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Sonidos y letras La representación escrita del sonido se suele llamar “letra” o “grafía” y en castellano normalmente no se reproduce la exacta correspondencia entre sonido y grafía, por eso un mismo sonido se puede representar con distintas letras o una misma letra puede reproducir sonidos distintos. Relaciones entre sonidos y grafías Aquí podemos encontrar…

a. Verbs followed by preposition a. acertar a desafiar a mandar a acostumbrar a disponerse a meterse a alcanzar a echar(se) a mover a animar a empezar a negarse a aprender a enseñar a obligar a atreverse a excitar a pasar a autorizar a forzar a persuadir a ayudar a habituarse a precipitarse a bajar…

Learning when to use the subjunctive mood can be particularly challenging for English-speakers learning Spanish. That’s probably because the subjunctive mood is distinguished from the indicative mood so infrequently in English. The most common mood, the indicative mood, is used to refer to what is real, to state facts, to make declarations. For example, the…

Both verbs “acordarse” and “recordar” mean to recall, to remember. The difference between the two of them is very small, and it is easy to get confused. “Recordar” is a transitive verb – recordar algo = to remember something. It always requires a direct object. Es. Recuerdo aquel día. Recuerdo que eras simpático.  (= I…

The plural form in Spanish is usually achieved by adding an ‘s’ or ‘es’ at the end of the noun/adjective. es.   casa : casas;   malo : malos; español – españoles; verdad : verdades;   cariñoso : cariñosos. If a noun has an accent on the final syllable, then add ‘es’ and drop the accent. es:   cajón – cajones; reunión : reuniones.…

We can talk about two different spaces in the use of the past tense in Spanish: HERE => Perfecto (the space where we are) THERE=> Indefinido (a past space) Ambiguous expressions Some expressions can be used with both past tense: “siempre, nunca, en la vida, alguna vez, muchas veces, en los últimos días…” The difference…

In Spanish, many useful expressions are formed by combining two verbs. When this occurs, the first verb is conjugated, while the second verb remains in the infinitive form. Examples: ir, viajar Yo voy a viajar a España. I am going to travel to Spain. acabar, comer Tú acabas de comer. You have just eaten. saber,…

Spanish Comparatives and Superlative COMPARATIVES Superiority MORE + ( Adjective) +THAN   Monica is more beautiful than Kathrine MÁS + ( Adjective) +QUE     Monica es más guapa que Katherine Inferiority LESS +  ( Adjective) +  Than   Monica is less beautiful than Katherine MENOS + ( Adjective) + QUE   Monica es menos guapa que Katherine Equality…

THE FUTURE the future tense is typically used for verbs whose action will take place sometime in the future. Generally, it is the equivalent of the “will + verb” form in English in sentences such as “I will go” or “she will eat.” With regular verbs, the future tense is formed by adding endings to…

APROVECHAR vs APROVECHARSE Aprovechar = to take advantage (situation), to make the most, to take the opportunity Some example: Aprovecha tu juventud= make the most of your youth; Aprovecho la ocasión para decirles que …= I would like to take this opportunity to tell you that … Aprovechar para/a (hacer algo) to do something Aproveché…

COGER/TOMAR   The common English verb To take can be translated in Spanish  with different verbs, but essentially with these two coger/tomar both verbs have a lot of uses, many of which overlap, but there are cases where you’d use one but not the other, like it happens in English and in any other language…

The Indefinite Article MALE FEMALE SINGULAR Un, Uno Una PLURAL Unos Unas The indefinite article  is usually used •    Talking about something for the first time Ejemplo: Vamos al cine a ver una película •    An unspecified person or thing. Ejemplo : Quiero un libro – I want a book. Tiene una idea – He…

Generally we use the passive voice to indicate what happened to the subject of the sentence without saying who or what carried out the action, meaning that in the passive voice (voz pasiva), the subject is acted upon by an outside agent. When the agent is specified, the passive voice is expressed by: subject +…

The verbsConocer and Saber in Spanish frequently confuse English speakers since they both mean To Know. However, these verbs are NOT interchangeable since they have different meanings and are used depending on the context. When to useConocer: 1. Conocer is used with knowing people or having an acquaintance with them. It means you are familiar…

Look in just about any good Spanish or Spanish-English dictionary, and verbs will be listed as either transitive (verbo transitivo, often abbreviated in dictionaries as vt or tr) or intransitive (verbo intransitivo, often abbreviated to vi or int). These designations can give you an important clue as to how the verb is used in sentences.…

Frequently, the conditional is used to express probability, possibility, wonder or conjecture, and is usually translated as would, could, must have or probably. The student said that he would study one more hour. (probability, possibility) What time could it have been? (wonder, conjecture) He must have been at home. (wonder, conjecture) We were probably busy…

Leísmo (“using le“) is a dialectal variation in the Spanish language that occurs largely in Spain. It involves using the indirect object pronoun le in place of the (standard) masculine direct object pronoun lo, especially when the direct object refers to a male person. Leísmo with animate objects is both common and prescriptively accepted in…

How does one say “for” in Spanish? Simple question, huh? Not really. In fact, understanding the answer to that seemingly simple question is one of the more difficult problems facing many Spanish students. The problem is that two Spanish prepositions, por and para, frequently are used for the English word “for.” (Actually, there are number…

 VERBS WITH PROPER IRREGULARITY Andarand his derivative desandar. Pretérito indefinido Pretérito imperfecto de subjuntivo Yo anduve Yo anduviera o anduviese Tú anduviste Tú anduvieras o anduvieses Él anduvo Él anduviera o anduviese Nosotros anduvimos Nosotros anduviéramos o anduviésemos Vosotros anduvisteis Vosotros anduvierais o anduvieseis Ellos anduvieron Ellos anduvieran o anduviesen Asir    The present tense…

In Spanish there are many irregular verbs, but most of them are not used or are unknown from Spanish people. For foreigners, verbs are a particularly difficult, both because of irregularities in verbs itself and for the use of them. What is an irregular verb? Irregular verbs in conjugation may be altered in all of the…

The words that, which, and who are not just used in questions. They are used in statements, too. Examples include: •My coat, which is blue, is hanging in your closet. •Mrs. Castle, who is a music teacher, knows how to play the piano. •The highway that extends to the north is the one you want…

Se is undoubtedly the most versatile of the Spanish pronouns. As you learn Spanish, you will come across se used in a variety of ways. For the beginner, it isn’t necessary to learn all those ways, although it can be helpful to be introduced to its various uses to help avoid confusion when you see…

Use of the adjective with the verbs: Ser and Estar We’ll dedicate this section to look at some adjectives with the verbs ser and estar (to be), which often cause confusion in Spanish. Take a look at the examples and you’ll see that the verb ser doesn’t work with the same adjectives as the verb estar.…

THE VERBS: SER (TO BE), ESTAR (TO BE) & HABER (TO HAVE) The verbs ser, estar and haber are irregular and used very frequently in Spanish. PRESENT SER: Yo soy Tú eres Él/ella/usted es Nosotros/-as somos Vosotros/-as sois Ellos/-as son USES OF THE VERB SER: 1. Identifying a person: Ella es Ana y él es…

THE ARTICLE The article defines a noun, that coincides with it in genre and number. Spanish, even if the neutral does not exist, has brought (from the Latin) the neutral form “LO” in the article. it is used to use as a noun the adjectives. THE DEFINITE ARTICLE: El Lo La Los Las Often the…

THE ADJECTIVE: GENRE AND NUMBER Remember that the adjective accompanies a noun and coincides in gender and number with it whether placed before or after it. Besides the morphemes of gender and number, the adjective has morphemes of degree: comparative and superlative. The adjective can have its complete form (ex: hombre bueno) and its short…

THE ADVERBS: The adverbs of time, place, manner and quantity answer the following questions: when, where, how and how much? They don’t have a fixed position in the phrase and they function as circumstantial complements. In Spanish, there are adverbial locutions that function in the same way as an adverb, and we’ll see how an…