Bien or Bueno? Muy or Mucho? Erase any doubt!
This is a common question between the Spanish students and a great source of confusion so in this article you will learn to differentiate the two pair of terms and use them correctly. The simple answer is that one is an adjective and the other is an adverb, but that doesn’t help much of you don’t have a clear understanding of the function of adjectives and adverbs themselves. ADJECTIVE vs. ADVERB: THE GRAMMATICAL ANSWER So, let’s make a quick ...
Relative clauses in Spanish
Introduction In this post I will explain you the relative sentences in Spanish, which are the combination of two sentences that share a common noun, that means that one of the sentences gives more information, modifies or specifies the noun in common. Look at these examples: – ¿Has visto a esa chica? – Have you seen that girl? – Esa chica está bailando en medio de la calle. – That girl is dancing in the street. – ¿Has visto a ...
“Ser” or “Estar”: the answer
One of the most difficult things of learning Spanish is that there are two verbs that are the equivalent of the verb “to be”, these two verbs are “ser” and “estar“. The uses of these two verbs is quite a complex thing that could be the subject of a whole thesis and still there would be unexplained nuances left. The good news is that I’m going to give you the answer. I’ll explain you what you need to know in ...
Express habits in Spanish: “soler” (suelo / solía)
In Spanish we have the construction “soler + infinitive” to express the idea that something usually occurs, that someone does something as a customary practice or regularly in present time, or that someone used to do something in the past but not anymore. This construction is equivalent to saying “used to” for the past or “usually” for the present. Look at these examples: I need my beauty sleep so I usually sleep 9 hours. Necesito un sueño reparador así que ...
The Conditional tense and how to make hypothesis
CONDITIONAL The conditional tense is frequently used to express the probability, possibility, wonder or conjecture and is usually translated as would, could, must have or probably. FORM 1. The stem is the same as for the future tense, that is, the infinitive form of the verb. 2. The endings are: ía, ías, ía, íamos, íais, ían. Same endings for the 3 conjugations. Look at the example: The same verbs that are irregular in the ...
How to express certainty in Spanish
How do we express that something is true, sure, obvious, certain in Spanish? There are a lot of expressions, amongst the more common we find: Está (más que) claro (que / cuál / dónde / cuándo) Está claro cuándo va a volver Julia de su viaje. It’s clear when Julia is going to come from her trip. Está más que claro que ellos ya no están saliendo juntos. It’s more than clear that they are not going out together anymore. ...
Hablar del futuro (I): Futuro simple
In Spanish, when we want to talk about the future we use the ”futuro imperfecto de indicativo” or Futuro Simple. FORM The future is form adding the endings (-é, -ás, -á, -emos, -éis, -án) to the infinitive form of the verb. Same endings for the 3 conjugations. Like in the example: There are few irregular verbs in the future tense. The irregularities are in the radical but the endings don’t change. Here you have ...
How to give instructions in Spanish
There are 2 ways to give instructions in Spanish: 1. Imperative afirmative 2. Impersonal “se” IMPERATIVE AFIRMATIVE The imperative is used to give orders, instructions, requests… The imperative has only 4 forms: tú, usted, vosotros, ustedes. Regular Remember that when the imperative is accompanied with pronouns, the pronouns are attached to the verb making just one word. Example: – ¿Cierro la ventana? – Sí, ciérrala. – Do I close the window? – Yes, close it. – Pela ...
Talk about what the others say: Reported speech in Spanish
We use the reported speech when we want to say what other people say, think or believe. There are two ways of report this information: Direct speech: when we transmit the original message word for word. We introduce the information with an introductory verb followed by inverted commas. Example: The president said: “Yes we can.” El presidente dijo: “Sí, podemos.” Indirect speech: when we transmit the original message with our own words. We introduce the information with an introductory verb ...
Taking the confusion out of “por” and “para”
This two prepositions “por” and “para” are frequently mixed up because they are often used for the English word “for”. They key to understand which preposition has to be used is to think about the meaning you want to convey. In this post I’m going to show you the major uses of these two prepositions: * The preposition “por” in this case is often omitted: Ej: Estuvimos encerrados 5 horas. Besides this uses there are few more uses and ...
