Modern Spanish Grammar: A Practical Guide

39.3.4 En In the context of location, the single word en has different translations in English, for example: Ramón está en su ha ...

39.3.8 Sobre The basic meaning of sobre is ‘on top of’, but it also translates into English as ‘on’, ‘over’, ‘above’ and ‘near’. ...

Está a la vuelta de la esquina. It is round the corner. The preposition a is not needed in phrases like the following: Está (muy ...

40 Expressing possessive relations This chapter examines the forms used by Spanish speakers to express possession and to enquire ...

Alicia es una gran amiga mía. (adjective) Alicia is a good friend of mine. Hoy llega una tía suya. (adjective) An aunt of his/he ...

He invitado a los padres de mi novia. I have invited my fiancée’s parents. 40.1.4 Pertenecer Ownership is sometimes expressed wi ...

Note the omission of the possessive when propio follows the noun, as in Tiene coche propio.
^10 (p. 42) 40.3 Expressing posses ...

¿A quién pertenece este solar? Whose is this piece of land? ¿A quién pertenecen esas tierras? Whose is that land?
^10 (p. 42) ...

41 Expressing changes In English, transformations experienced by the subject are expressed in a number of ways, which are not al ...

Se puso celoso. He became jealous. Está celoso de Álvaro. He is jealous of Álvaro.
 22.2 (p. 105) An exception to the use of p ...

El nuevo camarero se ha vuelto muy perezoso. The new waiter has turned very lazy. La ciudad se está volviendo insoportable. The ...

Gracias a su esfuerzo, Antonio llegó a ser director de la empresa. Thanks to his effort, Antonio became director of the company. ...

41.6 Other ways of expressing change Transformations are sometimes expressed with verbs like transformarse en, ‘to become transf ...

42 Describing processes and results In its first part, this chapter looks at the various forms used by Spanish speakers to refer ...

Mira, primero frío la cebolla y luego agrego los champiñones. Look, first I fry the onion and then I add the mushrooms. Una vez ...

Note that hay que emphasizes the precise action to be undertaken while carrying out a process, while the third person plural of ...

(singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine) with the grammatical subject. Its use in the spoken language is uncommon, exce ...

42.2.1.1 With a transitive verb As in the examples above, the state referred to can be the result of an action from a transitive ...

La casa fue decorada para la Navidad. The house was decorated for Christmas. (they decorated the house) La casa estaba decorada ...

43 Expressing cause, effect and purpose As in English, there are many different ways of expressing cause, effect and purpose in ...