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
beginner Spanish question
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Re: beginner Spanish question
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.
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Re: beginner Spanish question
luke wrote:Queines son tus padres?
Not Quienes? Or even ¿Quiénes...? (with the accent) - since it's a question.
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Re: beginner Spanish question
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.
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Re: beginner Spanish question
jeff_lindqvist wrote:luke wrote:Queines son tus padres?
Not Quienes? Or even ¿Quiénes...? (with the accent) - since it's a question.
That's what I get with copy/paste.
Poca a poco, se va lejos. Bit by bit, one goes far.
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Re: beginner Spanish question
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
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
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Re: beginner Spanish question
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 ?
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 ?
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Re: beginner Spanish question
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.
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Re: beginner Spanish question
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.
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Re: beginner Spanish question
A novel by the well-known Isabel Allende bears the name El amante japonés: masculine singular adjective.
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