Don’t get confused by ‘ahí’ and ‘allí’, just because they don´t have direct equivalents in English. They form a group with the word ‘aquí’ [here], that is: ‘aquí, ahí, allí’. They refer to something either close to the speaker, closer to the listener or far from both.
Although English doesn´t have the third one, English speakers manage by adding “over” when talking about something far from both speaker and listener, as in “over there”, the ‘ahí’ counterpart.
Even if you think ‘acentos’ [diacritical stress marks] can be spared, you should keep an eye on using at least the most frequent ones, as Spanish speakers are used to exploit this “visual resource” to make reading faster. This is especially true when ‘homónimos’ [homonimous] are present.
‘Homónimos’ are words that sound the same, but have different meanings. The example below has two pairs: ‘si’-'sí’ [if-yes] and ‘tú’-'tu’ [you-your]
To help you do story-telling when your Spanish past tenses are not that polished, you can do it the American way: by using the ‘presente histórico’ [historical present, which means you talk about something from the past using the present tense, something typically done by historians.
You can see in the following example how a happening of the past is told using the present tense, as if things were happening that very moment. You can use this rhetorical resource when your past-tense skills are yet to be fully learned.
Example:
Y ahí estoy, todo mojado, cuando de repente pasa todo un equipo de futbol y me ayuda a empujar el coche.
Translation:
And there I am, all wet, when all of a sudden, a whole soccer team passes by and helps me push the car.
Your Spanish will sound more Castilian if you try your sentences to go from the active subject to the passive one, as opposed to the English sentence construction, where the subject receiving the verb action goes first more often.
You can say ‘Troya fue sitiada por los griegos’ following English construction: “Troy was besieged by the greeks” or you can say ‘Los griegos sitiaron Troya’ [The Greeks besieged Troy], in the so called “active voice”: the “Castilian way”.
When asking a question, starting the sentence with ‘me’ helps you keeping it simple, as in ‘¿Me puede decir… ?’ [can you tell me... ?] as opposed to ‘¿Puede decirme… ?, where the ‘me’ is joined with the verb, forming a complex word form called an “enclítical”
It clearly is simpler, to start with the pronoun ‘me’ (or plural form ‘nos’) and continue with a verb in infinitive, instead of the alternative: an enclitical.
Some people in Spain prefer to use this word instead of “Spanish”, when it comes to talk about their language; and this is because there are in the country some bilingual regions, with a language of their own. As ‘Castilla’ prevailed militarily and politically over the other provinces, its language became the official tongue in the country… but the other ones are not forgotten.
In the rest of the world, you can use ‘Español’ or, with more detail: ‘Español castellano’ [Castilian Spanish]. In linguistics, there is yet another denomination: ‘Español de España’ as opposed to ‘Español de México’ or another Latin-America country. This is important for the foreigner, as some “bad words” are normal words in other countries.
Spanish Noun: Gente Pronunciation: Gayn-tay Translation: People Function: Noun Using ‘gente’ (a collective) when talking abou a single person might be wrong, but people in Spain often do, i.e. ‘Ví una gente en el corredor’ [I saw somebody on the hall]. Latin-Americans try not to do it, as the word is defined as a group of persons. You can use ‘gente’ for both “people” and “a person”, but try not to do it in Latin-America, where you should try to use ‘una persona’ [a person] or ‘alguien’ [somebody] instead. Example: – ¿Quién lo dice? – La gente Translation: – Who says? – People
Spain prefers it, even it takes more words to say or write: The so called “perfect tense”, where the verb ‘haber’ [have] functions as an auxiliary for another verb (in the gerund form) appearing right next to it, as in ‘hemos hablado’ [we have spoken]. Hispanic Americans would say a single word: ‘hablamos’ [we spoke] instead.
This form takes “less memory” from those learning Spanish, because all they need to memorize is the ‘haber’ verb conjugation and the other verbs gerunds, i.e. ‘Llegó y tomó el coche’ takes more words below, but you don’t have to know the indicative third-person past tense of the verbs ‘Llegar’ and ‘Tomar’
Remembering all kinds of people names is more important in English than Spanish, as English has no ‘tú’ treatment, and the only way to show familiarity trough the spoken word is to say a person’ name along the talking. In Spanish-speaking countries people can even talk with great familiarity to other people who call them on the streets… and get away with the fact that they don´t really remember who “that one” was.
You can use it more freely in Spain. In Latin-America the ‘tú’ treatment is reserved for family and friends only.
‘Se’ makes easier to construct some Spanish sentences, when the subject is unclear: just begin the sentence with ‘Se’ and use a verb… without a subject, as in ‘Se quemó’ [it burned], while standing before something unknown.
People pretty much use it when they’ve broken something: ‘se cayó’ [it fell], instead of [lo tiré] [I let it fell]. Such impersonal form is much more used in Spanish than in English.
You can see the abbreviation ‘EE.UU’ (‘Estados Unidos’) every day in Spanish speaking countries newspapers. The letters repetition indicates a plural is being shortened.
The need for this repetition arises from the fact that the word could is also abbreviated in the singular form, so ‘p.’ is the abbreviation of ‘página’ [page]
The two small dots appearing sometimes on top of an u (ü) before the e & i vowels are called ‘diéresis’ [dieresis]. It is more noticeable if you wrongly put them on top of any other vowel, than forgetting to use them when they are supposed to be there.
The usage rule is simple: ‘diéresis’ should be used when the u is to be pronounced; this is necessary because in most of the words with the syllables ‘gue’ and ‘gui’ the u is not spoken because of grammar. When in doubt, you can say the word aloud without the u and check how it sounds.
English expression ‘is going to…’ has been wrongly incorporated into spoken Spanish in some American countries, as in ‘vamos a estar…’ [we are going to be…', where a much shorter 'estaremos...' [we'll be...] would have been enough.
You can both save words and talk a better Spanish if you avoid this practice. Use the future tense if you are comfortable using it. If you are not, then use the common construction: ‘Voy a’ + infinitive verb (in this case you don’t need to know all verb variations for the future tense)
These reforms mainly call for some single syllable words -and some with more than three- NOT to have a stress mark, when certain vowels meet, as in ‘guión’ [slash] The advice: don’t worry about changing your orthography… at least for been very different: People have even gone to court)
In the last 10 years, the Spanish regulation Academy ‘RAE’ has published three reforms for Spanish orthography, but they all have been ignored in the other Spanish speaking countries (it also happened in other languages, but reaction has the next 10 years.
You will find these courtesy titles almost paired to “Sir” and “Lady”, although you can still find ‘Señor Don” and ‘Señora Doña’ used in Spain… which falls short of the “king” or “queen” themselves. You will see it used in most written invitations.
You will also find a college degree used instead of ‘Señor’ [Mr.] or ‘Señora’ [Lady] as in ‘doctor’ [doctor] or ‘ingeniero´[engineer]. If you don’t know whether somebody has a degree or not, stay on the safe side and use ‘Don’ freely, as it works for both: informal or important occasions.
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