Spanish language Q&A Forum

Are there lessons having to do with the pauses and intonation in Spanish speech? I guess I'm using English patterns to place commas and periods when transcribing spoken Spanish and am frequently wrong.

Correct sentence in English should read...

It would be better if you talked to the lawyer first

I am a bit confused here. Below are two responses which I got wrong. In both cases the "hint" is that it is a "future idea". So why should one of them be indicative and the other subjunctive? "Even if you don't want to" I put in the subjunctive because there seemed to be a bit of doubt, and that was marked wrong. "Even if you do extra hours" I put in the indicative because it seemed that that was definitely going to happen.

I think this is a very complicated and nuanced piece of grammar so I would appreciate some help, thank you.

PS I tried to include a screenshot of my answers but the system wouldn't let me.

Marcos: Buenos días, Emilio. ¿Tú   (preparar) comida para la cena?

Emilio:   No, yo necesito limpiar la cocina. ¿Y dónde está Blanca?

Marcos: Ella   (oír) música en su dormitorio.

Emilio:   Ah bueno ¿Y tú y Tatiana qué hacen?

Marcos: Nosotros   (salir) para la biblioteca. ¡Hasta luego!

Could you please explain why "un albornoz" is used when we are talking in plural saying "los modelos".  Both of them did not put on the same bath robe to use un albornoz in singular. Thank you

‘We had to play football without kneepads’ - in English  we say shin pads (UK) or shin guards (US). Knee pads are what you use for skating. SpanishDict is telling me shin guards are ‘espinilleras’, but I have no knowledge about about which is correct/if one word may be used in a certain country and another elsewhere etc

Un bolígrafo también es una pluma. Si?

"Aparecerás en el perfil de la búsqueda..."   "... tu disponibilidad y el país preferido..."  I included "la" with búsqueda and "el" with país, but are not used here.  I never really know when and when not  to use them.  Is there a lesson somewhere on the website about when to use the articles?  I forgot to add at the beginning when we are translating "As an au pair", the correct way is to say "Como au pair..." and again, I wrote "Como un au pair..."  This is another example of me being confused as to when and how to use the articles.

Estoy referido al ejercicio: "El Real Madrid marcó menos goles (de/que) goles de Barça este año. 

Más de/menos de, se usan en candidades, no? En el ejercicio anterior los goles se refierien a una cantidad, creo yo.

Gracias y le agradezco.

Juan