Ask a Question

(Create a thread)
Go Back   Spanish language learning forums > Teaching & Learning > Culture


Looseness of Spanish Grammar?

 

Questions about culture and cultural differences between countries and languages.


Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old August 12, 2009, 11:33 PM
satchrocks satchrocks is offline
Ruby
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Location: USA
Posts: 59
Native Language: English/Ingles
satchrocks is on a distinguished road
Looseness of Spanish Grammar?

Disclaimer: I'm not trying to use this thread as justification to learn Spanish poorly or incompletely!

After having spoken with a few native Spanish Speakers (Latin American), I am getting the impression that in Spanish (much like in English or other languages), grammatical rules can sometimes be relaxed; there are countless examples of this in English ("good" is oftentimes used where the adverb "well" should be, people sometimes say "of" instead of "have," etc.)

My question is: How often are grammatical rules relaxed in most colloquial Spanish? For example, one individual with whom I spoke didn't really seem to differentiate between the indicative and subjunctive tenses - "comemos" and "comamos" would both work to get one's point across and the individual would not be greatly faulted for using such (i.e. it would not be considered juvenile/"infant" grammar).

Muchas gracias!
__________________
Mi español necesita mejorar mucho. Por favor, no dudar en corrige. Gracias.

Last edited by satchrocks; August 13, 2009 at 09:58 AM.
Reply With Quote
   
Get rid of these ads by registering for a free Tomísimo account.
  #2  
Old August 13, 2009, 02:17 AM
sosia's Avatar
sosia sosia is offline
Ankh-Morpork's citizen
 
Join Date: Jun 2006
Location: a 55 cm del monitor
Posts: 2,984
Native Language: Spanish (Spain)
sosia has a spectacular aura aboutsosia has a spectacular aura about
You can relax the language as much as your partner does.
If the other person agree, you an relax it as much as you want.
I must say latin American usually have another usages, wich are not worse or better, but simply more used.
Saludos
__________________
History, contrary to popular theories, "is" kings and dates and battles.
Small Gods Terry Pratchett
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old August 13, 2009, 03:11 AM
María José's Avatar
María José María José is offline
The Rebel Fairy
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Madrid
Posts: 1,765
Native Language: Spanish
María José is on a distinguished road
When it comes to verb tenses you have to follow the rules, I'm afraid.
Something that is more relaxed in Spanish than in English is word order,almost anything is possible.
__________________
"When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of fairies."
from Peter Pan by J.M.Barrie
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old August 13, 2009, 05:24 AM
ROBINDESBOIS's Avatar
ROBINDESBOIS ROBINDESBOIS is offline
Diamond
 
Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 4,040
ROBINDESBOIS is on a distinguished road
Well, to some extent.
A coleague of mine is an American, living in Madrid for 20 years and she doesn´t get a single subjunctive tense right, and I think it doesn´t matter, we understand her anyway. On the other hand, some Spanish people use some verbs incorrectly but that sounds bad to us, if you are a foreigner, everything is OK, but if you are Spanish things change, you sound low-class.
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old August 14, 2009, 02:32 AM
irmamar's Avatar
irmamar irmamar is offline
Diamond
 
Join Date: Apr 2009
Posts: 7,071
Native Language: Español
irmamar is on a distinguished road
I'd like to add that in some places in Spain, they don't use the correct tense of the verbs perhaps because there is another language spoken.

For instance, in Galicia, they say "viniera" instead of "vino" (Juan viniera el lunes, for Juan vino el lunes), or "estuve" for "he estado" (estuve ahora en tu casa, instead of he estado ahora en tu casa), I guess it's because they don't use compound verbs in Galician (I'm not really sure). And in Euskadi, for example, I've found people who don't say the articles (voy a garaje a buscar coche, for voy al garaje a buscar el coche)
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old August 14, 2009, 05:34 AM
poli's Avatar
poli poli is offline
rule 1: gravity
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: In and around New York
Posts: 7,810
Native Language: English
poli will become famous soon enoughpoli will become famous soon enough
In Latin America (the Carribbean in particular) people use articles less than they do in Spain--not officially as in written documents, but in every-day speech.
__________________
Me ayuda si corrige mis errores. Gracias.
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old August 14, 2009, 09:53 AM
CrOtALiTo's Avatar
CrOtALiTo CrOtALiTo is offline
Diamond
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Mérida, Yucatán
Posts: 11,686
Native Language: I can understand Spanish and English
CrOtALiTo is on a distinguished road
In Spanish there're verbs more relaxed rules than English.

For instance.

Jugamos, jugaremos, jugar.

There're more choices in Spanish as often as you use them.

Now in other languages only there're a littles choices.

Play, To will play, To won't play relatively theses choices are the same only with the different between them are the future.

I hope this can help you.
__________________
We are building the most important dare for my life and my family feature now we are installing new services in telecoms.
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old August 14, 2009, 10:39 AM
Tomisimo's Avatar
Tomisimo Tomisimo is offline
Davidísimo
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: North America
Posts: 5,664
Native Language: American English
Tomisimo will become famous soon enoughTomisimo will become famous soon enough
Quote:
Originally Posted by satchrocks View Post
My question is: How often are grammatical rules relaxed in most colloquial Spanish? For example, one individual with whom I spoke didn't really seem to differentiate between the indicative and subjunctive tenses - "comemos" and "comamos" would both work to get one's point across and the individual would not be greatly faulted for using such
Some things can be relaxed, for example:

Sometimes you can omit the "de" in "de que":
Estoy seguro que vas a ganar.
Estoy seguro de que vas a ganar.


Sometimes you can omit the "que" that introduces a dependent clause:
Espero te haya gustado lo que hice.
Espero que te haya gustado lo que hice.

You specifically mention not differentiating between the indicative and subjunctive in some cases. In Spanish, this is never going to happen with a native Spanish speaker since it is such an integral part of the language and meaning depends on it.
__________________
If you find something wrong with my Spanish, please correct it!
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old August 14, 2009, 09:05 PM
CrOtALiTo's Avatar
CrOtALiTo CrOtALiTo is offline
Diamond
 
Join Date: May 2008
Location: Mérida, Yucatán
Posts: 11,686
Native Language: I can understand Spanish and English
CrOtALiTo is on a distinguished road
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomisimo View Post
Some things can be relaxed, for example:

Sometimes you can omit the "de" in "de que":
Estoy seguro que vas a ganar.
Estoy seguro de que vas a ganar.


Sometimes you can omit the "que" that introduces a dependent clause:
Espero te haya gustado lo que hice.
Espero que te haya gustado lo que hice.

You specifically mention not differentiating between the indicative and subjunctive in some cases. In Spanish, this is never going to happen with a native Spanish speaker since it is such an integral part of the language and meaning depends on it.

David. You're right, but anyhow that rule in Spanish is indifferent, I mean, in fact the sentence has the same meaning but they never missing the sense, the two phrases means the same, but the second one is the more correct.
__________________
We are building the most important dare for my life and my family feature now we are installing new services in telecoms.
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old August 21, 2009, 01:20 AM
ookami's Avatar
ookami ookami is offline
Sapphire
 
Join Date: Aug 2009
Location: Buenos Aires
Posts: 1,283
Native Language: Español(Argentina)
ookami is on a distinguished road
For me it isn't more correct...
I prefer "Estoy seguro que vas a ganar" than ""Estoy seguro de que vas a ganar" .. "de" is not neccesary at all and, for me, it sounds bad. (there was a good article about that.. i will search for it)

Personally i almost never "relax" too much the language and my friends and family either (you can say quick and informal things whitout needing to make a language fault). It depends a lot of the education and the tradition of the zone.

As the other ones said, spanish has a lot of optiones..
-¿comemos?
in context, same as:
-¡comamos!
Reply With Quote
Reply

 

Link to this thread
URL: 
HTML Link: 
BB Code: 
Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts
BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off
Site Rules

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
I need some help with Spanish grammar murfrox Practice & Homework 3 June 29, 2009 05:52 AM
Online grammar guide for Spanish Ramses Grammar 7 August 08, 2008 09:49 AM
Grammar Iris Grammar 41 July 20, 2008 04:24 PM
Grammar check Julie Grammar 3 October 29, 2007 04:30 AM
I Like Grammar Grammar Man Introductions 3 October 02, 2007 08:21 PM


All times are GMT -6. The time now is 11:11 PM.

Forum powered by vBulletin® Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.

X