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[spanishskulduggery]

So in English ya know how we have the distinction between "Can I verb?" and "May I verb?"

Is there an equivalent in Spanish????

Not exactly; kinda?

You're probably going to want to use permitir "to permit/allow" as "may I" but it's phrased differently

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In Spanish, often poder is enough; there isn't a special verb that's like "may" but people often use permitir to get a request across

[by that I mean "may" can sometimes imply a different tense not a verb specifically... like "I may go" reads as puede que "it is possible that"; but then "you may/might like it" can possibly be a different tense]

So, in general poder is what you want and can use as "can/may" - ¿puedo ir al baño? is both "can I go to the bathroom?" and "may I go to the bathroom?"

If you're asking if you can have someone's permission to do something, "may" would get translated as permitir

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Spanish can actually come out sounding rude to English-speakers if you're not expecting it; when you're ordering something in a restaurant for example you often see querer - like quiero un café "I want a coffee" but in English we often say "can I get a coffee?" or "could I get a cup of coffee?"

There are ways to alleviate it like ¿me traes/pones un café? "could you bring/pour me a coffee?" but even then English-speakers see it as present tense and think it sounds a bit rude even when it's not

Spanish often uses just the present tense of whatever verb you're thinking of, and isn't explicitly disrespectful. There are some helping verbs [like "want to", "should", etc] but poder is pretty unique as "can/to be able to"

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If you're explicitly asking for permission you can say - ¿me permites ir al baño? and that's more of a "may I"

Literally it's "will you allow me", which uses an object pronoun... in other words rather than "can I?" it's "will you allow me"

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In a setting like a restaurant when you want to be polite, you can also use the conditional tense

I don't know if you already know the conditional tense which is why I didn't immediately bring it up because it's a learning curve and has some irregular verbs [as in poder which is normally puedo, puedes, puede, pueden, podemos goes to podría, podrías, podría, podrían, podríamos]

And that's like "could I?" or "might ?"

If you were ordering food for example you might see - ¿me podrías dar/traer...? which is "could you give/get me...?"

You might also see it when talking about things you'd like to do - me gustaría; as in me gustaría viajar "I would like to travel" - but it's literally "to travel would please me"

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So in summation, all are viable

¿me ayudas? "can you help me?" / "will you help me" is not necessarily rude compared to ¿me puedes ayudar? which specifically is "can you help me?"

I would say ¿me podrías ayudar? "could you help me?" feels a bit more deferential, but the others aren't rude

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Note: Imperfect subjunctive is also a possibility for extra politeness (at least to my ears) but again that's a different tense and extra confusing for people - most commonly it would be quisiera "I would like (if it's not too difficult)" which is the imperfect subjunctive yo form for querer

Again, regular present tense isn't rude - and you might want to use usted forms if you're afraid of possibly being rude; just different options

[spanishskulduggery]

perhaps this is an odd question but i don't know where else to find this info: what would be the spanish word for "fool's gold/pyrite"? Or other spanish technical terms?

It's very similar to English - el oro de los tontos "gold of (the) fools" [sometimes I've seen el oro de los pobres "poor man's gold"], or la pirita "pyrite"

I would suggest wordreference which generally has a lot of info; but another good suggestion is actually Wikipedia and you can change the languages

It's usually in the top corner but there's a Chinese symbol + A kind of together as clickable drop down thing - that's how you can change the languages

Wikipedia is also helpful with chemical things in general because if you look up something like la sal "salt" it'll tell you the chemical formula is NaCl and then you can look at it individually to see Na is el sodio "sodium", and Cl is el cloro "chlorine" - so especially if you're looking at chemical compounds you can see the elements there too

I also have used Wikipedia for plant names... As an example, I was reading something and it said la centaura and my brain is immediately like "female centaur?" and no it's a flower, centaurea, "cornflower"

...It also has helped a lot with certain things that can be confusing if you don't know context; like el castaño is "chestnut (tree)" but also frequently another word used for "brown"... but then la castaña is "chestnut" as in the actual nut, so I remember first starting out being confused about the difference between them especially in Christmas song translations we had to do for class etc etc

[spanishskulduggery]

Does lucir and parecer imply slightly different meanings for "to look "?

To be clear this is "to look" as in "to look a certain way"; otherwise "to look" like the action is mirar or sometimes ver

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As far as the differences between them - I don't think they're that different; I find that parecer is more commonplace

But lucir que "to appear that" or parecer que "to seem" are kind of the same as "to look (a certain way)"

I will say that lucir makes me think of appearances primarily like "apparently" or "it looks like" based on appearance

parecer makes me think of opinions or impressions, like "to seem" [while el parecer can also be "opinion", like cambiar de/el parecer is similar to cambiar de idea/opinión as "to change someone's mind" or "(to have) a change of heart"]

...Also parecerse (a alguien) is "to look like someone" as in "to resemble", so it's not the same "look" or "look like" - this is strictly "they look alike" or "they share a resemblance"

[spanishskulduggery]

Hey. So the hypothetical "were". Is that the "fuera" and "estuviera" in Spanish? I ask for better recognition of the hypothetical. 🎗️

Generally it would be fuera

estuviera "were" would be used like estar in general, primarily location and emotions... like si estuviera en casa "if I were at home" or si estuviera allí "if I were there"

[spanishskulduggery]

I'm trying to give a character a stage name surname of "from Paradise", but Google translate is inconsistently giving me both "De Paraíso" and "Del Paraíso". I don't want to change it to "from the Paradise" if I can help it, because it slightly changes the meaning, but I can't confirm from further investigation whether paradise is just one of those words that needs "the" attached to it or not. Is this the case, or is there something else happening here?

In this case, I think the best option is the surname Paraíso which does exist (though not super common in my experience)

I think if I saw de Paraíso I would probably think there was a town called Paraiso

[The actual grammar is a bit hard to explain; el paraíso meaning "paradise" is commonly another word for Eden or just paradise in general, do it typically is del/al paraíso like un ave del paraíso is "bird of paradise"; there are some cases where you don't need a definite article with nouns so that's why you're seeing it as both - as an example, if a city was called Paraíso you would not need the article because it's a proper noun]

[spanishskulduggery]

how can i help get rid of my english accent in spanish? for example i notice spanish speakers usually curl their L's more (kind of like an R? I speak mandarin it's like how asian ppl pronounce R and L similarly) but one thing i cant seem to mimic is how spanish seems to lie in the front of the mouth rather than the throat (as in english) so it's kind of misleading the way so many syllables are similar yet so different.. any tips??

This is somewhat outside of my area of expertise, but I will say a lot of Spanish sounds are indeed in the front of the mouth, though many regional accents [like the Cuban accent] are placed further back in the mouth, as are some of the South American accents (or a Brazilian accent for that matter can sound like that)

My accent is somewhat more on the formal side so my tongue is generally more right behind my front teeth when I speak which allows for more of a trill, though I notice that because my accent feels very "precise" it comes out as very official and not informal at all

Part of it is mouth placement and practice, but sometimes with L's it's entirely dependent on the accent [and I can't fully explain without trying to point to the phonetic alphabet to explain different sounds, so it is often something I would recommend wiktionary for]

But do keep in mind that Spanish accents vary a lot by country and L/R (and LL) have very different pronunciations and variations; Puerto Rican Spanish sometimes treats R's more like L's, while Costa Rican Spanish really emphasizes the R's

The Argentinian accent is known for sounding very similar to Italian, while pronouncing LL sounds like SH, instead of the more common (almost but not quite) Y-ish sound; if you can do an Italian accent at all, it is a good place to start for practice

All of that to say that your accent is going to be very different depending on where you are and I would not worry too much about your accent - it is something you can practice by practicing speaking certain words over and over, but I have noticed a lot of the time it has to do with tongue placement and if the tongue curls

[spanishskulduggery]

Why does "La niña de mis ojos" translate to The apple of my eye? Can you say this when referring to a male?

Yes, you can use it when referring to males as far as I know

The word here la niña is another way of saying "pupil (of the eye)" and it's not (generally) the "girl" meaning most people are used to

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It is weird but it's the same etymology, kind of. In Latin the word "pupil" came from pupa which is also the word for "girl" or "doll", and Spanish adapted that expression directly from Latin

[I believe this is the same etymology where you get "poppet", and therefore "puppet", where it meant girl and doll]

The pun existed in Latin too

[spanishskulduggery]

hola! me pregunto si hay una diferencia en sentido entre niño y chico o niña y chica? me parecen sinónimos pero creo que se usan en contextos diferentes

gracias!

I would say generally they kinda read as synonymous but there is a lot of nuance

chico/a is like "kid" - it literally means "small" so you can see it used as "small" or "little"

The main difference between the two is that chico/a can really be used for all ages; it can be "kid" or sometimes adult friends call each other this like "boy" or "girl" in a friendly way, almost like "bro" and "chick" [sometimes "dude" gets translated as chico/a; but friends being like "these are my bros" or "these are my girls" ...tends to be chico/a]

...You probably would not want to call your friend mi niño/a as it sounds very weird, like either they are much younger than you and/or you are their parent; while chico/a or mi chico/a can be very friendly and used for children or adults

With niño/a it tends to be "child" sometimes almost "baby", and so it's best applied to very young kids; the official word for "babysitter" is niñero/a for example, and la niñez refers to "childhood" but I always take it to mean "when I was very little"

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Small additional note: niño/a is also sometimes used to discuss the gender of babies, like in the "it's a boy" or "it's a girl" kind of way

niño/a tends to imply a very young child so if someone calls an adult this they are either a parent talking to their child... or sometimes it can read as belittling, calling someone a baby or immature

[spanishskulduggery]

Hola, profe:

Necesito tu ayuda.

"Los árboles de roble amarillo han sido tendencia todo el fin de semana por crear paisajes de gran esplendor".

I understand the meaning of "han sido tendencia" (yo creo... lol), but I don't understand the phrasing/syntax. Is "Ser tendencia por" just some sort of phrase or expression that I don't know? Am I just thinking too Englishy?

Can you provide any insights?

Yes, it's a phrase! Or, a bit of a newer social media expression I believe

ser tendencia is "to be trending" or "to be a trend"

And the por is "due to"

Like if you're on social media you might see someone ha sido tendencia por sus comentarios which is "they've been trending due to / because of their comments"

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I believe tendencias is something like the translation for "trending", so that's why it might be a bit of a weird construction for you thinking in English

Normally you'd expect es una tendencia but saying ha sido tendencia feels like "it was featured" or "it was trending" rather than "it's a trend", so it makes me think of social media

por is being used the way it normally is "due to" or "because of"

[spanishskulduggery]

hello

i have a grasp on present continuous tense, present tense, and past tense on Spanish! Yaaay🥳 I just started learning the future tense, and I was wondering how we make the sentences with “if” 🤔

for example how can I say “If he learns Spanish I will talk in Spanish to him”

Recently learned your blog you are a gem💕

If you're using future tense, you can use present tense with "if"

si aprende español, hablaré con él en español "if he learns Spanish, I will talk to him in Spanish"

hablaré being the future tense yo; you could also use voy a hablar

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The other option which is a different feel is imperfect subjunctive + conditional

This is "if he were to learn Spanish, I would speak to him in Spanish"

It's a hypothetical unlikely situation

That would be si aprendiera español, hablaría con él en español

The imperfect subjunctive like this tends to be very hypothetical; this is like "if I were rich" or "if I was the boss" etc. it's called a "contrary to fact statement"

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That first example with present + future implies "oh he could learn Spanish and then I'd talk to him in Spanish"; this is like "when he does then I will"

The second is presenting a hypothetical situation like "if he learned Spanish, then I'd talk to him in Spanish"; it kind of implies he wouldn't or isn't currently, or that it's an unlikely possible future

So your use of future tense vs. conditional would depend on how certain the "if" is

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You can also do it in reverse; hablaré con él en español si/cuando aprende español "I'll talk to him in Spanish if/when he learns Spanish"

Same with the imperfect subjunctive/conditional

Your if/then statements can always be then/if statements

[spanishskulduggery]

"No hay nadie aquí que sepa algo de medicina?"

"No haya nadie aquí que sabe algo de medicina"?

Which is correct and why? I'm stuck on unknown subjunctives vs normal indicative. Thank you 🌟

It should be the first one

[It is possible to have a double subjunctive if you had a separate subjunctive clause like es imposible que no haya nadie que sepa algo de medicina "it's impossible for no one to know anything about medicine"; but it isn't correct to have the no hay + indicative]

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A possible other example like this is there's a popular comedy called Aquí no hay quien viva which is translated as "no one could live here" though literally it's like "here there is no one who lives" or "no one (can/would) live here"

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This is like a subjunctive of doubt or uncertainty; but if that's confusing try and think of is as no hay nadie/quien + subjunctive as a rule

It's saying "there's no one here who would know medicine"; so no hay nadie que sepa algo de medicina

If you phrase it without the no it becomes indicative

(Also I know medicina here means like "medical knowledge" so just bear with me for the next translations)

¿No hay nadie que sepa algo de medicina? = "Is there no one here that knows medicine?" [indefinite, uncertain] Hay nadie que sepa algo de medicina. = There's no one here that knows any medicine. [indefinite, uncertain; "there's no one here that would know"] ¿Hay alguien aquí que sabe algo de medicina? = Is there someone here that knows some medicine? Hay alguien aquí que sabe algo de medicina. = There's someone here that knows some medicine.

With the negative you're introducing doubt like "would there happen to be", or "might there be"

When it's positive/affirmative [meaning no negation words] it doesn't imply doubt

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It can be hard to explain so - this is semi-related - this is the same thing that trips people up with the following three phrases:

Pienso que alguien (lo) sabe. = I think someone knows. No pienso que nadie (lo) sepa. = I don't think anyone knows. Creo que alguien (lo) sabe. = I believe someone knows. No creo que nadie (lo) sepa. = I don't believe anyone knows. Estoy seguro/a de que alguien (lo) sabe. = I'm sure that someone knows. No estoy seguro/a de que alguien (lo) sepa. = I'm not sure anyone knows.

In the negative forms you can kind of hear in English how someone might say "I don't think anyone would know" or "I'm not sure anyone would know"

That's why it comes out in subjunctive

In the affirmative you're asking about the existence of something or stating your confidence that something exists

In the negative it asks a question about the possible existence of something

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Another possible example is no hay nada que pueda detenerme which is literally like "there's nothing that can stop me"; while a simple nada puede detenerme is indicative, the subjunctive is like "there's nothing that could stop me"

In English try and think about something like "there's no force on Earth that could stop me", it's got a subjunctive twang to it too

But if it's not sinking in, just sort of think of this as a rule:

Hay algo/alguien + indicative

No hay nada/nadie + subjunctive

[spanishskulduggery]

If I'm waiting for a person, I assume it's "esperar a" because of the Personal A. But in examples, I see the "a" for some inanimate objects and not for others (the stairs, the bus, the dress to be ready, the truck to pass, the pencil sharpener, the elevator, etc.). Is there a rule?

In general yes, esperar a alguien is "to wait for someone"

You can say something like esperar el tren "to wait for the train" or esperar el avión "to wait for the plane", or sometimes it's esperar en la escalera "to wait in the stairwell" or esperar en el andén "to wait on the platform" which is a statement regarding position

[Note: Some people DO use the a with inanimate objects/common nouns but it isn't considered strictly correct... so you may see someone say espero al tren it really should be espero el tren]

The thing you may be seeing is esperar a que + subjunctive, which isn't the personal a it's a subjunctive clause; it's "waiting for + something to happen"

That a is more like a preposition than the personal a

In other words:

Espero el tren. = I am waiting for the train. Espero que el tren llegue. = I hope the train comes. Espero a que llegue el tren. = I am waiting until the train comes. / I am waiting for the train to come.

esperar a que + subjunctive is like "to await"; and especially in subjunctive clauses it differentiates it from "to hope that" esperar and "to wait until" esperar

...To put it more simply esperar que and esperar a que get translated differently in English as "to hope" vs. "to wait/await", but both use subjunctive

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A handful of verbs do this, like obligar/forzar a que can be "to force/require that (something be done)"

It's not many verbs but a is a very useful and multipurpose preposition

[spanishskulduggery]

May I ask on the usage of the terms te and me?

I'd like to know the rules so I know when to use them. I think they're used to indicate who owns the action, like "me gusta" or "te encanto". But then I see them used for other situations, like "me llamo" or "te amo".

It also makes me wonder why "tú" and "yo" can't be used in the same context, such as "tu amo mi". Too literal maybe?

I'm not sure how far you are in Spanish so I'm going to quickly go over some things and I'm sorry if it's too much info all at once or if it sounds like I'm talking down to you, I just want to be very clear on things and grammatical terms so you can look things up if you need to

First, your question is really about "pronouns" vs. "objects" vs. "prepositional objects"

In other words if you were asking about English you would be asking what the difference between "I" and "me", or "he" and "him", or "we" and "us" is

I think the easiest way to explain it is that when you mix them up it sounds like caveman speech kind of? This might be long - let me know if there's anything you need more info on

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Pronouns:

yo -> I tú -> you (informal) él -> he ella -> she ellos / ellas -> they ustedes -> you all vosotros/vosotras -> you all [informal; Spain] nosotros/nosotras -> we

Pronouns act as subjects, taking the place of people (or things). Because they're subjects they're the things that do the things.

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Objects are a bit different - they mark who/what is receiving the action. In Spanish's case there are direct objects [things acted upon] and indirect objects [to whom or for whom something is done]

The objects are technically different, but aside from 3rd person they look exactly the same. There is a difference in what verbs take direct objects or indirect objects though; as an example, the verbs like gustar use indirect objects

Direct objects:

yo -> me tú -> te él -> lo ella -> la ellos -> los ellas -> las vosotros/vosotras -> os nosotros/nosotras -> nos

*Note: ustedes could be los or las depending on the gender of the "you all"

Indirect objects:

yo -> me tú -> te él / ella / usted -> le ellos / ellas / ustedes -> les vosotros/vosotras -> os nosotros/nosotras -> nos

As an example between the differences, decir la verdad "to tell the truth" could go to la digo "I say it" where the la takes the place of the noun

Then if you're "telling someone (something)" it's le digo "I tell them"

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In other words, saying using the objects instead of the subjects is like "you love I" or "us love she", it comes out wrong. It's not so off that someone wouldn't be able to piece together what you mean but it comes out a bit... "caveman-y" if you know what I mean

Note: This is also ignoring reflexives which aren't necessarily "objects" in the traditional sense; they mark when the subject and object are the same - so me llamo is literally "I call myself", and te llamas "you call yourself" though it comes out as "my name is" and "your name is"

Put simply, the reflexive marker will match the conjugation if it's reflexive - a yo is conjugated like yo but then you have the reflexive pronoun... so it's me llamo

Those other objects are me, te, se [all of 3rd person], nos, and os. Again, it's only 3rd person you need to worry about

But with reflexives something like se baña "he/she bathes" vs. se bañan "they bathe" is distinguished by the verb conjugation matching

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Prepositional objects are a little bit different; they're specific objects that come up when you use a preposition - primarily, a, de, en, entre, hacia, para, por and a few others*

And for the most part there's only two to know

yo -> mí tú -> ti

There is also sí which is supposed to take the place of "it", like en sí is often "in and of itself"... it takes the place of se which is primarily a 3rd person thing

You will see something like a/con sí mismo/a "to/with oneself" here and there

But in general it's something like por mí "for me / on my behalf", por ti "for you / on your behalf", then it goes to like por él/ella/nosotros/vosotros so it's not really another set of words, just two

The one preposition to watch is con because that is a bit irregular:

conmigo is "with me"

contigo is "with you"

[they come from Latin cum mecum and cum tecum so it's an irregularity that passed over to Spanish]

You also occasionally see consigo "with itself" but not as commonly

These in general are easy enough to spot. Really what might trip you up is when a verb uses a special preposition which do happen but they're the minority of verbs:

Pienso en ti. = I think of you. Me acuerdo de ti. = I remember you. Puedes contar conmigo. = You can count on me. / You can trust me. Votas por mí. = You're voting for me.

Those prepositional verbs you learn as you go for the most part.

Your first exposure to these is primarily with gustar where it's more emphatic, as the a

Me gusta = I like it. A mí me gusta. = I like it. [more like "I do indeed like it" or "I am the one who likes it" or possibly "well I like it"] Te gusta = You like it A ti te gusta = You are the one who likes it

And again past that you're using regular pronouns. Only thing to keep in mind there is when you have a + masculine nouns

Like al señor le gusta "the man likes it" vs. a la señora le gusta "the woman likes it"

[spanishskulduggery]

I have two female dogs. Is it bad to refer to them as "nuestras perras"? I mean, I know it's technically correct, but does it have the same feel as if I talked about my "two bitches" in English? Technically correct, but potentially offensive?

No, it's not the same. Spanish speakers will call their female dogs perras or perritas and it causes much less of an issue than English-speakers seeing it

It's only offensive if you could be talking about a person, in which case "female dog" turns to "bitch"

Semi-related: There is a word for "bitch" that is pretty much always vulgar but that's zorra. It literally means "female fox". With perra you can get away with it if you're actually talking about a dog but you probably never want to say zorra in polite conversation

[spanishskulduggery]

Does obligar and forzar someone to do something the same thing? Or to they carry a slightly distinct connotations?

If anything obligar is maybe a nicer way to say it, but generally same idea. Especially in contracts or legalese saying someone is "obliged" to do something is much nicer than "forced"

I would say if I had to pick out nuance between them, obligar is less physical than forzar since forzar is directly related to "strength"

I tend to think of obligar as being more emotional or words related or possibly being related to duty/honor or obligation, and forzar I think of as physical

[Also in games, forzar is "to lockpick" so it has a few other little meanings but it's like "to force open" just with an item, but still physical]

[spanishskulduggery]

What are the normal ways of saying daydreaming in Spanish?

The most common default way is soñar despierto/a which is "to dream (while) awake"

The other basic way is estar/andar en/por las nubes which is literally "to be in the clouds" so it's pretty much "to have one's head in the clouds"

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Otherwise someone might use the adjectives distraído/a which is "distracted" - like andar distraído/a means "to go around distracted" like to not be paying attention or to have something on your mind; you often see it as "scattered" or "absentminded" [sometimes you also see despistado/a which is literally "without a clue" or "without a path" so it's "aimless", "distracted", "absentminded", or "forgetful"]

Another is ser ensimismado/a which is understood as "to be in one's own world" or "to be engrossed (in one's own thoughts)". Literally ensimismado/a or the verb ensimismar(se) is related to en + sí + mismo/a which is "into + one's (own) + self"; so it often carries the connotation of being very self-related... rather than simply distracted or absentminded, it's more understood as being "oblivious" to others and "pensative"

[spanishskulduggery]

Hello, I am a beginner, learning spanish on my own.

Sentence structure is subject+verb+object?

Not always

Spanish has a VERY flexible word order

The basic sentence structure [declarative] is subject + verb + object [(tú) estás bien "you are okay"]

Questions [interrogative sentences] are verb + subject + object [¿Cómo estás tú? = "How are you?"]

Some exclamatory sentences also do this.

The difficult part of this is that sometimes declarative statements will do verb + subject + object for emphasis

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The other big issue with this is that objects can sometimes by object pronouns which you won't see for a while but just be aware that something like compro flores "I buy flowers" turns into las compro "I buy them" where las flores is feminine plural so the direct object pronoun is las

In other words, a lot of object pronouns [direct, indirect, and reflexive] come before the conjugated verb

And this becomes more fluid if you have helping verbs - quiero comprar las flores "I want to buy the flowers"... but you could say las quiero comprar "I want to buy them" OR quiero comprarlas "I want to buy them" and both are totally valid

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In short, if you're just starting out it's enough to say that most basic sentences are subject + verb + object; questions are almost always verb + subject + object

And as you go forward just be aware that the word order is EXTREMELY malleable and try not to worry too much; you will often see many example sentences all over the place so you get more of a sense of what is common or how it reads as more emphatic in certain cases

You won't learn it all at once so don't feel overwhelmed