LEARN SPANISH SENTENCE ORDER

In Spanish the word order within a sentence is as follows: Subject + Verb + Complement

Example

Subject: the person, animal or object that performs the action of the verb or that the verbs speak about.

Verb: It tells you the action of the sentence.

Complement: The result of the action or the person or object that receives the action of the verb.

While in English the verb always needs a subject, in Spanish is not always like that as we have different endings for each person of the verb to indicate which person is performing the action of the verb. In the affirmative sentence the subject is always going to go in front of the verb and this order will remain even if other elements take part in the sentence.

Example

María va al colegio. (María goes to school) Subject + verb + object

A las nueve María va al colegio. (At nine o'clock María goes to school) Object + subject + verb + object

A las nueve va al colegio. (At nine o'clock he / she goes to school) Object + verb + object

This order will also be present in more complex sentences where two or more sentences are combined.

Example

Como pizza porque tengo hambre. (I eat a pizza because I am hungry) (Subject) + verb + object + conjuction + (subject) + verb + object

For the negative sentences, in Spanish we simply place "no" in front of the verb.

Example

No estudio italiano. (I do not study Italian)

Ella no estudia italiano. (She does not study Italian)

For the interrogative we will use the same order than for the affirmative sentences if the subject of the sentence is not present, the only difference is that we place a question mark at the beginning of the question and another question mark at the end of it. When we specify the subject, we sometimes place it after the verb in the interrogative.

Example

¿Hablas francés? (Do you speak French?)

¿Habla ella francés? (Does she speak French?)

¿Viste la tele ayer? (Did you watch TV yesterday?)