Accidental Reflexive
The reflexive construction, used mainly with pronominal verbs, can also be used passively to describe accidental and unplanned occurrences. This is called la voz media in Spanish.
Mistakes and Difficulties
Spanish Mistakes and Difficulties
Errores, equivocaciones, malentendidos, confusiones
Improve your Spanish by looking out for and learning how to avoid some common Spanish mistakes.
B2 - Upper-Intermediate Spanish
Adjective Position
Spanish adjectives may be found before or after the nouns they modify, depending on various factors. Generally speaking, descriptive adjectives follow nouns, while limiting adjectives precede nouns.
B1 - Intermediate Spanish • word order
Ahora
You probably learned that the Spanish equivalent for “now” is ahora. While this is a very important word, it’s not necessarily the right one when you want something to be done right now.
Avoiding Transference Errors
A transference error is a certain type of mistake, common to foreign language learners, which can be particularly difficult to stop making. The hardest part is becoming aware of the error; once you’ve done that, it’s just a matter of figuring out the correction and practicing your way to perfection.
Capitalization
The use of capital letters (las mayúsculas) is far less common in Spanish than in English. Take a look at this summary of words that are capitalized in English but not in Spanish.
Diphthongs + Hiatus
When a Spanish word has two vowels side by side, various pronunciation issues come into play: syllable division, diphthongs, and hiatus.
Double Pronoun Order
Sometimes one pronoun just isn’t enough. A Spanish sentence might need both a direct and indirect object, or a reflexive pronoun plus an object. These "double pronouns" cannot be separated, but the word order is very simple.
B1 - Intermediate Spanish • word order
Enlace / Encadenamiento
Enlace or encadenamiento is the phenomenon in Spanish whereby each word seems to run into the next, as if there are no boundaries between them.
B2 - Upper-Intermediate Spanish
Está vs Hay Quiz: La Habana
Test yourself on the difference between está and hay in this fill-in-the-blanks exercise:
Note: You must be logged into your Progress with Lawless Spanish account to take this test. If you don’t have one, sign up – it’s free!
Falsos amigos
One of the great things about learning Spanish is that many words have the same roots in the Romance languages and English. However, there are also a great many falsos amigos, or false friends, which look similar but are in fact very different.