Saturday, August 25, 2012

Spanish-Speaking World Capitals

Here are the Spanish-speaking countries as well as their capitals.  A good solid foundation of geography can expand your knowledge of the Spanish language indirectly!

La Capital (Capital City)
El País (Country)

América del Norte, Norteamérica (North America)
México, D.F. (Distrito Federal)
México

América Central (Central America)
Guatemala de la Asunción
Guatemala
Tegucigalpa
Honduras
San Salvador
El Salvador
Managua
Nicaragua
San José
Costa Rica
Ciudad de Panamá
Panamá

El Caribe (Caribbean)
San Juan
Puerto Rico
Santo Domingo
La República Dominicana
La Habana
Cuba

América del Sur, Suramérica, América del Sud, Sudamérica (South America)
Bogotá
Colombia
Caracas
Venezuela
Quito
Ecuador
Lima
Perú
La Paz
Bolivia (Admin.)
Sucre
Bolivia (Constit.)
Asunción
Paraguay
Montevideo
Uruguay
Buenos Aires
Argentina
Santiago
Chile

África (Africa)
Malabo
República de Guinea Ecuatorial 

Europa (Europe)
Madrid
España

Friday, August 24, 2012

The Pluperfect Tense

The "imperfect" perfect tense is known in grammar circles as the pluperfect tense.  They denote "had ".  They are frequently used along with ya (already).  The conjugation is as follows: 


  • yo había
  • tú habias
  • él, ella, Ud. había
  • nosotros habíamos
  • vosotros habíais
  • ellos, ellas, Uds. habían

Use them along with past participles, such as the following:

Cuando Juan llegó a mi casa, ya había hecho un pastel.  When Juan got to my house, I had already made the cake.  


Ya me había ido cuando tú veniste.  I had already left when you came.  

Nos habíamos sentado cuando la película empezó.  We had sat down when the movie began.  


Saturday, August 4, 2012

The Possessive Adjectives

Possessive adjectives (“my”, “your”, “his”, etc.) are encountered in lieu of the article (that is, they appear before the noun).  Each possessive adjective is associated with its corresponding subject pronoun.  With the exception of the nosotros and vosotros forms (1st and 2nd person plural, respectively), each possessive adjective only has two forms (singular and plural) and are not dependent on the noun’s gender:


Singular
Plural
1st Person
mi, mis
nuestro/-a, nuestros/-as
2nd Person
tu, tus
vuestro/-a, vuestros/-as
3rd Person
su, sus
su, sus

Mi gato es negro.  My cat is black.
Tus perros son amables.  Your dogs are friendly.
Su suéter es de lana.  His sweater is wool (made of wool).
Nuestra hija tiene quince años.  Our daughter is 15 years old.
Nuestros hijos son gemelos.  Our sons are twins.
¿Vuestro carro es rojo?  Is your car red?
Su mamá mezcla los ingredientes.  His/her/your/their mother mixes the ingredients.
Sus ejércitos cruzan el río.  Their armies cross the river.

An important concept to remember here is the ambiguity of the third persons singular and plural.  In these cases, it is important to remember that we could be referring to either “his”, “her”, “their”, “its”, or “your” (plural). 
Also, the possessive adjectives are not dependent on the number of the subject.  What this means is that if we for example are referring to several people as the subject, and we wanted to describe possession of a single object, we would still only use the singular possessive adjective (not the plural)! 

Using "¿qué? and ¿cuál? in interrogative sentences; You know them better as "questions".

Both ¿qué? and ¿cuál? mean "what?" in English, but the verbs in Spanish change depending on where they are used.  " cuál &q...