Learn Spanish (Spain): No leo el periódico, leo el libro. - I do not read the newspaper, I read the book.

In Spanish, the verb ending usually tells you who is doing the action, so subject pronouns like yo (I) are often left out. The ending -o on leo already means 'I read'. You could say Yo no leo, but it is not necessary.

How do we get leo from the verb leer (to read)?

Leer is a regular verb ending in -er. To conjugate it for 'I', you drop the -er ending to get the stem (le-), and then add the 'I' ending for regular verbs, which is -o. This gives us leo.

Why is the word no placed right before the verb?

To make a sentence negative in Spanish, you simply put no directly before the conjugated verb. Here, placing no before leo changes 'I read' to 'I do not read'.

Both periódico and libro use the word el. Are all nouns ending in 'o' masculine?

Almost all of them! Nouns that end in -o are typically masculine and use the masculine word for 'the', which is el. There are a few exceptions you will learn later, but this is a very reliable rule for beginners.