The small words that give you away

Double negatives, muy against mucho, question marks, accents, and words that lie.

None of these will stop you being understood, and all of them are noticed. They are the difference between Spanish that works and Spanish that sounds like Spanish — and because none of them causes a misunderstanding, nobody ever corrects them for you.

Each takes about five minutes to learn and then stays learned. Of everything on this site this is the best return on the time.

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Two negatives are correcta1

no veo nada

Why English speakers get this wrong. English forbids the double negative. Spanish requires it, and the English habit produces sentences that sound broken.

The rule: If a negative word follows the verb, "no" goes before it.

Or put the negative word first and drop the "no": nada veo. Both are right; the second is emphatic.

Check yourself

1. ___ quiero nada. — noThe no is required before the verb.
2. ___ hay nadie en casa. — noSame rule.
3. Nunca ___ tarde. — llegoNegative first means no second "no".

muy vs muchoa1

very vs a lot, and they never stack

Why English speakers get this wrong. English uses "very" and "much" loosely and even together ("very much"). Spanish assigns them different jobs.

The rule: muy + adjective or adverb. mucho + noun, or after a verb.

And mucho agrees when it goes with a noun: mucha agua, muchos libros. "Very much" is one word: muchísimo.

Check yourself

1. La casa es ___ bonita. — muyBefore an adjective: muy.
2. Tengo ___ hambre. — muchahambre is a feminine noun.
3. Trabaja ___. — muchoAfter a verb: mucho.
4. Es ___ tarde. — muytarde is an adverb here.

Asking a questiona1

no "do", and two question marks

Why English speakers get this wrong. English builds questions with "do" and by shuffling the words. Spanish does neither — it just changes the tune.

The rule: ¿Hablas español? Same words, question marks at both ends.

Question words take an accent: qué, quién, dónde, cuándo, cómo, cuánto. Without the accent they mean something else: "que" is "that".

Check yourself

1. ¿___ te llamas? — cómoA question word takes the accent.
2. ¿___ vives? — dóndeAccented in a question.
3. ¿___ cuesta? — cuántoAccented in a question.

The accent is not decorationa2

it changes the word

Why English speakers get this wrong. English has no written stress, so an accent looks optional. In Spanish it is often the only difference between two words.

The rule: Where two words are spelt the same, the accent marks the stressed or questioning one.

It also marks where the stress falls, which changes the tense: hablo (I speak) versus habló (he spoke). Getting it wrong on paper changes who did it and when.

Check yourself

1. ___ quieres, vamos. — siThis one is "if".
2. ___ eres mi amigo. — túThis one is "you".
3. Es ___ hermano. — tuThis one is "your".
4. Ayer ___ con María. — hablóPast tense takes the accent.

Words that liea2

they look English and mean something else

Why English speakers get this wrong. A word that looks familiar is one you will never look up, so the mistake survives for years.

The rule: When a Spanish word looks exactly like an English one, be suspicious.

Some of these are merely wrong. "Estoy embarazada" in front of your colleagues is not merely wrong.

Check yourself

1. Estoy muy ___ por lo que dije. — avergonzadoEmbarazada means pregnant.
2. La ___ está a la derecha. — salidaÉxito means success.
3. ___ vivo en Madrid. — actualmenteCurrently: actualmente.
4. Compré el libro en la ___. — libreríaA shop, not a library.

Keep going

Reading a rule is not the same as producing it under time pressure, which is the only thing that makes it stick. Lunosia drills every point on this page, corrects what you say out loud, and brings your own mistakes back days later until you can fix them from memory.

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