Spanish grammar Guide, Meaning , Facts, Information and Description
Spanish is a relatively inflected language, with a two-gender system and about fifty conjugated forms per verb, but no noun declension and limited pronominal declension.The Real Academia Española traditionally dictated the rules of the Spanish language, but since the 1960s its prestige has declined. Its decisions are taken as suggestions by the educated and ignored by the uneducated. This article first describes the most formal and standard rules that modern Spanish works by, and then goes on to detail deviations from these that one might encounter in local or colloquial varieties of the language, such as pienso de que... or la dije que....
Spanish verbs are conjugated in four categories known as moodss: indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative. Each verb also has three non-finite forms: an infinitive, a gerund, and a past participle (more exactly a passive and perfect participle). This participle can agree for number and gender, giving it four possible forms. There is also form traditionally known as the present participle, but this is generally considered to be an adjective derived from the verb rather than a form of the verb itself.
Verbs are divided into three regular conjugations, which can be identified by looking at the infinitive ending: -ar, -er, or -ir.
To illustrate the way a verb may conjugate, let us take a typical -ar verb: hablar, to talk or speak. Note that the English equivalents given are only approximate. First, here are its forms that do not conjugate:
;Simple tenses: (i.e. each of the four basic tenses plus simple aspect)
;Simple tenses:
;For comer, to eat
The actual imperative forms are in bold to distinguish them from those which are really just subjunctive forms.
There is not such a strict distinction between simple and continuous forms in Spanish as there is in English. In English, "I do" is one thing (a habit) and "I'm doing" is another (current activity). In Spanish, hago can be either of the two, and estoy haciendo stresses the latter.
Though not as strict as English, Spanish is more strict than French or German, which have no systematic distinction between the two concepts at all.
This optionally continuous meaning which can be underlined by using the continuous form is a feature of the present and imperfect tenses. The preterite never has this meaning even in the continuous form, and the future has it only when it is in the continous form.
;Present
;Future
Both the present and the future can express future actions, the latter more explicitly so. There are also expressions that convey the future.
;Fundamental meaning of the preterite and imperfect
Spanish has two fundamental past tenses. Strictly speaking, the difference between them is not tense but aspect. However, within Spanish grammar, they are considered tenses, with aspect controlled by auxiliary verbs.
The difference between the preterite (and in certain cases, the perfect) on one hand and the imperfect on the other is often hard to grasp for English speakers. English has just one past tense form, which can have aspect added to it by auxiliary verbs, but not in ways that reliably correspond to what occurs in Spanish.
The distinction between them does, however, correspond rather well to the distictions in other Romance languages, between for example the French imparfait and passé simple / passé composé, or between the Italian imperfetto and passato remoto / passato prossimo.
The imperfect fundamentally presents an action or state as being a context, and is thus essentially descriptive. It does not present actions or states as having ends, and often does not present their beginnings either.
The preterite (and perfect, when applicable) fundamentally presents an action or state as being an event, and is this essentially narrative. It presents actions or states as having beginnings and ends.
;Comparison with English usage
The English simple past can express either of these concepts. However, there are devices that allow us to be more specific. Consider, for example, the phrase "the sun shone" in the following contexts:
In the third and fourth examples, it is clear that the shining refers to a regular, general, habitual type of event. It is talking about "what used to happen". We have a choice between making this explicit with the expression "used to" as in (4), or just using the simple past as in (3) and allowing the context to make it clear what we mean. In Spanish, these would be in the imperfect, optionally with the auxiliary verb soler.
In the fifth example, only the simple past is possible. It is talking about a single event presented as occurring at a specific point in time (the moment John pulled back the curtain). The action starts and ends with this sentence. In Spanish, this would be in the preterite (or alternatively in the perfect, if the event has only just happened).
;Further examples
Note that when describing the life of someone who is now dead, the distinction between the two tenses blurs. One might describe the person's life saying tenía una hija, but tuvo una hija is very common because the person's whole life is viewed as a whole, with a beginning and an end. The same goes for vivía/vivió en... "he lived in...".
Perhaps the verb that English speakers find most difficult to translate properly is "to be" in the past tense: "was". Apart from the choice between the verbs ser and estar (see below), it is often very hard for English speakers to distinguish between contextual and narrative uses.
The future tense of the subjunctive is found mostly in old literature or legalese and is even misused in conversation by confusing it with the past tense (often due to the similarity of its charataristic suffix, "-ere", as opposed to the suffixes of the past tense, -era and -ese). Many Spanish speakers live their lives without ever knowing about or realizing the existence of the future subjunctive.
It survives in the common expression sea lo que fuere and the proverb allá donde fueres, haz lo que vieres (allá donde can be replaced by a la tierra donde or si a Roma).
The proverb illustrates how it used to be used:
The past anterior is rare nowadays and restricted to formal use.
It expresses a very fine nuance: the fact that an action occurs just after another [had] occurred, with words such as cuando, nada más and en cuanto ("when", "no sooner", "as soon as"). In English, we are forced to use either the simple past or the past perfect; Spanish has something specific between the two.
However, colloquial Spanish has lost this tense and this nuance, and the preterite must be used instead in all but the most formal of writing.
Ser expresses nature and estar expresses state.
See Romance copula for further information.
Verbs are negated by putting no before the verb.
Other negative words can either replace this no or occur after the verb:
Spanish verbs describing motion tend to emphasize direction instead of manner of motion. According to the pertinent classification, this makes Spanish a verb-framed language. This contrasts with English, where verbs tend to emphasize manner, and leave the direction of motion to helper particles, prepositions, or adverbs.
All Spanish nouns have one of two genders: masculine or inclusive and feminine or exclusive. Most adjectives and pronouns, and all articles indicate the gender of the noun they reference.
Nouns ending in o are typically masculine; a is typically feminine; other vowels and consonants are more often than not masculine, but many are feminine, particularly those referring to women (la madre) or ending in -ción or -dad (la nación, la soledad).
Words taken from foreign languages may:
;Names of people
People's names agree with the sex of the person, even if they appear to be the opposite:
;Rivers
Rivers are masculine because of the underlying masculine noun río. Locally, they may be feminine, but the masculine is always safe and correct.
Spanish nouns can be made by adding a very productive set of suffixes to existing nouns adn adjectives. This usually just slightly modifies the meaning, but sometimes it creates something new entirely.
The most common subset of such suffixes are the diminutives. The most common diminutive in Spanish is -ito. It is added to the end of the end, minus its final vowel. It conveyes the idea of little.
;Local flavour
The choice of diminutive is often a mark of regional dialects and influence of coexistent Romance languages. Educated speakers who would use -ito or no diminutive at all in more formal speech may use local forms when they want a friendlier or more colourful way of expressing themselves, sometimes borrowing another region's diminutive.
So, instead of the standard -ito, you could find:
Sometimes different suffixes are used for variety when more than one is used at once:
There are two grammatical numbers: singular and plural. Plural is indicated adding "s" or "es".
The feminine gender for most adjectives is formed in the same way as it is for declinable nouns, although most adjectives ending in a consonant or "e" remain unchanged: hombre superior, mujer superior (compare with el superior/la superiora); hombre importante, mujer importante (compare with el jefe, la jefa).
Instead of putting muy, "very" before an adjective, one can use a special form called the superlative to intensify an idea. This consists of the suffix -ísimo.
;Regular forms
;Forms that are irregular in high literary style, and regular normally
As in English and other languages influenced by it, a teenspeak superlative can be formed by the prefix super-, or sometimes hiper-, ultra- or requete-. They can also be written as adverbs separate from the word.
Nowadays, we have lost the third level, and so "that"/"there" covers the ground of "yon"/"yonder". Spanish, however, conserves the distinction.
Este therefore refers to something near the speaker. Ese refers to something near the person spoken to, or just not near the speaker. Aquel refers to something quite far away from both. The three levels therefore roughly correspond to the first, second and third persons that we find in the forms of verbs and personal pronouns.
The definite article in Spanish, corresponding to "the", is el. It agrees for gender and number as follows:
There is also a "neuter article", used before adjectives:
As in English, the plural indefinite article is not always required.
These are often known as possessive or genitive pronouns.
;Subject ("Nominative case")
Depending on the region, Latin Americans may also replace the singular tú with usted or vos. The choice of pronoun is a tricky issue and can even vary from village to village. Travellers are often advised to play it safe and call everyone usted.
A feature of the speech of the Dominican Republic and other areas where syllable-final /s/ is completely silent is that there is no audible difference between the second and third person singular form of the verb. This leads to redundant pronoun use, for example, the tagging on of ¿tú ves? (pronounced tuve) to the ends of sentences, where other speakers would say ¿ves?.
Vos was used in mediaeval Castilian as a polite form, like the French vous and the Italian voi, and it used the same forms as vosotros. This gave three levels of formality:
Other combinations are possible. Chileans may use standard vosotros endings for vos.
Colloquially, the infinitive is used instead of the true imperative for vosotros.
Not to be imitated by learners.
A centuries-old tendency in uneducated speech throughout the Spanish-speaking world is the addition of an -s to the second person singular of the preterite or simple past. For example, lo hicistes for lo hiciste; hablastes tú for hablaste tú. This is due to the fact that this is the only tense in which the tú form does not end in an -s. This solecism removes this irregularity.
Judaeo-Spanish has gone further with hablates.Verbs
Mood, tense and aspect — forms of the verb
Non-finite forms
The indicative
Next, there is the indicative mood, with its four simple tenses. Each one of these has a perfective form, a continuous form and a perfective continuous form, as in English. This makes for a total of fifteen simple and compound tenses (one is not used). However, in traditional descriptions of the Spanish verb, continuous forms are ignored, and only the simple tenses plus their perfective versions are counted as "tenses". Note that modern grammatical studies would count only the simple forms as "tenses", and the other forms as the product of a certain tense and a certain aspect.
;Perfective tenses: (i.e. each of the four basic tenses plus perfective aspect)
;Continuous tenses: (i.e. each of the four basic tenses plus continous aspect)
;Perfective continuous tenses: (i.e. each of the four basic tenses plus continous and perfective aspect)
Note again that only the first half of these forms are traditionally considered "tenses" when studying Romance languages.The subjunctive
The subjunctive mood has a separate conjugation table with fewer tenses. It is used to express the speaker's opinion or judgement, such as doubts, possibilities, emotions, and events which may or may not occur.
;Perfective tenses:
;Continuous tenses:
;Perfective continuous tenses:
The present subjunctive is formed from the stem of the first person present indicative of a verb. So for an irregular verb like salir with the first person salgo, the present subjunctive would be salga, not sala. The use of the imperfect subjunctive is determined by tense of the main verb of a sentence, not necessarily the tense of the subjunctive verb itself. The "-ra" form is always correct, whereas the "-se" form is only correct in certain types of clauses.The conditional
;Simple tenses:
;Perfective tenses:
;Continuous tenses:
;Perfective continuous tenses:
The imperative
The imperative mood only has two forms: the second person singular and plural, and these are only used in the positive. The subjunctive supplements the imperative in other cases.
The first person plural imperative, i.e. "Let's..." is expressed in any of three possible ways:
Examples of verbs conjugated
Here we include only simple tenses.
Perfective and continuous forms are easily put together by using the appropriate tense of estar + gerund or haber + past participle.Regular -ar verbs (amar)
Regular -er verbs (temer)
Regular -ir verbs (partir)
ser
estar
haber
tener
ir
Use of verbs
Contrasting simple and continuous forms
;Imperfect
;Preterite
Note that since the preterite by nature refers to an event seen as having a beginning and an end, and not as a context, the use of the continuous form of the verb only adds a feeling for the length of time spent on the action.Contrasting the present and the future
The future tense can also simply express guesses about the present:
The English future with "will" can also sometimes be used with this meaning.Contrasting the preterite and the imperfect
In the first two, it is clear that the shining refers to the background to the events that are about to unfold in the story. It is talking about "what was happening". We have a choice between making this explicit with the past continuous as in (2), or just using the simple past as in (1) and allowing the context to make it clear what we mean. In Spanish, these would be in the imperfect, optionally in the imperfect continuous.
Imperfect used for "was" in Spanish because it is the background to the specific event expressed by "got run over", in the preterite.
In both languages, the continous form for action in progress is optional, but Spanish requires the verb in either case to be in the imperfect, because it is the background to the specific event expressed by "got run over", in the preterite.
Imperfect used for both verbs since they refer to habits in the past. Either verb could optionally use the expression "used to" in English.
Preterite used if this refers to a single action or event, i.e. the person had or took a bath last night.
Imperfect used if this refers to any sort of habitual action, i.e. the person had or took a bath every morning. Optionally, solía bañarme can specifically express "I used to have a bath".
Preterite used if this refers to an event, i.e. a birth.
Imperfect if this refers to the number of children by a certain point, i.e. in "She had one daughter when I met her ten years ago; she may have more now". A description.
Here the preterite is used because it is an event. A good clue is the tense cogió is in.
Here the imperfect is used because it is a description (the start and end of the action is not presented; it is just something that was in progress at a certain time). A good clue is the tense of the other verbs.Contrasting the present and the future subjunctive
Contrasting the preterite and the past anterior
The use of hubo salido shows that the second action happened immediately after. Salió might imply it happened at the same time, and había salido might imply it happened some time after.Contrasting ser and estar
Negation
Expressing movement
Quite often, the important thing is the direction, not the manner. So, although "we drove away" translates into Spanish as nos fuimos en coche, it is often better to translate it as just nos fuimos. For example:Nouns
Gender
Types of noun (masc., vacillant, etc)
Nouns can be grouped in the following categories:
(Note: Some nouns ending in "e" that refer to persons are declinable, e.g., "presidente/a", whereas others are invariant, e.g., "estudiante". More often than not, nouns that refer to positions that are traditionally held by men are declinable.)Determining gender from endings
Gender of proper nouns (names)
;Names of settlements
Usage for places varies. You can choose between making them:
With examples like New York, the Nueva is a fixed part of the name and so cannot be made masculine.Diminutives and suffixes
Note how the suffix has the proper agreement for gender and number.
In fossilised forms, these can be found in standard words, such as burro → borrico, Venecia → Venezuela, etc.
;Other suffixes
As well as being an Andalusian (especially Seville) alternative to -ito, the suffix -illo is also a special diminutive with a nuance of "a funny sort of...". It is also used to create new nouns:
An example of an augmentative is -ón.
Number
Masculine gender is indicated in the plural with phrases such as los niños varones. Feminists (and their satirists) try to reverse the pattern with phrases such as las personas humanas jóvenes varones = the young male human people.Adjectives
The superlative
;Irregular forms
* These two forms keep the original meaning of the superlative: not "very" but "the most".
;Forms that are not felt a superlative anymore
Applying -ísimo to nouns is not frequent, but there is the famous case of Generalísimo.Determiners
Demonstrative determiners
Spanish has three levels of demonstratives. English also used to: we could talk of this hill (here), that hill (there) or yon hill (yonder) — esta colina, esa colina, aquella colina.Articles
Definite articles
The usually masculine form el is used instead of la before feminine nouns beginning with a stressed a sound:
Exceptions: la is used despite this when use of el would imply a man:
Azúcar is a very special case. Its a is unstressed, and yet it usually takes el even when feminine:
N.B.: this feminine el does not have the same origin as the masculine el. The latter is from the Old Castilian ele, whereas the former is from ela, just as la is.
This historic finesse is lost to those who use unstandard forms like los águilas.Indefinite articles
Near synonyms of unos include: unos cuantos, algunos and unos pocos.Possessive determiners
Pronouns
Personal pronouns
;Direct object ("Accusative case")
;Indirect object ("Dative case")
;Object of a preposition
;Possessive ("Genitive case")
Demonstrative pronouns
N.B.: According to a decisión of the Real Academia from the 1960s, the accents on these forms are only to be used when necessary to avoid ambiguity with the demonstrative determiners. However, the normal educated standard is still as above.Dialectal variations
Forms of address
The use of usted and ustedes as a polite form of address is fairly universal. However, there are variations in informal address. Ustedes replaces vosotros in much of Andalusia, the Canary Islands and Latin America, except in the most liturgical or poetic of styles. In some parts of Andalusia, the pronoun ustedes is used with the standard vosotros endings.Voseo
Whereas vos was lost in standard Spanish, some dialects lost tú, and began using vos as the informal pronoun. The exact connotations of the use of vos depend on the exact dialect. In most places it is associated with low socio-economic levels. In Argentina, however, it is used by everyone and is fully accepted. Argentinian voseo uses the pronoun vos for tú, but maintains te as an object pronoun and tu and tuyo as possessives. Verb forms are half-way between tú and vosotros forms, as exemplified by vos hablás, vos temés and vos partís.Vosotros imperative: -ar for -ad
Superfluous -s on tú form