Spanish language Q&A Forum

Why do some of the verbs get tildas?

se lo quiero comprar becomes comprárselo

and 

se lo estamos decorando becomes estamos decorándoselo

You don't need a hyphen between "commonly" and "used" in the first sentence of this lesson, or indeed between any adverb and the adjective it modifies. That's what the -ly ending is for. 

I understood from the lesson on 'Whoever / all those who' that todos aquellos was always followed by a subjunctive.

...una muñeca querida en los corazones de todos aquellos que han tenido el placer de disfrutar...  shouldn't this be hayan tenido el placer?

Gracias

Some of these sentences, like "La iglesia está al lado del colegio", were spoken extremely fast. Spanish relies on a phonetic grammar rather than on timing to separate words, and this is very difficult for someone who hasn't even learned Spanish word grammar.

you have been my best friend since we were children =  eres mi mejor amiga desde que éramos pequeñas.

BUT In the previous exercise 'My Love Story´

Since then, we've been joined at the hip   =  Desde entonces, hemos sido como uña y carne

When I queried why in the second example it was incorrect to say somos como uña y carne,  Sylvia explained:

This construction with "hemos sido" (present perfect) conveys the idea that the close relationship has been ongoing since that point in the past. Your attempt was almost correct, but using the present perfect aligns better with the context of an enduring connection over time.

I don't understand then why it is incorrect to say has estado mi mejor amiga desde que éramos pequeñas

Is it correct to say " he vivido en esta casa desde hace 20 años" ? There is an enduring connection. The lessons with desde always state the use of the present.

Gracias

I don't recall seeing any lessons about imperatives, negative imperatives in particular. Did I sleep through them?

In this example above, a = from:

Tú pides demasiado a la vida.

You ask too much from life.

Él pide 100000 pesos al banco.

He is asking for 100000 pesos from the bank.

I would expect that we would use “del”, so is “al” correct?

These are words are relative pronouns, but can they ever be used in a question as an interrogative pronoun?   I assume that function is reserved for Cuál and Cuáles without el-lo-la-las.

Next, could "cuáles" be used in this quiz sentence: Voy a preguntar a la dependienta ________ lavadoras son más eficientes.   trying to ask: which ones of these washing machines are more efficient?

Based on this list, is it safe to say that E>I only occurs with -IR verbs, and therefore,  -AR and -ER verbs do not have this possibility.  If so, it might be helpful to put a note at the top of this list that E>I only occurs with -IR verbs, unlike  E>IE which can occur in -AR, -ER, and -IR verbs.

I see that “el” and “la” are based off masculine or feminine. How do I know if a general noun (e.g. car) is masculine or feminine tense?