Español 7
NOTAS DE GRAMÁTICA
el 29 de septiembre del 2011
Señorita Marciano
¡Vamos a escribir! How to write in Spanish
Writing in Spanish might sound scary, but once you know the rules and
order of words within the Spanish sentence structure, you will find that it’s
not very difficult at all. In fact, you may even discover that writing in
Spanish could be easier than English!
1) In order to be able to notice the differences between Spanish and
English, let’s first examine the structure of a sentence in English:
I am an American student.
Now, ask yourself: Who is the subject of this sentence? Where is
the subject pronoun? Where is the verb? Are there any adjectives? Are
there any nouns? Is there anything special about the punctuation in this
sentence?
Once you find all the solutions, make note of them around the
sentence:
I am an American student.
2) Now, take that same sentence and notice how it would be written in
Spanish:
Yo soy un alumno americano.
Yo soy una alumna americana.
You should be asking yourself the same questions about this Spanish
sentence as you did for the sentence in English. However, now you should
notice several differences between the styles of writing. Jot down the
differences that you’ve noticed in the space below:
Rules and Structure of the Spanish Sentence
Now that you’ve seen some examples, it’s time to formally address the
mechanics of the Spanish sentence.
1) Most of the punctuation rules are the same!
Whether you’re writing in English, Spanish, Italian… etc., You sentence
must always begin with a capital letter and end with some form of
punctuation to indicate the thought is complete!
End a sentence with either: a period, an exclamation point, or a
question mark.
2) Pronouns are still pronouns; verbs are still verbs… And so on.
Parts of speech do not change meaning just because you’re now writing
and speaking in Spanish. A verb is still an action. A pronoun still
indicates who is being spoken of. A noun is still a person, place, or
thing, and an adjective is still a describing word which modifies a noun.
3) In Spanish, they say and write everything “backwards.”
In English, we’re used to writing our adjective before our nouns
(“black cat.”) However, in Spanish the adjective goes after it’s noun
and must always agree with it’s noun in number and gender.
(For example):
La camisa negra. (f)
=
The black shirt.
El pelo castaño.
(m) =
The brown hair.
Los ojos azules.
=
The blue eyes.
4) Exclamation points and question marks are written twice.
In written Spanish, the writer wants to indicate to their audience
that they’re asking a question or exclaiming something important.
Therefore, they place these types of punctuation at both the
beginning of the sentence as well as at the end. When the question
mark or exclamation point is put at the beginning, they are written
upside-down.
(For example):
¿Cómo te llamas?
=
What is your name?
¡Buena suerte!
=
Good luck!
Now that we are more confident in our knowledge of Spanish sentence
structure, it’s time to put what we’ve learned into practice! PRACTICE
MAKES PERFECT! 