Re: Exercise: Spanish dictation exercise SOPHIA OF GREECE AND DENMARK (A1)

Question

Re: Exercise: Spanish dictation exercise

SOPHIA OF GREECE
AND DENMARK (A1)

Line: Doña Sofía
habla 5 idiomas;

1) This is not pertaining specifically to this section, but
it brought up something that I have been noticing: that the “s” has a tendency
to be dropped, whether in real life, or songs, etc

I am French from Quebec, and in French,
the “s’s” are silent for the most part. I have a feeling Spanish is moving
towards that, whether acceptable grammaticaly, or not; by the powers that be J

My question is, what are the “rules” or guidelines for when
to make the “s” silent (or skipped).

2) Also, is there a rule where numbers would be written in
numerals or in script?

I wrote “cinco” but it was corrected to “5”

3) Also, Kwizbot added a semi-colon at the end of this
section, other times I put in a comma, and it strikes it, other times I don’t
and there’s a comma.  Notwithstanding
that, it’s a bit difficult to know from the audio.  (I’m not faulting that, just a note, but I
appreciate the fact that it’s noted, as that is a good way to learnJ)

I did a search on your site for lessons in “punctuation”
but didn’t find any.  Could you direct me
to any?

Sorry about all these questions, these quizzes really get
me thinking, and I think that’s a good thing. J

Thank you for being there and your patience with us
learnersJ

Nicole

Answer

Hola Nicole,
Don't worry about asking questions, the forum is for this purpose.
1/ I re-listened to the audio and the narrator is pronouncing all the -s very clearly. Can you tell me where exactly in the dictation you felt the sound of the -s was missing? Having said that, in certain parts of Spain, mainly in Southern Andalucía and the Canary Islands there is a general omission of -s when they are forming a plural. (not the case at all in this dictation though). We have a bit of content on this here. 
2/ writing "cinco" in letter is absolutely fine. We sometimes add hints saying "write the number in digits" We did that in this exercise, that's why the option "cinco" is not contemplated here as a correct answer, but you can of course mark yourself as correct.
3/ we don't have a lesson on punctuation at the moment. This is something noted for future lessons. In dictations is quite difficult to mark on punctuation because you don't "hear" any punctuation from the narrator, and a pause can sometimes be taken as a comma, a semi colon or a full stop. The most important aspect of our dictations is transcribing what you are hearing right, so you are able to recognise the words. We wouldn't mark people down because of punctuation here.
I hope this helped.
Saludos
Inma