Key learning points

1. The -y at the end of an English word often changes to -ía or -ia in Spanish. e.g. energy - energía.
2. Words ending in -ía stress the final syllable and need an accent to show that, e.g. energía.
3. Words ending in -ia stress the penultimate syllable and need no accent, e.g. ciencia.
4. The verbs 'querer', 'poder' and 'deber' are modal verbs and are often followed by an infinitive.
5. To talk about something that used to happen repeatedly in the past, we use the imperfect tense.

Keywords

• Final syllable stress - pronouncing the last syllable more heavily than other syllables in a word

• Penultimate syllable stress - pronouncing the second-to-last syllable more heavily than other syllables in a word

• Modal verb - verb of necessity or possibility used with a 2nd verb in infinitive e.g. must, can, want

• Imperfect tense - tense used to describe how things were or used to be in the past

Common misconception