‘Allí’ vs ‘allá’
‘Allí’ and ‘allá’ are tricky customers as they both mean ‘there’ … Let me share a story. Feeling a little peckish and thirsty for beer, I once sent a WhatsApp …
‘La problema’ or ‘el problema’
Short answer – Although ‘problema’ (or ‘problem’ in English) ends with an ‘a’, it’s actually a masculine noun, so it should always be preceded by the masculine article ‘el’: ‘el …
‘Era’ vs ‘fue’
I was eating delicious tacos de mixiote when I first stumbled upon this quagmire. The radio announced that a certain Juan Gabriel had died – who I later learnt was …
‘Cómo’ vs ‘Qué’
If you think ‘cómo’ is ‘how’ and ‘qué’ is ‘what’, you’d be right … most of the time that is. Have you ever said something to a native Spanish speaker …
‘Podría’ vs ‘podía’
Quick answer – ‘podía’ and ‘podría’ are both conjugations of the verb ‘poder’ and both translate as ‘could’ in English … BUT we use ‘podía’ to speak about the past, …
Does ‘si’ have an accent?
Quick answer – generally, ‘sí’ with an accent means ‘yes’ (for example, ‘Sí, de acuerdo’= ‘YES, I agree’) and ‘si’ without an accent means ‘if’ (for example, ‘Si estás de …