Spanish language Q&A Forum

Hi i like potatos which are ver good yes. Me gusta potata.

What is the rule for using "mientras" or "mientras que"?

For example:

Escribo mientras que él come. Why can't I say: Escribo mientras él come.

Él habla mientras yo leo.           Why can't I say: Él habla mientras que yo leo.   

I cannot see any difference in syntax, usage or meaning between these two sentences, yet three native speakers have all told me they would only say the first, but could not tell me why or give me any grammatical rule.  Please help... someone/anyone.

I have a question about reflexive verbs. In general I understand the concept, and I in general I know when to recognize the verbs. What I have trouble with is knowing when to use them in a sentence. For example take these two sentence:

Now I use the Google translate app and one of these sentences uses a reflexive verb and its pronoun and one does not. I don't understand the difference. I understand "I bathe myself in the morning" is how the translation would be from Spanish to English. But why does "I walk in the morning" not translate as "I walk myself in the morning". After all I'm not walking the dog or walking somebody else, I'm walking myself. Or is this just a matter of the Google translate app being incorrect??

Good morning.

Where in the lesson does it say that the vosotros form of "sonreir" in the imperative has an accent.  Would you direct me to other exceptions of the rule.

Thank you.

Another question from the quiz: "Las mamás quieren darles de mamar a sus bebés en el parque". In Spanish as spoken in Spain, wouldn't it be more common to use madres instead of mamás? Natives told me not to overuse mamá, papá, abuelito, mis papás etc. because they said it would sound childish.

In the example La pájaro vuela sobre tu cabeza, why is it "tu" cabeza. I thought when talking about body parts and clothing we should use the definite articles rather than the possessive adjectives.  

How old is Mafalda?