Spanish language Q&A Forum

When using "a tan solo de que", is the verb in the subordinate clause in the subjunctive?

In this quiz question (Elia no va a empezar el curso este año ________ va a tener un año sabático.) it seems to me that "pero" works just as well as "sino que". It doesn't seem to be a clear distinction between pero and sino que - it seems they both can be right. In one sense, you are adding a new idea/action of taking a sabbatical & should use pero, or you can think of the sabbatical as a substitution for beginning classes and use sino que. Why is sino que "correct" and pero ïncorrect"? 

Why were there no quotation marks placed around the word "manolos" in the Kwiziq translation of the penultimate sentence?

Thank you. 

Pati Ecuamiga

Helpful maybe to think of salvo que, a no ser que, a menos que (and sin que) followed by subjunctive as implying a NOT. A conditional : Unless = If not.

The European pronunciation is really weird-sounding. "Z" pronounced as "f," "c" pronounced as "th," and "vodka" sounded like "votha." And this is the first time I heard a "g" pronounced as it was in "ginebra." I guess I need to do more of these listening exercises! Or is it too much trouble to include a Latin American version?

The lesson was unclear on whether this sentence structure is colloquial, formal or written only. Kindly elaborate. Regards

Es la primera vez que he visto el verbo versar. Entiendo el sentido en este contexto. ¿Mi cuestión se trata de cómo habitual es?