure
Master advanced Spanish connectors to create sophisticated sentences. Learn conjunctions like aunque, sin embargo, por lo tanto, a pesar de que, and en cuanto. Understand when these connectors require indicative or subjunctive mood for precise and nuanced communication.
Advanced Time Expressions
Master advanced Spanish time expressions: complex desde/hasta constructions, al + infinitive, nada más + infinitive, future time clauses, and idiomatic temporal phrases for natural expression.