La casa que compramos es estupenda.
The house we bought is very good.Articles (see 4 )
There are two kinds of article in Spanish: definite articles: el,la,los,las‘the’; indefinite
articles:un,una‘a’, ‘an’:El hotel no está lejos.
The hotel is not far.¿Hayun restaurante por aquí?
Is there a restaurant nearby?Auxiliary verbs
This is the name given to certain very common verbs which regularly combine with
other verb forms. In Spanish, haber is the perfect auxiliary and combines with the
past participle to make the compound tenses (see 16.1.1.7);poder,deber,saber and
querer, which are followed by an infinitive, are the principal modal auxiliaries (see 21 )
corresponding to English ‘can’, ‘may’, ‘might’, ‘will’, ‘would’, etc.Clause
A clause is a sentence within a sentence, recognizable because it contains a verb of its
own. Main clauses do not depend on other elements within the sentence for their
meaning. Subordinate clauses are dependent on another clause:No creo que venga.
I don’t think he/she will come.
Espero que aparezca.
I hope it appears.In the previous sentences, No creo and Espero are the main clauses, while que venga
andque aparezca are subordinate clauses.Complement (see 26 )
Aclause,infinitive or gerund which functions as the subject or object of a verb, or
as the object of a preposition. Examples are:Me gusta bailar.
I like to dance. (lit. ‘dancing pleases me’)
(Bailar is the subject complement of gusta.)
Estoy seguro de que no lo hará.
I’m sure he/she won’t do it.
(Que no lo hará is the object complement of de.)
Siguiósilbando.
He/she carried on whistling.
(Silbando is the object complement of siguió.)Conjunctions (see 27 )
Conjunctions join words or groups of words. They are words like y‘and’, o‘or’, pero
‘but’, aunque‘although’:xx
GLOSSARY