Spanish: An Essential Grammar

supercola superglue

super ambicioso very/over ambitious

contraoferta counter offer

a contraluz against the light

traspasar to pierce/go beyond

translúcido translucent

postraumático post-traumatic

Notes:

1 Spanish in general does not use a hyphen to link these prefixes to the following

word.

2 Some words formed using súper- may be abbreviated to just the prefix: el súper

‘supermarket’, la super‘four-star petrol’.

Combinations of words

Pairs of nouns

English is extremely versatile in allowing two nounsto be juxtaposed so

that one of them functions as an adjective. These combinations are rela-

tively rare in Spanish. In English the word order is adjective + noun. This

is sometimes retained in Spanish in imitation of English, but generally in

Spanish this word order is reversed:

página web web page

horno microondas microwave (oven)

vídeojuego computer game

satélite espía spy satellite

placa madre motherboard

Nouns linked by prepositions

More common in Spanish is the practice of using a preposition to link

nouns to other parts of speech (mainly other nouns or infinitives). The

commonest link is de, but others are used such as parato express the use

for which something is intended:

29.3.2

29.3.1

29.3

1111

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

1011

1

12111

3 4 5 6 7 8 9

20111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

30111

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

40

41111

Combinations

of words

303