Spanish language Q&A Forum

Newbie here: I’ve always been told that Spanish accent is usually on the penultimate vowel, and only the exceptions need an explicit tilde mark. 

However, there are conjugations, like actuéis where the accent mark is on the penultimate vowel. I would have thought that the accent wasn’t needed anymore. Any place I could go to with a fuller explanation?

Thanks.

Hello,

I get very confused when coming across these various terms that may or may not mean the same thing.

Can you please tell me how these are called in English, and if any and which ones are synonyms? and am I missing any terms that would fit in this category? 

Impersonal refleja (se)

SE IMPERSONAL

Impersonal Refleja

La pasiva refleja

Thank you for your help in deciphering this.

Nicole

Hi,

the english in this sentence comes across as a bit strange/odd. You never say" I become" etc in english .You would say "I will become" or "I would become" 

I will become a vegetarian while my sister becomes a vegan

I will become a vegetarian as long as my sister becomes a vegan

I would become a vegetarian as long as/only if my sister becomes a vegan.

What other kinds of quizzes would you like to see on this site? One issue that I have encountered in the 'self-test' quizzes is that I can lazily rely on getting the answer by knowing that I'm going to get a question on a recent grammar point, etc, which means I'm not really thinking with any great depth, only assuming that the answer will be in reference to a recent lesson. For example, if I've just learned that por can refer to 'approximate location' I will know that that is going to be the answer when I encounter that kind of question (which might be amongst several conjugation type questions so will be even more obvious). I think the best way to address this is for the site to offer more general thematic quizzes to help consolidate certain points. For example, there could be a quiz on Por v Para which you could take after Stage A2. I would add these to the library as 'Consolidation Exercises'. Unfortunately, I think that our brains will always take the easiest route to the answer which isn't always the best way to learn. 

I get that sentir goes before a noun and sentirse before an adjective. But in a test the question was "Yo siento que voy a explotar, comí demasiado."

How do we know whether to use sentir or sentirse in a sentence like this?

Hi Inma,

If you can skip tan solo as in the last example, how do you know whether the meaning is "just before" or "within"? For example:

A 2 minutos de empezar la película me llamó mi madre para charlar.

Couldn't this mean either that my mother called me just before the film started or that she called me just after it started?

Hi!

This is a general question I have about words that can both describe a hobby and an occupation. I have been wondering about the example "Soy culturista" (I am a bodybuilder). Would we only say that if we made a living from bodybuilding? Would we say "soy un culturista" instead, if bodybuilding were only a hobby? (I got the variant with un as an alternative suggestion from a translator website.)

Thank you as always!