Hello, I am a beginner, learning spanish on my own.
Sentence structure is subject+verb+object?
Not always
Spanish has a VERY flexible word order
The basic sentence structure [declarative] is subject + verb + object [(tú) estás bien "you are okay"]
Questions [interrogative sentences] are verb + subject + object [¿Cómo estás tú? = "How are you?"]
Some exclamatory sentences also do this.
The difficult part of this is that sometimes declarative statements will do verb + subject + object for emphasis
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The other big issue with this is that objects can sometimes by object pronouns which you won't see for a while but just be aware that something like compro flores "I buy flowers" turns into las compro "I buy them" where las flores is feminine plural so the direct object pronoun is las
In other words, a lot of object pronouns [direct, indirect, and reflexive] come before the conjugated verb
And this becomes more fluid if you have helping verbs - quiero comprar las flores "I want to buy the flowers"... but you could say las quiero comprar "I want to buy them" OR quiero comprarlas "I want to buy them" and both are totally valid
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In short, if you're just starting out it's enough to say that most basic sentences are subject + verb + object; questions are almost always verb + subject + object
And as you go forward just be aware that the word order is EXTREMELY malleable and try not to worry too much; you will often see many example sentences all over the place so you get more of a sense of what is common or how it reads as more emphatic in certain cases
You won't learn it all at once so don't feel overwhelmed
i found a sentence that said "aquí te espero" which translate to "i'll wait for you here" and i wanted to know why
i read the sentence literally as "here you i wait for," so i ended up understanding the meaning eventually, but i see sentences like this a lot where the literal english translation seems to be "backwards" from the original Spanish.
what grammar rule makes it so that "aquí" and "te" are both before "espero" and when (if ever) is that rule broken, and how?
In Spanish the syntax [word order] has a lot of variability, but there are some rules at play here
I would say it's easier to think of it like this: in Spanish there's the subject and the predicate. The predicate is a whole entire bunch of words not just the verb. The subject has much more freedom, and can appear in different places. But the predicate has more specific rules.
A short example and I'll explain more below:
Hago eso. = I do that.
Lo hago. = I do it.
Yo lo hago. = I am the one who does that.
Lo hago yo. = /I/ am the one who does that.
The yo has a lot of freedom to appear or not appear, and it can change places depending on emphasis. However, you'll notice that the lo can only appear before the hago
That's what I mean by the predicate having specific rules. Object pronouns have specific rules and can't appear just anywhere.
Your adverbs and the actual subjects are freer than the object pronouns; so they can be wherever for emphasis
So to answer your question:
Te espero aquí. = I'm waiting for you here.
Aquí te espero. = Here is where I will wait for you.
The second one sounds a bit more emphatic or perhaps poetic to me personally, but not incorrect. It doesn't entirely sound natural for English-speakers but Spanish has a lot of freedom in its syntax.
Now the grammar...
First, the te.
The te is an object marker [I think it's a direct object pronoun if I'm not mistaken]
Without going into too much detail on the actual grammar, there are direct objects [the things that receive the action], indirect objects [to whom or for whom something is done], and the pronomials which are typically reflexive markers [a reflexive is when the subject and object are the same; like lavar el piso "to wash the floor" vs. lavarse "to wash oneself"]
Again, very quickly just for the sake of explanation:
Direct objects -> me, te, lo / la, los / las, nos, os
Indirect objects -> me, te, le, les, nos, os
Pronomials/Reflexives -> me, te, se, nos, os
According to the general rules for word order, if you have one conjugated verb, your object pronouns will ALWAYS go before the verb:
Lo quiero. = I want it. [direct object]
Me gusta. = I like it. [indirect object; lit. "it pleases me"]
Me siento. = I am sitting down. [reflexive, from sentarse]
Me siento (bien/alegre/triste). = I am feeling (good/happy/sad). [reflexive, from sentirse; which in yo looks like sentarse but otherwise they conjugate differently]
This also applies to when you're using indirect + direct objects, and reflexive + direct objects. And that's the order they follow. I learned to memorize it by ID and R&D as a learning device:
Te mando el paquete. = I'm sending you the package.
Te lo mando. = I am sending it to you.
Te mando la carta. = I'm sending you the letter.
Te la mando. = I am sending it to you.
Me lavo las manos. = I wash my hands.
Me las lavo. = I wash them.
Me pongo la camisa. = I am putting on the shirt.
Me la pongo. = I am putting it on.
Me quito el sombrero. = I am taking off the hat.
Me lo quito. = I am taking it off.
[lit. me lavo las manos is "I wash myself the hands"; because if it's reflexive it can only be "my own" hands. If you washed someone else's hands that's a different construction]
*Note: In their infinitive forms [the dictionary forms; hablar, comer, vivir etc. - an unconjugated verb], the reflexive ones end in -se. This is especially true if they change meaning; levantar "to raise" or "to lift" vs. levantarse "to get up" or "to stand up"
This same order also applies to commands... for example cómpralo is "buy it" made up of attaching the lo to a conjugation of comprar "to buy". You could make it indirect for cómprale "buy it for him/her". And as a reflexive (or possibly indirect) + direct object command - cómpratelo "buy it for yourself"
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Where you see more variation for object pronouns is when you have one conjugated verb and one unconjugated verb
You have two options: everything in front, or attach it all to the unconjugated verb:
Lo quiero comprar. = I want to buy it.
Quiero comprarlo. = I want to buy it.
Le voy a mandar la carta. = I am going to send him/her the letter.
Voy a mandarle la carta. = I am going to send him/her the letter.
No se van a acordar de eso. = They aren't going to remember that.
No van a acordarse de eso. = They aren't going to remember that.
...I'm also purposefully not mentioning indirect 3rd person + indirect 3rd person because the indirect object le/les turns to se when you have lo/la used and it's annoying but if you'd like more information:
Anatomy of Spanish: Direct Objects
Anatomy of Spanish: Indirect Objects
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Same also applies if you end up using a progressive [verbs typically ending in -ando, -iendo, or sometimes -yendo]
La estás asustando. = You're scaring her.
Estás asustándola. = You're scaring her.
Les sigo contando la historia. = I keep telling them the story. / I continue to tell them the story.
Sigo contándoles la historia. = I keep telling them the story. / I continue to tell them the story.
Se están enamorando. = They're falling in love.
Están enamorándose. = They're falling in love.
You may also find multiple verbs chained together and same rule applies:
No te puedo seguir mintiendo. = I can't keep lying to you.
No puedo seguir mintiéndote. = I can't keep lying to you.
...
In general I'd say whichever you choose is valid. Sometimes one is regionally preferred, though at least where I am in the US it's more common to add your object pronouns at the very end if there's multiple verbs, especially if there's a lot of them
Note: In a negative construction that the no or negation word comes before any object pronoun or verb; this is just to make it clear that the whole thing is negative
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Second, the adverbs. Adverbs have much more changeability than object pronouns, but they generally follow patterns.
Adverbs typically come at the very beginning of the clause or at the very end of it
In this case "here" is an adverb [describing the "waiting"]
You could say either te espero aquí or aquí te espero
It's the difference between "I'll wait for you here" and "here I will wait"
The more words or adverbs or expressions you add, the more you can add variation - often with commas:
Te estaré esperando aquí mismo. = I will be waiting for you right here.
Estaré esperándote aquí mismo. = I will be waiting for you right here.
Te espero esta noche. = I'll wait for you tonight.
Esta noche te espero. = Tonight I'll wait for you.
Ya no te puedo esperar. = I can't wait for you anymore.
Ya no puedo esperarte. = I can't wait for you anymore.
No puedo seguir esperándote. = I can't keep waiting for you.
No te puedo seguir esperando. = I can't keep waiting for you.
Aquí mismo, y con muchas ganas, te espero. = Right here, with great excitement/anticipation, I'm waiting for you.
Te estoy esperando aquí mismo en el jardín. = I'm waiting for you right here in the garden.
Estoy esperándote, aquí y ahora, en el jardín. = I'm waiting for you, right here right now, in the garden.
Aquí y ahora y con muchas ganas te espero. = Right here and now, I'm eagerly awaiting you.
I have personally found that the more verbs you add, the more you find it all attached to the verb in the end.
And so on. You get the idea. Some constructions are more popular than others, but all make sense and are considered valid in context.
The te and its placement has strict rules, but everything else is kind of loose. You'll notice that te is always attached to the verb, either right before it or right after it depending on if there are other verbs.
I find that in these kinds of expressions it's all about what you feel is right and what you feel emphasizes the right thing. Spanish is very flexible.
How do you ask questions in Spanish? How do you turn a word like puedo (i can) instead into a question like can i?
In written Spanish, it's a matter of the question marks:
Puedo. = I can.
¿Puedo? = Can I?
Most basic sentences can be rephrased as questions:
Puedo ir al baño. = I can go to the bathroom.
¿Puedo ir al baño? = Can I go to the bathroom?
Me permites ir al baño. = You allow me to go to the bathroom.
¿Me permites ir al baño? = May I go to the bathroom. / Would you allow me to go to the bathroom?
The upside down question mark begins the part of the sentence in written Spanish, so it's very easy to tell where the question begins and how you should read something:
Y tú estás bien. = And you're okay. [statement]
Y tú, ¿estás bien? = And you, are you okay? [question with an vocative comma]
The important thing about interrogative statements/grammar is that in most cases the subject will follow after the verb in most cases for questions (if one is stated/needed)... which is generally the opposite of what happens in the average declarative statement. This is because changing the word order can create emphasis by attracting the eye to something different
Usted está bien. = You are okay.
¿Está bien usted? = Are you okay?
(Tú) Estás bien. = You are okay.
¿Cómo estás (tú)? = How are you?
There are also some grammar things related to the placement of object pronouns [like ¿me permites ir?] but generally you get a feel for that the more you speak Spanish and see it. It becomes more intuitive as you go
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In spoken Spanish questions are mostly a matter of inflection. They follow the same grammar as stated above
When you're saying a declarative statement people tend to have a neutral tone or what you might call a "falling tone" [commands in particular tend to have a harsher falling tone] where your voice tends to drop
If you're asking a question, just like in English (and most other languages I think) when you're asking a question you tend to have what's called a "rising tone" where your voice goes up
You can test that out just by trying to say "I can" vs. "I can?" if you have the question mark your voice tends to naturally rise - and that's the essence of a rising tone
Can you explain Spanish syntax a bit? I thought it was SVO but a lot of the time it doesn't look like that, and adverbs and stuff will be in different places than in English. The obvious difference is that adjectives go after nouns. I know that one, but for the other ones I still feel like my Spanish is "backward" when I'm following English syntax.
Spanish syntax is more flexible than English syntax, and so it can come across as more… poetically set up.
In standard Spanish it’s more SVO [subject verb object] like voy al banco “I’m going to the bank”
[side note: the subject is actually the most changeable part of it because it can be reorganized to give emphasis in different places… voy al banco is standard, yo voy al banco while mentioning the subject is “I (specifically) am going to the bank”, and then voy al banco yo sounds maybe more impatient or forceful like “I’ll go to the bank” in kind of a “well I guess I’LL be the one going to the bank” or in context it could sound like “I’m the one who goes to the bank (not anyone else)]
But it can be written as something like al banco voy which sounds more like “to the bank I go” or “it’s off to the bank I go”. It’s not as common in normal everyday Spanish.
It used to be more common to see verbs placed at the end of sentences, and that was more literary and poetic. By putting the verb at the end, you draw the reader’s attention there, and effectively leave them hanging while you expound on things.
In poetry it makes sense to have verbs at the end of stanzas; most verbs conjugate regularly, so it’s much easier to rhyme a verb. It’s the same with lyrics and singing. Anything done for the sake of rhyme is a lot easier when your verbs are regular ones and their conjugational forms rhyme with each other.
Where it is different is that the order of objects changes depending on the mood and the number of conjugated verbs. You see it mostly through example:
lo envío = I send it / I’m sending it
lo quiero enviar = I want to send it [accepted]quiero enviarlo = I want to send it [more common, accepted]
quiero que lo envíes = I want you to send it [subjunctive]quieren que lo envíe = they want me to send it [subjunctive]
envíalo = send it [command]no lo envíes = don’t send it [negative command]
When it’s objects [direct or indirect, and sometimes reflexives], it’s more changeable depending on how you phrase something.
Like above you might say me acuerdo “I remember”, or me quiero acordar / quiero acordarme “I want to remember” and that one has two possible forms.
In subjunctive, it works sort of the same as indicative… es posible que no te acuerdes “it’s possible you don’t remember” or es posible que no te quieras acordar / es posible que no quieras acordarte “it’s possible you don’t want to remember”
Commands [the imperative mood] are always making you attach the object or reflexive pronouns in affirmative; in negative commands it works like subjunctive for the most part. Saying “send it” or sometimes you might see something like acuérdate “remember” tack on the pronouns.
Where most people get a little tripped up in regular Spanish is when you’re talking about syntax in regular declarative statements vs. interrogative statements.
In declarative statements [sentences ending with a period], it’s usually the same as listed above:
Yo soy… = I am…
Estoy en la biblioteca. = I am in the library.
Voy al banco. = I’m going to the bank.
In an interrogative sentence [one that asks a question and typically uses the question mark] the order switches to something closer to VSO [verb subject object] or sometimes VOS [verb object subject]:
¿Quién soy? = Who am I?¿Quién soy yo? = Who am I? [more emphatic and common for this example it’s like “who AM I?”]
¿Dónde estoy? = Where am I?¿Dónde estás tú? = Where are you?¿Cómo estás tú? = How are you?¿Cómo están tus padres? = How are your parents?
¿Adónde voy? = Where am I going?¿Adónde vas (tú)? = Where are you going?¿Adónde te vas? = Where are you going? / Where are you off to?
You can change the order a bit by adding a smaller clause, I think it would be called a subordinate clause or a relative clause, but they’d go at the beginning of the sentence and then you’d add the question:
Y tú, ¿cómo estás? = And you, how are you?¿Cómo estás? Y tus padres, ¿cómo están? = How are you? And your parents, how are they?
Y tú… ¿no lo sabías? = And you… didn’t know?
Tú lo hiciste, ¿o me equivoco? = You did it, or am I wrong?Lo hiciste tú, ¿o me equivoco? = You were the one who did it, or am I wrong?
No puede ser A ni B, así que ¿será o C o D? = It can’t be A or B, so it would be either C or D?
The interrogative syntax, especially when you mix it with declarative (and/or exclamatory) has a lot of variability.
Spanish syntax is a lot more fluid than English syntax, but I haven’t found much that specifically goes into syntax without it being a linguistics thing. I haven’t found that many “rules” exactly… it’s sort of like… you study Spanish for a while, and you hear and see how other people phrase things, and then sometimes things just feel “right” or “wrong”.
Interrogative sentences are the ones that have the most “rules” since it’s typically the verb goes first, unless you’re using an evocative kind of thing [like… Ana, ¿adónde vas? “Ana, where are you going?”]
But regular declarative sentences are more changeable. I will say that SVO tends to be more common today, but more flowery or academic writing does mix up the syntax for dramatic effect.
Hi! I've got a little problem with adjectives. Why do my examples say "la peor estudiante", but "los hombres tradicionales"? Why would peor not come after estudiante?
There are just some adjectives that go in front all the time, or some adjectives that mean different things depending on placement.
Adjectives that always go in front:
definite articles (el, la, los, las)
indefinite articles (un, una, unos, unas)
mucho/a and poco/a
tan and tanto/a
cuál and cuánto/a
cómo de and qué tan
Demonstratives (este, esta, ese, esa, aquel, aquella)
Possessives (mi, tu, su, nuestro, vuestro)
Ordinal numbers (primer-a, segundo/a, tercer-a)
más and menos
mejor and peor
(There are possibly others I’m forgetting)
It’s generally what they consider “determiners” that go in front for Spanish, which are normally the ones listed above. They most often have to deal with quality and quantity of things.
There are other adjectives where it could be either way, but they mean different things. There aren’t a ton of them, but some of them are really common.
For example:
Mi viejo amigo. = My old friend. [“my long-time friend”]
Mi amigo viejo. = My friend who is old. [meaning “elderly”]
You also see that with words like antiguo/a, mismo/a, triste, and a few others like bueno/a or malo/a
For example, antiguo/a normally means “old” or “ancient”, but when it’s put in front it usually takes on the meaning of “former” like mi antiguo jefe “my former boss”, unless you see it in front of a place like la Antigua Grecia “Ancient Greece”
mismo/a is another really important one because:
la misma persona = the same person
la persona misma = the person themselves
Put in back, mismo/a is often “itself” or refers to the self in some way, while in front you’d see it as “same”
It gets a little weird if you see mismísimo/a used which is like el mismísimo rey “the very same king”, or “the king himself” where it means someone illustrious.
triste is a strange one where put in front it means “miserable” or “unfortunate”, while in back of an adjective it means “sad” like the emotion so you usually see la gente triste but then el triste día
There are others but you can usually tell from context that it’s meant to be different.
*A weird case is bello/a normally means “beautiful” and is put in the back of most nouns. You do see las bellas artes for “the fine arts” though.
What can also be confusing is that sometimes adjectives go in front just to show that they’re different or more important. It happens more in poetry than it does in regular speech, but when you see it, it’s meant to be taken as “it’s the most important thing about this noun”. It usually happens with colors and beauty.
Like la mujer bella is “the beautiful woman” but then la bella mujer “the BEAUTIFUL woman”
In this sense, you understand bella to be “exquisite” or an astounding beauty rather than just regular “beautiful”
But this happens all the time in poetry and when you do it a lot in regular Spanish, you come off sounding pretentious.
Has Spanish got rules as "subject+verb+object" in English?
Yes, though a little different than English, mostly the same. In modern Spanish, it’s typically Subject + Verb + Object
Syntax in Spanish is a little different depending on if it’s a declarative sentence (that ends in a period), or interrogative (if it ends in a ?), where the word order changes, but most of the time it follows like English.
And there are times when you can alter the syntax to imply frustration, confusion, disbelief, or imply different kinds of emphasis.
For example… ella va al banco is “she goes to the bank” while if you said va al banco ella it would be “SHE’S the one who goes to the bank”
Things also get a little more complicated when you add object pronouns.
About Spanish - Word order for different situations; questions, exclamations, commands, statements…
Cambridge University Press - Very much a more Spanish linguistics kind of guide for Spanish syntax. I would recommend hitting the control + F and typing “interrogative” to get to where you want.
I'm working on a paper and I'm looking for some help with syntax. In English I'd say, "In Spanish literature, there is......" but in Spanish, should I say, "En la literatura española hay..." or "Hay en la literature española..."?
Generally it’s the first option.
The second option is also okay, but I would include commas “Hay, en la literatura…, ____”
It’s the difference between “In Spanish literature, there is/are ___” vs. “There is, in Spanish literature, ___”
