We commonly receive feedback from our readers about the challenges of learning Spanish. Spanish can indeed be challenging for English speakers; after all, we are talking about a Romance language with a very different grammatical structure. However, grammar doesn’t seem to be the area that people find most challenging about Spanish. Instead, most learners at Yabla Spanish complain about how fast Spanish is spoken! And they seem to be justified: according to recent research, Spanish is the second-fastest spoken language at a syllable-per-second velocity of 7.82, trailing just slightly behind Japanese, at 7.84, but way ahead of English, which, according to the same study, is spoken at an average rate of 6.19 syllables per second. There you have it. You should be proud that you are learning one of the fastest spoken languages in the world.
Learners seem to find Spanish particularly fast paced due to the fact that in Spanish contiguous vowels are pronounced as if they were part of a single syllable. We are not talking about diphthongs or mere contractions such as de+el = del or a+el = al. We are talking about sinalefas: the merging of vowels that are part of different contiguous words.
Sinalefas makes Spanish challenging because they result in the merging of several words that are pronounced as one, without interruptions. Since sinalefas can merge up to five vowels, even a simple sentence such as Envidio a Eusebio (I envy Eusebio) becomes hard to understand when it is actually pronounced as envidioaeusebio. If you can’t tell where a word ends and another begins, how can you know for sure what a speaker is saying? The answer is listening practice.
There are many different types of sinalefas or “monosyllabic groups of vowels” in Spanish, as modern grammar specialists also call them. Let’s try to find examples of the most frequent ones in our catalog of authentic Spanish videos. In this lesson we will cover examples of sinalefas that merge two vowels only.
Sinalefas with two identical vocales átonas (unstressed or atonic vowels) are very common: casa alegre (happy home), le escucho (I listen to you), Lucy intenta (Lucy tries), etc. These sinalefas are pronounced with a long sound, just as if the two vowels were inside a single word, like acreedor (creditor), zoológico (zoo), contraataque (counterattack).
No olvides que los envoltorios de cartón, papel y envases de vidrio...
And don't forget that cardboard and paper covers and glass bottles...
Caption 46, 3R - Campaña de reciclaje
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Sinalefas with two identical vowels, one of which is a vocal tónica (stressed vowel), are pronounced as a single stressed vowel (remember that a stressed vowel may or may not have a written accent). The following example contains two contiguous sinalefas of this kind, and you may hear some speakers merging both of them:
¿Qué está haciendo?
What are you doing?
Caption 40, 75 minutos - Del campo a la mesa
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Sinalefas with different vocales átonas (unstressed vowels) are very common and perhaps some of the most used. They are pronounced as a single unstressed syllable. The first sinalefa in the following example is of one of this kind. But the second sinalefa (dejóalgo) merges two vocales tónicas (stressed vowels) and in this case, if the sinalefa is actually produced, both vowels get merged but lean on the more open vowel (the a in algo).
...porque todo aquel que vino dejó algo.
...because everybody who came left something.
Caption 73, Horno San Onofre - La Historia de la Pastelería
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Can you identify the sinalefas in the following example?
Ya nada sería igual en la vida de ambos.
Nothing would be the same in their lives.
Caption 65, Biografía - Natalia Oreiro
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Be aware that Spanish speakers don't pronounce sinalefas every single time. Weather sinalefas are used or not depends on many factors: personal preference, regional variants (for example some learners find that Mexican Spanish is way faster than, let’s say, Ecuadorian or Venezuelan Spanish), or even context (for example when a speaker is trying to speak clearly or very emphatically, he or she may not merge many words). Here’s an example in which the speaker is clearly not pronouncing two possible sinalefas (súnico and equipajera), but he does pronounce a third one: únicoe. Can you guess why?
Y su único equipaje era la soledad
And her only baggage was solitude
Caption 20, Gardi - Leña apagada
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If you said "because these are the lyrics of a song," you are right! Sinalefas and their opposites, hiatos, are some of the most common poetic tools used to ensure proper meter. As a listening exercise for the week, we invite you to find two-vowel sinalefas in our videos and listen carefully to decide whether the speaker is actually merging the vowels or not. We will continue exploring the world of Spanish sinalefas in future lessons.
Si clauses are typical markers of the Spanish conditional:
Y yo creo que si me hubiese quedado viviendo...
And, I believe that if I had stayed living...
Caption 12, Festivaliando - Mono Núñez
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However, sometimes you could use the conditional phrase de + haber + participio:
Y yo creo que de haberme quedado viviendo...
And, I believe that if I had stayed living...
In fact, the construction de + haber + participio (endings -ado, -ido, -to, -so -cho) is based on what in Spanish is known as the conditional compuesto or condidional perfecto (perfect conditional):
Here's an example of the perfect conditional combined with a si clause:
Tal vez, si yo fuera un poco más sensata
Maybe, if I were a bit more sensible
habría inventado una poción
I would have invented a potion
Captions 20-21, Belanova - Tal vez
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And this is how you substitute si with de:
Tal vez, de ser un poco más sensata habría inventado una poción
Maybe, if I were a bit more sensible I would have invented a potion
Just for practice, instead of present subjunctive (yo fuera) let's use past perfect subjunctive:
Tal vez, si yo hubiera sido un poco más sensata habría inventado una poción
Maybe, if I had been a bit more sensible I would have invented a potion
Substitution is as follows:
Tal vez, de haber sido un poco más sensata habría inventado una poción
Maybe, if I had been a bit more sensible I would have invented a potion
This recalls the common phrase de haber sabido (if I had known). It's also common to combine it with direct object pronouns: de haberlo sabido (If I had known of it), de haberlo pensado (if I had thought of it).
But de + infinitive is not always an option. For example, you can't use it instead of the si clause when the conditional refers to an action in the future. You can't use it in the following example:
Voy a ver si alguna quiere jugar conmigo a Nimanji.
I am going to see if anyone wants to play Nimanji with me.
Caption 26, Kikirikí - Animales
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This is because the perfect conditional can only be used to refer to actions in the past. Also have in mind that the perfect conditional is not only used with si clauses, because sometimes the condition for something to happen is left unexpressed or it's inferred only by context:
Yo y mi hermana hemos vivido una vida
My sister and I have lived a life
que no nos habríamos imaginado.
that we wouldn't have imagined.
Captions 68-69, Horno San Onofre - La Historia de la Pastelería
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But if we artificially add a si clause to the previous example, let's say:
Yo y mi hermana hemos vivido una vida que no nos habríamos imaginado [si viviéramos en México]
My sister and I have lived a life that we wouldn't have imagined [if we were living in Mexico]
Then you can make the de + infinitive substitution:
Yo y mi hermana hemos vivido una vida que no nos habríamos imaginado [de vivir en México]
My sister and I have lived a life that we wouldn't have imagined [if we were living in Mexico]
The use of reflexive verbs in Spanish can be very challenging for English speakers. A verb is used reflexively when the subject of the verb is also its object. In other words, when the subject is acting on itself.
Of course, English also uses reflexive verbs. However, while English makes use of expressions like "to himself," "to herself," etc., Spanish uses reflexive pronouns. Let's compare the use of reflexive verbs in Spanish and English in the following examples:
Es que con su electricidad se defiende.
The thing is that with her electricity, she defends herself.
Caption 22, Guillermina y Candelario - Un pez mágico
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One of the most challenging aspects of the use of reflexive verbs in Spanish is the different ways in which reflexive pronouns and verbs are combined. You can use the pronoun as in the first example: ella se defiende (she defends herself), but adding the reflexive pronoun as a suffix to the verb is also correct (though kind of poetic), ella defiéndese (she defends herself).
Here's another example that even combines two reflexive verbs in such a way:
Ella está dedicándose a relajarse pintando.
She's dedicating herself to relaxing [herself] by painting.
Caption 21, 75 minutos - Gangas para ricos
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And there is even a different way to express the exact same idea:
Ella se está dedicando a relajarse pintando.
It's also very common to use more than one verb in reflexive expressions in Spanish. Usually one verb is conjugated and the other one is an infinitive. Here is an example that combines the verbs saber (to know) and cuidar (to take care):
No le teme a nada, él se sabe cuidar
He's not afraid of anything, he knows how to take care of himself
Caption 42, Alberto Barros - Mano a mano
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There is another way to express the same idea. Can you guess it now? Let's take a look:
él sabe cuidarse.
Remember we said that Spanish uses reflexive pronouns while English uses expressions such as "to himself," "to herself," etc.? Well, that doesn't mean that Spanish doesn't have similar expressions. Let's see what those expressions are:
- mí mismo (myself)
- sí misma (herself)
- sí mismo (himself, itself)
- sí mismos (themselves), and
- nosotros mismos (ourselves)
It may seem repetitive, but it's correct and very common to use them altogether with reflexive pronouns and verbs:
De crecer, de vivir, de ver, de realizarse a sí mismos.
To grow, to live, to make themselves [to come into their own].
Captions 14-15, Horno San Onofre - La Historia de la Pastelería
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Another confusing aspect of reflexive verbs in Spanish is that they are not always used in the same situations in English. A classic example is the use of the reflexive bañarse to describe the action of taking a bath. You wouldn't normally say "I'm bathing myself" in English, but rather "I'm bathing" or "I'm taking a bath." Or take, for example, the verb arrepentir[se]:
Quisiera arrepentirme, ser el mismo, y no decirte eso
I would like to repent, to be the same, and to not tell you that
Caption 19, Camila - Aléjate de mi
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Sometimes things get even more confusing. Expressions like la sopa se quema or el plato se rompió (literally "the soup burns itself" and "the dish broke itself") don't seem to make much sense, right? How can inanimate objects act on themselves? However, these expressions are correct in Spanish, and they are commonly used as some kind of passive voice. That's how they usually translate to English:
...pero no muy oscuro porque si no, se quema la arepa.
...but not very dark because if not, the arepa gets burned.
Caption 41, Dany - Arepas
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To end this lesson we want to share with you a Spanish saying that uses reflexive verbs. It may come in handy if you are thinking reflexive Spanish verbs are way too confusing. It goes like this:
No te preocupes, mejor ocúpate (Don't worry yourself, it's better to occupy yourself).
We hope you enjoyed this lesson about reflexive verbs in Spanish and please send us your comments and suggestions.
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