Hot answers tagged gramatica
34
"agua" is feminine, but starts with a stressed "a". So it needs the article to change, for a phonetic reason.
The plural "las aguas" highlights that "agua" is feminine.
The accent on the starting "a" is important. Look at the feminine "almohada". The accent is on the second "a", not on the starting one, so the article remains "la".
As pointed out by ...
18
There is a simple rule I learned in high school (oh so many years ago) and stuck with me.
You need to replace que and everything after it with eso (which means it), then you will easily see which one is wrong.
Estoy seguro eso (I'm sure it), is wrong.
Estoy seguro de eso (I'm sure of it), is correct.
This helped me from the moment I learned it, ...
17
Agua is always feminine, even in singular form. However, to avoud the double 'a' sound in la agua, we use the article el in singular form. In all other respects, agua is still feminine when singluar, for instance, when adding an adjective, you use the feminine form:
the red water => el agua roja
The same is true for other feminine nouns that begin ...
14
The difference is that an adjective placed before a noun acts as an attribute and after a noun it acts as a modifier.
There are some rules as to the position of the adjective, as follows:
Demonstrative, posessive and indefinite adjectives and articles go before the noun. E.g., Mis tres amigas vienen a la fiesta or Este nivel de español es intermedio.
...
14
Versión original
Disculpa que conteste en español. No estoy seguro de poder transmitir en inglés los matices de progresividad que voy a mencionar.
Las construcciones “ir + gerundio” y “estar + gerundio” son perífrasis verbales donde ir y estar tienen función auxiliar.
Otros posibles verbos auxiliares con idéntica construcción son: andar, venir, seguir, ...
13
The examples you wrote about are not phrasal verbs. I don't think there is such a thing as phrasal verbs in Spanish.
They are verbs that sometimes change their meaning totally. For example, the verb "to take" means that you grab something with your hands and you lift it up (an example). The verb "to take after" doesn't mean that you grab later, or at least ...
13
"Si no" = if + negative
Si no coges el paraguas, te mojarás
[If you don't take your umbrella with you, you'll get wet]
"Sino"= similar to "but" ("instead" in a negative way; "except", "only")
No llegan mañana, sino el martes.
[They don't arrive tomorrow, but on Tuesday]
Este vídeo puede ser de ayuda
12
ísimo/ma is a Latin suffix that can be appended to some adjectives and adverbs to form their superlatives: malísimo, riquísimo.
The rules governing the use of the ísimo suffix are the following:
For adjectives ending in l, r, and z, simply add the suffix (changing the final z for a c):
fácil, facilísimo.
feroz, ferocísimo.
popular, ...
12
They are exactly the same, as the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas says here:
quizá. Adverbio que expresa duda o probabilidad: «Neruda es un gran
poeta. Quizá el más grande de todos los poetas» (Skármeta Cartero
[Chile 1986]). Por analogía con otros adverbios acabados en -s, se
creó la forma quizás, igualmente válida: «Quizás Casiana tenga razón»
...
11
Intonation is different in English and Spanish.
Let's consider questions first. In English, the intonation of a declaration and a sentence are identical until you get to the last few words. At that point, the intonation rises for a question, and falls for a declaration. The question mark at the end of a sentence is sufficient to warn the person reading ...
11
Tu frase es correcta, y la «corrección» que te sugieren es un error que tienen nombre: queísmo. Concretamente, mira el punto 1.c:
QUEÍSMO. Es la supresión indebida de una preposición (generalmente de)
delante de la conjunción que, cuando la preposición viene exigida por
alguna palabra del enunciado.
1. No debe suprimirse la preposición en los ...
10
This confusion is easy to resolve once you understand that Spanish is an inflected language, so verbs are marked (that is, changed) to reflect things like tense, person, and number. (See Wikipedia: Spanish Grammar.)
Describing all of the diffrent types of inflections and verb changes is a lengthy process and beyond the scope of a single answer, so I'll try ...
9
En España tú tienes razón en todo, ignoro lo que ocurra en otros lados. Aquí jamás oí «¿Qué horas son?» salvo en casos muy especiales:
In Spain:
1º Preguntar lo que marca el reloj en ese momento (siempre en singular)
«What time is it?» = «¿Qué hora es?»
2º Como sinónimo de «How many hours are from 9 am to 8 pm?» (en plural)
Llevo despierto desde ...
9
In this case le is a dative pronoun. You are correct in assuming it is redundant, as it actually is. :) Wikitionary has a very interesting entry on the subject that treats upon it in a usage note. It reads:
Note that when a sentence contains a noun that is an indirect object, a redundant indirect object le (or its plural form les) is also required.
...
9
No tiene nada de malo, sin duda. Si vas a anidar algo dentro de una proposición que ya esté en paréntesis, debes usar los corchetes [ ] o las rayas para evitar así los equívocos a los que la repetición de paréntesis puede inducir.
Si dentro de un paréntesis es necesario intercalar una nueva aclaración, esta aparecerá entre corchetes.
Por ejemplo:
...
8
Remember that "gustar" means "to please" unlike the English "like" which essentially means "to be pleased by." So what you're saying is:
Is reading pleasing to your children?
When you state it this way, the obvious translation becomes:
¿Leer les gusta a vuestros hijos?
And then the necesity of the 'a' becomes more clear, as in this case it is a ...
8
Según la RAE en el caso de mano se aceptan ambas aunque la norma gramatical es no cambiar la vocal final en el diminutivo independientemente del género, en el DPD:
mano. 1. ‘Parte del cuerpo que comprende desde la muñeca hasta la punta de los dedos’. Es femenino: la mano. Para el diminutivo son válidas las formas manito y manita. Lo habitual en la formación ...
8
¿Por qué se dice primero en 'primero plato' ...?
No se dice, "primero plato" (¿dónde lo has visto?), se dice "primer plato". La regla es: el adjetivo "primero" toma la forma abreviada (apócope) "primer" cuando va delante de un sustantivo masculino.
7
I believe the literal equivalent "that" used to be used in formal English but has now all but disappeared. Wiktionary gives this definition for this sense of English "that":
(archaic) Introducing a hypothetical fact or supposition: ‘given that’, ‘as would appear from the fact that’. [from 11th c.]
It can be thought of as a kind of subjunctive ...
7
This sentence:
Yo fui el que lo hizo.
it can be rewritten to:
Yo fui la persona que lo hizo.
or (this sentence sounds more natural):
Yo fui quien lo hizo.
Using la persona, Yo fui la persona que lo hice sounds wrong, "la persona" and "(yo) hice" doesn't match.
Edit:
Replacing "el" por "la persona" in your last sentences:
Tú fuiste ...
7
You shouldn't use that "contracted" form since it is a mistake.
From the RAE:
En la lengua culta debe evitarse el uso de adverbios como cerca,
detrás, delante, debajo, dentro, encima, enfrente con adjetivos
posesivos; así pues, no debe decirse ×detrás mío,
×encima suya, etc., sino detrás de mí, encima de
él, etc.
In cultivated language ...
7
Quién is a interrogative/exclamative pronoun, so it must resplace a noun.
On the other hand qué can be an interrogative/exclamative pronoun (when referring to things) or and interrogative/exclamative adjective (when referring to people or things). So as we are talking about people it can only be an adjective so it has to go with a name.
You can find a ...
7
All those word-roots have Latin origins as follows:
duco : I lead
voco : I call
loco : I place
ludo : I play
mitto : I send
Since most of those words have English cognates, I point you to the Internet Wayback Machine's link to the American Heritage Dictionary, which used to be free online, and had good etymologies.
7
I would say "Te ves bien" is an expression, probably influenced by English (I might be wrong here), that some Latin American countries use to say "you look good". We don't use that in Spain, we rather say "Estás guapo/a", "Tienes buen aspecto" or something similar.
Applying a strict semantical analysis on "te ves bien" would conclude it means "you can see ...
7
Lo correcto es decir
Eran varios Jesuses a la vez.
La formación del plural en este caso no es distinta de otros sustantivos. Como referencia puedes tomar el artículo de la Wikipedia Formación del plural en Español. El sustantivo (nombre propio) Jesús cae en la regla f) de dicho artículo.
f) Sustantivos y adjetivos terminados en -s o en -x. Si son ...
7
Tu frase es correcta, pero es fácil confundirse.
Tengo la sensación de que estás mintiendo. (Correcto)
Siento que estás mintiendo. (Correcto)
Parecen construcciones equivalentes, pero no lo son. En la segunda el verbo es transitivo, recae sobre lo que sigue (objeto directo, que es prácticamente exigido): "Siento... siento algo. ¿Qué? Siento esto: ...
6
Actually Gonzalo's nice answer doesn't cover one part of the story fully.
It's not that Spanish has two ways to express the superlative of adjectives - rather Spanish, like Latin, most modern Romance languages, and also Ancient Greek has two different kinds of superlatives:
The relative superlative
This is the more familiar one with más: El más grande
It ...
6
The correct order can be remembered by the acronym RID (as in, "I need to get RID of this confusion about pronouns!") for reflexive, indirect, direct.
All three pronouns can't appear together, but two can in the following combinations:
Reflexive-Indirect: Se me olvidó. ("I forgot." or literally "It forgot itself to me.")
Reflexive-Direct: Me lo pongo. ("I ...
6
Your two examples are actually different phenomena.
Ex. 1) ¿A vuestros hijos les gusta leer?
Consider the following statements:
Me gusta leer.
Me gusta leer a mí.
A mí, me gusta leer.
You can always add the a mí for emphasis. Similarly, you can add an "a [person]" to clarify who the pronoun refers to, in the more ambiguous case of les.
Ex. 2) Todos ...
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