Die Wortstellung

The everyday Spanish sentence runs like an English one: subject, verb, object. María come una manzana - "María eats an apple". The differences lie in what Spanish is free to move, what it leaves out, and where the adjective goes.

The subject is often missing, or after the verb

The verb ending already tells you who acts, so Spanish usually leaves out subject pronouns: Vivo en Sevilla. Trabajo en un hotel. Saying yo every time sounds as if you are contrasting yourself with someone else: Yo trabajo; tú no haces nada.

New information tends to come at the end of the sentence, and that often pushes the subject after the verb: Ha llegado el cartero. - "The postman's here." Me lo dijo Ana. - "Ana told me" (and not someone else).

Questions: no "do", and the voice does the work

There are two ways to turn a statement into a question, and neither uses a helper verb:

• keep the order and raise your voice at the end: ¿Tú hablas español? ¿Tienes hambre?
• put the verb first: ¿Hablas tú español? With question words the verb follows directly: ¿Dónde vive tu hermana? (not *¿Dónde tu hermana vive?).

In writing, the opening ¿ tells the reader early that a question is coming, which matters precisely because the word order alone often does not.

Adjectives after the noun

Most adjectives follow the noun: un coche rojo, vino blanco, una ciudad bonita, la comida mexicana. Numbers, articles, possessives and a few common adjectives such as buen, mal, gran go before: dos cafés, mi casa, un buen restaurante.

Where English speakers slip

• *un rojo coche, the English adjective order.
• Repeating yo, él, ella in every sentence.
• Splitting the verb from its pronouns: they stay in front of the conjugated verb, Lo compro, not *Compro lo.