Orthography

1 Solo Solo is an adjective with variation in gender and number; it is used with nouns or pronouns, and means sin compañía. Masculine Feminine Singular solo sola Plural solos solas Yo solo trabajo mejor; no me gusta que me molesten. (Él) está solo desde que murió su perro. If these masculine clauses may turn… Continue reading Solo and sólo

1 Sino is an adversative conjunction and requires of a negation in the main clause. Introduce an affirmation after a negation. No es pequeño sino diminuto. No fui yo sino él. When a conjugated verb appears, the conjunction que is necesary too. No aprobó sino que suspendió. No fui yo sino que fue él. It… Continue reading Sino and si no

1 Por que may be the attachment of the preposition por plus the relative pronoun que. It is used when the preposition requires of it. Por que may be replaced by el cual and its derivatives, or by el / la / los / las + que. La carretera por que pasamos siempre hoy está… Continue reading Por que, porque, porqué and ¿por qué?

1 Que is a pronoun in relative or adjectival clauses. If que is a relative pronoun, it may be replaced by el cual, la cual, los cuales or las cuales. When que is a conjunction this replacement is not possible. See Passive sentences 2 Qué appears in interrogative and exclamatory clauses. See Exclamation Interrogation 3… Continue reading Que and qué

The Academia de la Lengua Española offers guidelines to punctuate a text. Many times, several options are offered to the same case. When punctuating a text, the coherence should lead; i.e. always keep the options taken in the same text. 1 Comma The comma usually shows a short pause in the clause. A comma is… Continue reading Punctuation

1 We write with capital letters: The first word of a text and the first word after full-stop. All the proper names: Juan, Juanito, Barcelona, París, Moscú, Cantinflas. However are in small letter: la luz de la luna, la luz del sol, y la tierra. The geographical names formed by noun and adjective also are… Continue reading Capital and small letters

1 A diphthong is the attachment of a closed vowel (i, u) to an open one (a, o, e), or viceversa; also of two closed vowels. The two vowels are pronounced as one sound. Combinations of two open vowels like eo de Mediterráneo do not form diphthong; are hiatus. Next examples correspond to general rules… Continue reading Diphthongs, triphthongs and hiatus

1 Most of thewords have one stressed syllable, but Spanish do not write accent mark on all of them.The accentuation mark depends on the number of syllables and on the word ending. 2 Palabras agudas, llanas, esdrújulas and sobresdrújulas words. Agudas: the stressed syllable is the last one: comedor, camión, balcón, comer, cantar, Canadá, cristal.… Continue reading Accentuation

In Spanish there is a limited number of possible syllables. 1 Consonant + vowel These are the combinations of consonant + vowel: a e i o u ha he hi ho hu y ba be bi bo bu va ve vi vo vu wa wi ca que qui co cu ka ke ki ko ku… Continue reading Spelling: general