‘Había’ vs ‘hubo’
I arrived late to a friend’s party over the weekend. He asked me what had happened, and I spurted out a hasty “Había un problema” (“There was a problem”). He …
‘Era’ vs ‘estaba’
A Mexican friend once told me about a hike he’d been on in Oaxaca. He said that a river he’d crossed “estaba bien profundo.” – “was very deep.”. Being a …
‘Mucho’ vs ‘mucha’ vs ‘muchos’ vs ‘muchas’
In short – ‘mucho’ translates to ‘a lot of’, ‘much’ and ‘many’ in English. As adjectives ‘mucho’ and ‘mucha’ modify SINGULAR nouns (although ‘mucho’ can also be a pronoun AND …
Why It’s NEVER Correct to Say: ‘No bueno’!
In short – ‘not good’ AND ‘no good’ both literally translate as ‘no bueno’ in Spanish. However, this is NOT a grammatically correct phrase, so tread carefully! If you wanna …
‘Allí’ vs ‘allá’ | The Battle of The “Theres”
‘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 …