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April 26, 2007

Shortened Spanish Adjectives

The adjectives bueno, primero, tercero, alguno, ninguno, and uno drop the final -o when they come immediately before a masculine singular noun. For example:

Juan es un buen muchacho.
(John is a good boy.)

Es un mal hijo.
(He is a bad child.)

Enero es el primer mes del año.
(January is the first month of the year.)

Vive en el tercer piso.
(He lives on the third floor.)

Se sientan en algún banco.
(They sit down on some bench.)

Ningún alumno está ausente hoy.
(No student is absent today.)

Note that algún and ningún require an accent mark when the o is dropped.

 

The o is not dropped when these adjectives follow the noun. Also the feminine and the plural endings of these adjectives are never dropped. See example below:

Juan es un muchacho bueno.
(John is a good boy.)

Es un hijo malo.
(He is a bad child.)

Elena es una buena muchacha.
(Elena is a good girl.)

Algunos bancos son cómodos.
(Some benches are comfortable.)

 

The adjective grande drops the final -de when it precedes a singular masculine or feminine noun. For example:

Es un gran médico.
(He is a great doctor.)

Note: Gran before a noun means great. Grande following a noun means large or big. See example:

Es un gran país.
(It is a great country.)

Es un país grande.
(It is a big country.)

 

PDF download: Shortened Spanish Adjectives

Posted by lubw00 at 07:39 AM | Comments (0)

April 17, 2007

Prepositions and Verb Infinitives in Spanish

In English we use the present participle after a preposition, such as: before leaving, after drinking, without thinking. However, this is not the case in Spanish -- only the verb infinitive may follow a preposition. See the following examples:

PDF download: Prepositions and Verb Infinitives in Spanish

Posted by lubw00 at 09:19 PM | Comments (0)

April 08, 2007

Franklin Speaking English-Spanish Dictionary (BES-1850)

Franklin Speaking English-Spanish Dictionary (BES-1850)   Do you carry a speaking electronic dictionary with you to ease your Spanish learning? I do. It is convenient, helpful, and not very expensively if you choose one wisely. If you already own BES-1850, the Franklin Speaking English-Spanish Dictionary, I should congratulate you on that, because this is a very nice electronic dictionary. BES-1850 is a bidirectional English ↔ Spanish dictionary. Following are the main positive features for BES-1850: Large vocabulary (totally 5,000,000 translations as they advertised; but I have no idea how they count one translation); Conjugated verbs are searchable (you can type in any conjugated verb form and immediately get to the infinite and its definition); Spell checking capability (if you misspell a word in English or Spanish, BES-1850 will give you a list of correct words that you can choose from); It is a speaking dictionary (this speaking feature is reasonably good and helpful). Overall, at the price of ~US$100, this is a tool that I wanted to recommend to Spanish learners. Buy Franklin Speaking English-Spanish Dictionary (BES-1850)         or Read More about "Franklin Speaking English-Spanish Dictionary (BES-1850)"

Posted by lubw00 at 03:58 PM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2007

Spanish Sounds Are Being Added

I have added Spanish sounds for more than 5000 the most common Spanish words for the Spanish English dictionary. More sounds are being added, with the frequently used ones being added first.

Here is another note for myself: I am going to put more emphasis on Spanish verb conjugations in the forthcoming posts.

Posted by lubw00 at 09:22 AM | Comments (0)

April 01, 2007

Spanish Pronunciations Will be Added

This is just a note to myself. I am planning to add the Spanish pronunciation for each Spanish word to the dictionary. (I already added the pronunciations for most English words in the English-Spanish Dictionary.)

Posted by lubw00 at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)