Spanish language Q&A Forum

Is there a rule for using the definite article in Spanish? It often trips me up. It doesn’t always follow the same pattern as English, eg in Castles text: …visitar castillos (no ‘los’, where in English there would be no ‘the’), but then:… la historia de los castillos medievales (in the  English version there is no ‘the’, the history of medieval castles; the history of the medieval castles is not incorrect it just has a different meaning).  Maybe, as in English, it’s very much about common usage and there’s no absolute rule.?

Hola, no entiendo estas frases: 

1) justo de lo que se trata, 

2) es de ver que todos somos distintos

Entiendo la idea de la paradoja--que la igualdad es importante pero, al mismo tiempo, somos individuales--pero no puedo traducir las frases. 

Una suposición:

1) in fairness to what we are dealing with

2) one must see that

Hola,

Would the sentence above still make sense in Spanish if it were reordered thus:

El otro día mi abuela me llamó tres veces.

Saludos,

Colin

I believe the accent on "ecónomica" is incorrect. Shouldn't it be "económica"? Also, in many of these exercises it is very difficult to discern when a sentence ends versus when there is a pause based on voice tone.

Pati Ecuamiga

Este verano  mis circunstancias personales me han impedido viajar fuera. Porque no podemos usar el préterito aquí ? El marco de tiempos es el verano que es más largo de un mes.

Kevin

sometimes the answers come back in English instead of spanish.  How can I fix that?

Hola Inma,

You mention in your answer to Lisa that you were going to create a studylist with nationalities that end in -e so we have them in one place to memorise. Is there a link to that list somewhere.

Gracias!