What You Need to Know about the Spanish Language
Spanish Translation is becoming a necessity for many companies as the world moves toward a more global economy. With the international reach of the world wide web many companies are suddenly trying to figure out how to reach customers that do not speak the same language.
Many companies hire translation services of professional translators, translating software are faster and cost-effective.
TIP: When working with software for Spanish Translations it will help to learn more about basic grammar, this can help you increase the accuracy of your translations. Below is a quick guide that can help when you are translating this language.
Sentence Structure
In Spanish, as in English, you form a sentence by combining a subject, a verb, and perhaps further descriptive information.
Example: La casa es grande. (The house is big.)
Here, the subject of the sentence is la casa (the house); then the verb, es (is), then the adjective, grande (big) which describes the house. The three basic parts of a sentence go in this order.
Parts of Speech
Translate Nouns: A noun is a word used to indicate a person, place, thing, or idea.
TIP: Our more advanced translating products allow you to set the gender of a noun.
| Person: Mike, boy, doctor | Thing: computer, truck, apple |
| Place: house, university, Spain | Idea: liberty, despair, intelligence |
In Spanish, all nouns are either masculine or feminine.
| Masculine Nouns | Feminine Nouns |
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| Note: (el, la) in front of the noun is called the "definite articles"."El" and "la" both mean "the." | |
Example: Use Un for masculine nouns and Una for feminine nouns. For instance, Un regalo = a present. Add an s to the end of the noun to make it plural. Gato=Cat, Gatos=cats. There are some exceptions to these rules.
TIP: When you are writing a document that will be translated into Spanish, always add the article to the noun to help the software determine if the noun is masculine or feminine.
Articles
In English you can use articles such as "a", "the" and "an" without knowing the gender of the subject or knowing if the word that comes after it is singular or plural.
Notice the nouns we have listed above are preceeded by either '"el" or "la". The "el" denotes masculine and "la" denotes feminine. The "el" and "la" is the part of speech called "definite articles". Las is the plural of La and Los is the plural of El . Any noun with the letter "a" at the end is usually female and with letter "o" at the end is usually male. Notice we said usually, there are exceptions to this rule.
How to say it in Spanish:
| Four ways to say the | Four ways to say a or an |
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You cannot predict the gender of a noun, except in the case of living creatures. Do not try to analyze the nature of the object, looking for some inherent masculinity or femininity, it does not work.
Verbs
Verbs are one of the most complex areas of Spanish grammar. Spanish is a synthetic language with a moderate-to-high degree of inflection which shows up mostly in the verb conjugation (there are about fifty conjugated forms per verb).
Spanish verbs are conjugated in four categories known as moods: indicative, subjunctive, conditional and imperative. Each verb also has three non-finite forms: an infinitive, a gerund, and a past participle (more exactly a passive perfect participle). This participle can agree for number and gender, giving it four possible forms. There is also a form traditionally known as the present participle, but this is generally considered to be an adjective derived from the verb rather than a form of the verb itself.
Verbs are divided into three classes, which differ with respect to their conjugation. The class of the verb can be identified by looking at the infinitive ending: -ar, -er, or -ir, as shown in the dictionary form of the verb. The vowel in the ending (a, e, or i) is technically termed the thematic vowel.
The -ar verbs are the most numerous and the most regular; moreover, the -ar class is usually chosen for new verbs. The -er and -ir classes comprise far fewer verbs, which also tend to be more irregular. There are also subclasses of semi-regular verbs which show vowel alternation conditioned by stress.
Spanish Verb Conjugation
The concept of verb conjugation is the same as in English — only the details are far more complicated. Spanish uses conjugation much more extensively, so extensively that it is often possible to omit the subject from sentences. English uses methods other than conjugation to indicate the future tense and some other verb forms.
Verb conjugation refers to the process of changing a verb form to provide information about the action being performed. The form of the verb can gives us some idea about who is performing the action, when the action is being performed, and the relation of the verb to other parts of the sentence.
Adjectives
An adjective is a word that describes a noun. Adjectives can describe shape, color, size, and many other things about a noun.
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