Spanish language Q&A Forum

Whi are no commas after rebanadas de pan duro   3 litros de caldo de carne etc when she is mentioning some of the ingredients.  Some have commas but others like  I mentioned  do not?

have commas but not the 

"Ella ha roto con él pero ________ así él sigue insistiendo.

She broke up with him but even so he keeps trying.

The quiz answer is aun así. But why can’t it be aún así in the sense of todavía? She broke up with him but he still keeps trying.

Worth a trip to Spain just to hear Inma speak . . .

 Why is it  hubo fuegos artificiales when fireworks is plural? Why would it not be hubieron fuegos artificiales? 

Hello Lawless Spanish,

I JUST found your excellent web site. I've been using various means to learn Spanish over the last 1.5 years, but your site seems to be the best resource so far. I'm still at A1 however.

Here's a thought that I'd be interested to know your opinion on. Often while reading an English interpretation of a Spanish phrase or sentence, I think I would like to have the more literal translation rather than the Spanish being re-worded in order to be a grammatical English sentence. Because I don't care about English grammar or want my English reinforced when I'm trying to understand how a Spanish speaker constructs their thoughts linguistically. Do you know what I mean?

Take the example from the first exercise I happened to land on,  Corro para estar en forma. It would be helpful to see a more literal translation, then I get a better idea of the words and structure a Spanish speaker uses. In the example, "estar en forma" is re-interpreted as "to keep fit." That is quite a departure from the literal. I think an English speaker is quite capable of recognizing a more literal translation "to be in form" because it is identical to the common English phrase "to be in shape." So while I know authors are trying to be helpful with English re-interpretations, I often feel cheated out of knowing a more literal construction and wording, and in the process authors may even be making less-accurate interpretations (such as "to keep fit" instead of the better "to be in shape."). What do you think?  

Why is Nos volvemos incorrect? Also, Would Nosotros volvemos be incorrect?  The answer was simply Volvemos.

Why is there so much inconsistency with questions of this type? "Son" was marked incorrect an an answer though it translates to 'The product in this store are plastic" yet a very similar question today of "De qué _______ esa escultura?" has "es" as an allowed alternate even though escultura is a feminine noun. Regarding this first question, is there a significant difference between (being plastic) and (being made of plastic) that we're supposed to know?

When the noun ends in a consonant or the vowel -e  we tend to keep the whole word and add -cillo, -cilla, -cillos, -cillas. Hola, the lesson on the suffix cito etc says it applies to words ending in e. So which would be the correct suffix to add to Quijote? cito or cillo? Muchas gracias, Shirley.