Comments on: 01-026 Nouns, indefinite articles, and classroom vocabulary

By: Craig

Craig — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 08:12:48 +0000

Profesora russ,

Thanks heaps for the clarity you have now provided on this matter. You have just taken beginner Spanish lessons onto, extreme English comprehension.

By: profesora russ

profesora russ — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 04:46:04 +0000

Hola! I teach high school spanish and the personal a contracts with the definite article el to from the contraction al; proper names of people are also considered definite and are preceded by personal a when they function as direct objects; when quien is the direct object of the verb, it is also preceded by a. Personal a is required before alguien and nadie and before alguno, ninguno, cualquier, cualquier, and cuantos, when they modify a noun referring to people or are used as pronouns referring to people

By: Señor Jordan

Señor Jordan — Tue, 08 Mar 2011 15:51:02 +0000

en + el doesn’t do anything. It stays ‘en el’

a + el does make “al” though

Sr. J

By: laura

laura — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 01:42:21 +0000

what do you do when you have en and el together? a + el = al correcto

By: Señor Jordan

Señor Jordan — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 22:57:45 +0000

Great question. I can’t answer that with any authority since I haven’t figured it out quite yet either. But maybe in the following example it might clarify…

I think the difference is quite subtle but as is the case one will be preferred over the other.
*¿Tienes una idea? (Do you have an idea?)
*¿Tienes alguna idea? (Do you have an / any idea?)

I could be wrong, but the second sentence to me seems more as though there is even more indefiniteness… (that’s probably not a word).

Let’s see if anyone else comments for now and I’ll probably have to amend this explanation later
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someone else tries to explain it here

By: David

David — Wed, 02 Jun 2010 15:52:16 +0000

what’s the difference between unos/unas from algún? I found out that both means “some”

By: Edgardo

Edgardo — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 17:06:15 +0000

I learned a lot from that video