beginner Spanish question

Ask specific questions about your target languages. Beginner questions welcome!
shug23
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2022 4:40 pm
Languages: SPeak English, learning spanish, know some German
x 1

beginner Spanish question

Postby shug23 » Mon Jul 04, 2022 5:00 pm

This is my first post, so not sure I am int he right place. I am learning the use of possessive pronouns with the proper conjugation of the verb Ser. DO I have it right :

Who are your parents ? Queires son tus padres ?
Who are her parents? Queires son sus padres?
Who are their parents? Quieres son sus padres?
Who is your mother? Quier es tu madre ?
Who is their mother? Quier es su madre ?
Who is his mother ? Quier es su madre?

Also ,what is the difference between Cuando es su cumpleanos? vs. Cuando es tu cumpleanos ? Is the latter," when is your birthday" and the former is "when is her/his/their birthday ? "

And finally,How would you say " when is their birthdays ?"...Cuando son su compleanoses ?

Sorry i dont have the accents showing up.

Thank you
1 x

User avatar
luke
Brown Belt
Posts: 1243
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (intermediate), Esperanto (B1), French (intermediate but rusting)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
x 3631

Re: beginner Spanish question

Postby luke » Mon Jul 04, 2022 8:29 pm

shug23 wrote:I am learning the use of possessive pronouns with the proper conjugation of the verb Ser. DO I have it right :

Who are your parents ? Queires son tus padres ?

Sorry i dont have the accents showing up.

Queines son tus padres?

It takes a while to get used to the board. BTW, there's a "Show virtual keyboard" at the bottom of the post area where you can select accented characters for Spanish.

You might want to start a Log in the "Language Logs" section. That will help people understand how you're going about it.

There's also an "introduce yourself" section. A post there may be a good next step.
1 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

User avatar
jeff_lindqvist
Black Belt - 3rd Dan
Posts: 3135
Joined: Sun Aug 16, 2015 9:52 pm
Languages: sv, en
de, es
ga, eo
---
fi, yue, ro, tp, cy, kw, pt, sk
Language Log: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=2773
x 10462

Re: beginner Spanish question

Postby jeff_lindqvist » Mon Jul 04, 2022 9:03 pm

luke wrote:Queines son tus padres?


Not Quienes? 8-) Or even ¿Quiénes...? (with the accent) - since it's a question. :ugeek:
2 x
Leabhair/Greannáin léite as Gaeilge: 9 / 18
Ar an seastán oíche: Oileán an Órchiste
Duolingo - finished trees: sp/ga/de/fr/pt/it
Finnish with extra pain : 100 / 100

Llorg Blog - Wiki - Discord

Cenwalh
Green Belt
Posts: 267
Joined: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:14 am
Location: UK
Languages: English (N), Spanish (C1), Catalan (B2).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12467
x 848

Re: beginner Spanish question

Postby Cenwalh » Mon Jul 04, 2022 9:27 pm

shug23 wrote:This is my first post, so not sure I am int he right place. I am learning the use of possessive pronouns with the proper conjugation of the verb Ser. DO I have it right :

Who are your parents ? Queires son tus padres ?
Who are her parents? Queires son sus padres?
Who are their parents? Quieres son sus padres?
Who is your mother? Quier es tu madre ?
Who is their mother? Quier es su madre ?
Who is his mother ? Quier es su madre?

Also ,what is the difference between Cuando es su cumpleanos? vs. Cuando es tu cumpleanos ? Is the latter," when is your birthday" and the former is "when is her/his/their birthday ? "

And finally,How would you say " when is their birthdays ?"...Cuando son su compleanoses ?

Sorry i dont have the accents showing up.

Thank you

There's a few things to unpack in the first question, but briefly you are correct in the conjugation of the verb ser, which is the point of the question. As has been pointed out, they should really be written like ¿Quiénes son tus padres?.

You are correct on your second question, but it should be noted that the tu form is only for an informal singular 'your'. For a formal 'your', you'd also say su.

On your third question, the plural of cumpleaños is simply cumpleaños since it's a portmanteau of cumple and años, and the latter is already plural. You would say ¿Cuándo son sus cumpleaños? ie you'd change the possessive pronoun to a plural one.

Don't worry about the confusing pronouns etc, it seems weird at first, but you do get used to it if you keep learning and practising, I promise. And to be frank, it took me a long time to get an intuitive 'feel' for a lot of Spanish, and this kind of stuff came after a feel for vocab.
4 x
Double SC films: 200 / 200 (updated 2022-07-28)
Double SC books: 34 / 200 (updated 2022-07-28)

User avatar
luke
Brown Belt
Posts: 1243
Joined: Fri Aug 07, 2015 9:09 pm
Languages: English (N). Spanish (intermediate), Esperanto (B1), French (intermediate but rusting)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16948
x 3631

Re: beginner Spanish question

Postby luke » Mon Jul 04, 2022 9:35 pm

jeff_lindqvist wrote:
luke wrote:Queines son tus padres?

Not Quienes? 8-) Or even ¿Quiénes...? (with the accent) - since it's a question. :ugeek:

That's what I get with copy/paste. :oops:

Poca a poco, se va lejos. Bit by bit, one goes far.
3 x
: 124 / 124 Cien años de soledad 20x
: 5479 / 5500 5500 pages - Reading
: 51 / 55 FSI Basic Spanish 3x
: 309 / 506 Camino a Macondo

User avatar
SpanishInput
Yellow Belt
Posts: 97
Joined: Sun Sep 26, 2021 3:11 pm
Location: Ecuador
Languages: Spanish (N), English (C2), Mandarin (HSK 5)
x 469

Re: beginner Spanish question

Postby SpanishInput » Tue Jul 05, 2022 12:48 am

Hi! Welcome to the forum! The only things I can add are:
1) "que" and "qui" are the standard ways to write the "ke" and "ki" sounds in Spanish. It can take a while to get this right, even for native speakers, so don't worry.
2) If you're using a mobile device, you can type all Spanish accents just by holding the letter you want to accent. If you're using a computer, you can use this keyboard layout: https://www.spanishinput.com/keyboard.html
2 x

shug23
Posts: 4
Joined: Mon Jul 04, 2022 4:40 pm
Languages: SPeak English, learning spanish, know some German
x 1

Re: beginner Spanish question

Postby shug23 » Tue Jul 05, 2022 4:09 pm

Thank you . And here are two more questions dealing with language. Apparently some languages have a female and a male form. German is both alemana and aleman(with an accent).

1)Are all languages 'male; when needing to using an article , or are the exceptions when their is a female version...eg is it" la" alemana and "el "aleman whilst it is "el" frances?

2) Does the country Japan have both a male and a female version and if so, how would you use both versions in a sentence ?
0 x

User avatar
Querneus
Blue Belt
Posts: 836
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2016 5:28 am
Location: Vancouver, Canada
Languages: Speaks: Spanish (N), English
Studying: Latin, French, Mandarin
x 2269

Re: beginner Spanish question

Postby Querneus » Tue Jul 05, 2022 11:12 pm

shug23 wrote:Thank you . And here are two more questions dealing with language. Apparently some languages have a female and a male form. German is both alemana and aleman(with an accent).

1)Are all languages 'male; when needing to using an article , or are the exceptions when their is a female version...eg is it" la" alemana and "el "aleman whilst it is "el" frances?

I think you're confusing the "demonym" (the word for what country someone or something comes from, Spanish: el gentilicio) and the name of the language.

Demonyms are applied to humans or things so you can use el and la with them: el alemán 'German man/boy' or someone or something that is 'German', la alemana 'German woman/girl' or someone or something that is 'German'. Un hombre alemán 'a German man'. Una pintura alemana 'a German painting'.

Names of languages are always masculine. El español, el inglés, el alemán, el francés, el japonés, el chino, el vietnamita, el árabe, el persa... Note language names are capitalized in English, but not in Spanish. ("Correct Spanish" at least; these days lots of people do it anyway due to English influence.) Hablemos (en) español. 'Let's speak Spanish.' Este libro está en alemán. 'This book is in German.'

2) Does the country Japan have both a male and a female version and if so, how would you use both versions in a sentence ?

Demonyms: el japonés, la japonesa. Plural: los japoneses, las japonesas.

Language: el japonés.

Ya llegan los estudiantes japoneses. 'The Japanese students are arriving now/already.'
No entiendo esa película porque está sólo en japonés. 'I don't understand that movie because it's only [available] in Japanese.'
Last edited by Querneus on Wed Jul 06, 2022 12:52 am, edited 1 time in total.
3 x

Cenwalh
Green Belt
Posts: 267
Joined: Thu Mar 28, 2019 9:14 am
Location: UK
Languages: English (N), Spanish (C1), Catalan (B2).
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=12467
x 848

Re: beginner Spanish question

Postby Cenwalh » Tue Jul 05, 2022 11:16 pm

shug23 wrote:Thank you . And here are two more questions dealing with language. Apparently some languages have a female and a male form. German is both alemana and aleman(with an accent).

1)Are all languages 'male; when needing to using an article , or are the exceptions when their is a female version...eg is it" la" alemana and "el "aleman whilst it is "el" frances?

2) Does the country Japan have both a male and a female version and if so, how would you use both versions in a sentence ?


I wouldn't dare say definitively whether the names of all languages are masculine, but all the ones I've thought of in the past minute or so have been... Besides that point, I think you're confusing the name of a language el alemán, el francés, el catalán etc with the same word used as an adjective in its feminine form una manzana alemana, la autora francesa, la persona catalana (a German apple, the (female) French author, the Catalan person), but note that this is to do with the noun it's describing, and isn't necessarily about the language. You would similarly have masculine forms for masculine nouns: el abogado neerlandés, el libro inglés, un autor alemán (the Dutch lawyer, the English book, a German author).

The country is called Japón, the language is el japonés the adjective Japanese is japonés in the masculine form and japonesa in the female form.

Yo vivo en Japón. I live in Japan.
Ella habla muy bien el japonés. She speaks really good Japanese.
Mi móvil es japonés. My phone is Japanese.
Amo la cultura japonesa. I love Japanese culture.
2 x
Double SC films: 200 / 200 (updated 2022-07-28)
Double SC books: 34 / 200 (updated 2022-07-28)

User avatar
MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2113
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
x 4822

Re: beginner Spanish question

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Wed Jul 06, 2022 12:41 am

A novel by the well-known Isabel Allende bears the name El amante japonés: masculine singular adjective.
1 x
Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson


Return to “Practical Questions and Advice”

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: Kraut and 2 guests