Spanish: An Essential Grammar

Use of que after a preposition Commonly in the case of en, and to a lesser extent with a, conand de, it is possible to have a pr ...

El que, lo que, quien In this usage, these are best understood as meaning ‘the one who/that’ or ‘those who/that’. Pronouns in th ...

Cuando, donde, como These relative adverbs are used like quienand el quein focus construc- tions. For example, where English say ...

Cuanto‘as much/many as’ In principle cuantois a quantifying adjective and so agrees in number and gender with the noun it modifi ...

Comparative constructions are used to express inequality: ‘Peter is taller than John’, ‘Peter is more/less liberal than John’, a ...

The adjectives are invariable for gender but have plurals in -es. The adverbs are invariable: Mi bicicleta es mejor que My bike ...

Mayor can be used like más grande to indicate physical size. However, it normally means ‘greater’, expressing a higher degree or ...

Pedro tiene tantas camisas Pedro has as many shirts como Luis. as Luis. No hace tanto calor en It isn’t so hot in Cantabria. Can ...

Más/menos debefore a clause This usage occurs when the comparative precedes a subordinate clause with its own finite verb. If th ...

Cuantos más trabajos corregimos ahora menos tendremos que hacer esta noche. The more assignments we mark now, the fewer we’ll ha ...

Superlative adverbs These are formed without the use of the definite article, by either más/menos+ adverb, or by one of the irre ...

As adjectival forms, they adopt the appropriate endings for gender and number relevant to the noun which they modify. Any writte ...

The suffix -ísimamente This may be added to adjectives, although only infrequently, to form an intensified adverb, as in English ...

Questions can be direct, as in ‘Where is Pedro?’, or indirect, as in ‘Nobody knew where Pedro was’. A direct question is a compl ...

However, when the interrogative word itself is the subject, or modifies the subject, Spanish like English does not invert word o ...

¿De qué hablaron Julio y What did Julio and Luis talk Luis? about? Me preguntaron qué hacía. They asked me what I was doing. In ...

Quién ‘who’, de quién ‘whose’ Quién/quiénesis a pronoun that can be used onlywith reference to persons. It agrees in number with ...

¿Cuánta gente había? How many people were there? No sé cuántos niños tienen. I don’t know how many children they have. ¿Cuántos ...

Question tags Spanish offers no direct equivalent to the English question tags, such as ‘isn’t it?’ and ‘didn’t I?’ However, the ...

Qué + decan be used with the meaning ‘what a lot’, although cuántois the commoner alternative (see 27.4.3): ¡Qué de regalos has ...