Modern Spanish Grammar: A Practical Guide

Basta tener dinero. It’s enough to have money. (indefinite subject for tener dinero) Nos basta tener dinero. It’s enough for us ...

esperar: Espero ir a la universidad. I hope to go to university. evitar: Evitaré pagar más impuestos. I’ll avoid paying more tax ...

But: Decidimos que María nos comprara dos kilos. We decided that María should buy two kilos for us. (=We decided that María shou ...

bajar: Mi madre bajó a ver lo que pasaba. My mother came down to see what was happening. comenzar: Comencé a estudiar a los diec ...

26.2.2.3 Withde Verbs in this category often have a rather negative meaning. They include a substantial number of reflexive verb ...

complacerse: Nos complacemos en recibirles. We take pleasure in giving you hospitality. consentir: Consentimos en verlos. We agr ...

optar: ¿Optaste por fin por estudiar empresariales? Did you choose to do management studies in the end? terminar: Termino por ci ...

27 Conjunctions Conjunctions are linking words which establish relations between similar items in a sentence, or between sentenc ...

27.1.4 Ni ... ni ... Ni... ni... corresponds to English ‘neither... nor.. .’: Ni José ni Paco lo sabía. Neither José nor Paco kn ...

Donot use pues at the beginning of a sentence in this sense: use one of the other conjunctions. Pues is one of the commonest fil ...

después de que‘after’ en cuanto‘as soon as’ hasta que‘until’ mientras‘while’ siempre que‘whenever’ NOTE (1) Antes de que always ...

28 Word order 28.1 Statements 28.1.1 The order of basic elements Spanish has more word order possibilities than English. Objects ...

(c) –Tu padre ¿cuándo fue capitán de artillería? ‘When was your father an artillery captain?’ –Pues fue capitán de artilleríadur ...

A topic may also be placed first, outside the scope of the question, in which case the inverted question mark appears in writing ...

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Part B Functions ...

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I Social contact and communication strategies ...

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29 Making social contacts This chapter contains the most useful expressions used by Spanish speakers to establish social contact ...