Language/Spanish/Grammar/Common-Mistakes

COMMON MISTAKES IN SPANISH / ERRORES COMUNES EN ESPAÑOL

Today we will explain the most frequent mistakes made by Spanish learners.

The verbs "ser" and "estar"

Most Anglophone and Francophone students have difficulties learning the difference between these verbs, since in English and French there is only one verb to express both, "être" in French and "to be" in English. Thus we find errors like "estoy soy alemana" or "soy estoy enferma" ("I am German", "I am ill").

In general, the verb "ser" is used to identify people and to express possession (Eg. "es amigo de mi padre", "el libro es de mi hermana". "He is my father's friend", "the book belongs to my sister") and the verb "estar" indicates a place, condition or variable state (Eg. "estoy muy contenta", "el chocolate está en el armario". "I'm very happy", "the chocolate is in the cupboard").

The subjunctive

It is a verbal mode very used in Spanish and one of the richest in forms but in other languages ​​it is not used.

This is why students mistake the indicative and the subjunctive modes (Eg. "no creo que sea cierto que Elisa está enferma"). In English auxiliaries express the subjunctive mode (Eg. "it is important that he should come") and in French the imperfect of the subjunctive mode is almost non-existent, as it is replaced with the imperfect of the indicative mode (Eg. "si je savais". "Si yo supiera").

Similarly, in French the future of the indicative mode is used instead of the Spanish present of the subjunctivemode (Eg. "cuando puedas ven a verme". "Viens me voir quand tu arriveras").

In general, Spanish uses the indicative mode to express real facts and the subjunctive mode to express hypotheses or desires. (Eg. "María me dijo que había comprado un ordenador". "María va a comprar un ordenador cuando encuentre trabajo").

The simple past and the imperfect of the indicative mode

Anglophone students usually confuse these two verb tenses, since the imperfect does not exist in English. English uses the continuous past or the simple past plus temporal marks to express usual actions (Eg. "she was always asking me for money", "when I was a student I often went to the gym"). In general, one uses the imperfect to speak of the usual and repeated actions in the past (Ex. "cuando era pequeña iba al cine todos los domingos". "When I was young I used to go to the movies every Sunday") and the simple past to speak of actions completed in the past (Eg. "ayer fui al cine". "I went to the movies yesterday").

Prepositions

Each preposition in Spanish has multiple uses and, although they have their equivalent in other languages, their uses are very different, which is complicated for beginners. For example, the preposition "a" is similar in form to the French preposition "à" but, in French, it is used to express the complements of the name (Eg. "machine à écrire") while Spanish uses the preposition "de" (Eg. "máquina de escribir").

Similarly, Spanish uses the preposition "en" to express place (Eg. "en el hospital"), which can correspond to three prepositions in English, "in", "at" and "on".

Gerund

The misuse of the gerund form -ing is very common too. In English you can say "I went to sleep after finishing the book", which could be translated as "me fui a dormir después terminando el libro". The correct way is "me fui a dormir después de terminar el libro".

Verbs in past must have the accent in the "ó"

When you are talking about some action in the past with end in "e, i, o", you musn´t forget the the accent "é, í, ó". If the word (the action) does not have the accent, change the word meaning, and the sentence meaning. For example:

Yo ayer compré platanos (Yesterday I bought bananas)

Los platanos son saludables, compre platanos (The bananas are healthy, buy bananas)

Yo corrí en el parque (I ran in the park)

Yo corro en el parque (I run in the park)