Modern Spanish Grammar: A Practical Guide

Iré mañanao pasado.

I’ll go tomorrow or the day after tomorrow.

Habla españolpero no muy bien.

He/she speaks Spanish but not very well.

Demonstratives (see 9 )

Demonstratives indicate proximity or remoteness, e.g. este‘this’, aquel‘that’.

Diphthong (see 1.2)

A diphthong is a group of two vowels in the same syllable.

Direct object see Object

Gender (see 2 )

Spanish has two genders, masculine or feminine. For example la oficina‘the office’ is

feminine, while el coche‘the car’ is masculine. Adjectives,articles,

demonstratives,possessives and pronouns must agree in gender when they relate

to one another.

Gerund (see 17.12)

Gerunds are forms like estudiando‘studying’, haciendo‘doing’.

Hiatus (see 1.5.2)

Where two vowels together belong to different syllables, they are said to be in hiatus.

Imperative see Mood

Indicative see Mood

Indirect object see Object

Infinitive (see 17.11)

This is the base form of the Spanish verb, as it normally appears in a dictionary, for

example, cantar‘to sing’, beber‘to drink’.

Intransitive

An intransitive verb is one which cannot take a direct object, e.g. salir‘to go out’,

cenar‘to dine’.

Mood

In Spanish it is usual to refer to the indicative (see 17.1–17.10), the subjunctive (see 18 )

and the imperative (see 17.13) as different moods of the verb:

Josévive en Barcelona.

José lives in Barcelona. (indicative)

Ojalávuelva pronto.

I hope he/she comes back soon. (subjunctive)

Abre la ventana, por favor.

Open the window please. (imperative)

Glossary

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