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Spanish phrases, by meaning
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Common questions about Spanish
What's covered on this Spanish page?
Twenty-two functional categories with Spanish examples: tense (presente, pretérito indefinido, pretérito imperfecto, pretérito perfecto, pluscuamperfecto, futuro), modality (poder, deber, tener que, querer, soler), negation (no, nunca, nadie, nada, tampoco), questions through inversion or rising intonation, ser versus estar, the present and imperfect subjunctive, comparison (más...que, menos...que, tan...como), and 15 others. Glossed.
When do I use ser versus estar?
Ser handles inherent identity and defining qualities (soy mexicano, es alta, son maestros), origin (es de Lima), and time (son las tres). Estar handles location (estoy en casa), temporary states (estoy cansado), and ongoing actions (está lloviendo). Some adjectives flip meaning between the two: ser aburrido 'to be boring' versus estar aburrido 'to be bored'.
What's the difference between pretérito and imperfecto?
Pretérito indefinido reports a finished event with a clear shape (comí 'I ate', that one act). Imperfecto paints background and habit (comía 'I was eating, used to eat'). Most Spanish past-tense narratives weave the two: imperfecto sets the scene, pretérito delivers what happened. The page surfaces the contrast in concrete sentences so the choice becomes intuitive.
When does the subjunctive show up?
After que clauses governed by emotion, desire, doubt, necessity, or judgment: quiero que vengas, dudo que sepa, es importante que estudies. Also after certain conjunctions (antes de que, para que, sin que). And in adjective clauses describing something hypothetical (busco a alguien que hable francés). Examples in the Modality, Hypotheticals, and Reported Speech sections show the boundary.
Is this Latin American Spanish or Peninsular Spanish?
Largely neutral, leaning Latin American: ustedes is used as the plural-you (rather than Peninsular vosotros), and the past defaults to pretérito indefinido for completed events rather than the perfecto patterns more common in Spain. Where the divergence is grammatical (vosotros conjugations, vos in the Southern Cone, lleísmo/yeísmo), examples favor forms that work across regions.
Sources for Spanish
The grammatical descriptions on this page are informed by the following published reference and descriptive grammars. Grammatical facts themselves are not subject to copyright; the scholars who documented them deserve attribution.
- Butt, John & Benjamin, Carmen (2004). A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish, 4th ed. London: Arnold.
- Whitley, M. Stanley & González, Luis (2007). Gramática para la composición, 2nd ed. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press.
- Real Academia Española & Asociación de Academias de la Lengua Española (2010). Nueva gramática de la lengua española. Madrid: Espasa.
- Penny, Ralph (2002). A History of the Spanish Language, 2nd ed. Cambridge University Press.