Is Spanish structure logical?

Question

Why is it in Spanish that they flip the words around which doesn't make much sense in English? I would really enjoy some answers! Spanish is confusing to me!

• Please use proper spelling, punctuation and grammar. I fixed your question for you, but next time, please be more careful. There are people here who are trying to learn English, so we have to be a good example to them. - JoyceM Mar 12, 2011

Answer 1

Why should Spanish word order (syntax) make sense in English. They are disparate languages. One did not evolve from the other.

• great answer qfreed - 0043ad50 Mar 12, 2011
• short and to the point! - pacofinkler Mar 13, 2011

Answer 2

Heck no! ¡Solo decimos lo primero que se nos viene a la cabeza!

• Me too, only I get in trouble :) - Sabor Mar 13, 2011

Answer 3

I wish Lazarus were here to answer this!

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So, you think that English is very logical? Curious...

• You don't (wish it), culé.:) He'll go berserk! - Deanski Mar 12, 2011
• Berserk or not ,you'll have your answer! - pacofinkler Mar 12, 2011
• Exacto Paco. - culé Mar 12, 2011
• Deanski: I mean it, really. jeje :) - culé Mar 12, 2011
• Logical? by whose logic. - pacofinkler Mar 12, 2011

Answer 4

So, you think that English is very logical? Curious...

Of course, here's an example to demonstrate the logical use of articles:

You go to school.
You go to the office.
You go to a baseball game.

And of course the meanings of prepositions with verbs are practically self-evident in English:

take in
take up
take over
take on
take to

compared to:

stand in
stand up
stand over
stand on
stand to

Hope this helps.

• ¡Dios mío! How could I ask such a stupid question... Lorenzo thanks for opening my eyes to see the truth... - culé Mar 12, 2011
• You forgot the really easy ones lorenzo - with "get" :) - ian-hill Mar 12, 2011
• I also forgot to mention that most of them have at least two different meanings. . .silly me :red: - lorenzo9 Mar 12, 2011
• Truth will set you free 'but in cual idioma. - pacofinkler Mar 12, 2011
• Lorenzo i have spent endless hours attempting to explain these very things to a native spanish speaker, for them it just does not compute - pacofinkler Mar 13, 2011

Answer 5

►Para evitar tales dificultades, me parece que debería dejar de intentar traducir las frases de manera tan literal.

►In order to avoid such problems, it seems to me that you ought to stop trying to translate sentences so literally (i.e. word-for-word).

In any case, as others have already mentioned, the two languages are distinct and as such, one should not expect that the syntactic structures should coincide perfectly.

There are several reasons why English diverges from Spanish in terms of sentence structure. Probably the most striking reason stems from the fact that Spanish is much more heavily inflected than English. Because of its lack of inflection, English relies heavily on word order to help convey meaning. In English, there is generally a strict "Subject-Verb-Object" word order that is adhered to in order to avoid ambiguities.

In Spanish, however, due to such factors as verb inflection (for person and number), the use of the "personal a" to mark animate direct objects, etc., word order is not as important in most cases because changing the word order does not result in the same sort of ambiguities that we see when the word order is changed in English. Said another way, in Spanish it is more common to see the grammatical function of a word marked by a specific suffix rather than by its position in a sentence.

In any case, the bottom line is that each language is its own distinct entity, and neither has rules formulated on the basis of how well they coincide with the rules of a completely different language. Given all of this and because English is your native language, a more accessible and logical question for you to ask might be, "Why is the word order of English so rigid?" If you investigate this question a bit further, it might help you gain a bit of insight into the logic behind how languages are structured. Meanwhile, while you are pondering the differences in structure between languages of varying levels of inflection, just count yourself lucky in the fact that you're not learning Latin (a much more heavily inflected language).

• very eloquent response izanoni - 0043ad50 Mar 12, 2011
• wow. I am impressed. Very good. - Ron_Austin Mar 12, 2011
• well stated as usual! - pacofinkler Mar 12, 2011

Answer 6

Welcome to SpanishDict.

There are rules for speaking Spanish, just as there are rules for speaking English. One of the first is that the adjective comes before the noun in English and it comes after the noun in Spanish. In English we say black dog in Spanish they say perro negro. They both mean the same thing. You just have to learn the rules and apply them. I am finding that this can take a long time.

The killer part is if you skip over a lesson and don't learn it then you are pretty well up the creek in future lessons because you don't know the rules.

Of course if you don't know what an adjective or a noun is then you have an even harder time. Learning builds upon itself and you have to know and apply it all.

This site has an excellent set of Spanish lessons. I suggest you click on Learn Spanish (above) and go through them, starting on lesson 1.1. If you are already taking a Spanish course this will be a good review.

I have tried and failed to learn Spanish 2 or 3 different times and it is because I always felt overwhelmed and confused so I gave up. This site is providing me with the structure and motivation and helpful friends that will enable me to become proficient the the language.

• Ah, but there are exceptions to ever rule, in both English and Spanish. That is what makes learning another language the most difficult. Since you mentioned adjectives, most times in Spanish they come after the noun they modify, but not always. - debdelafuent Mar 12, 2011
• Yes, there are exceptions, but you have to know the rules before you can know the exceptions to them. - Ron_Austin Mar 12, 2011
• For example why is it "una buena idea" ? I don't know. - ian-hill Mar 12, 2011
• ...to every rule... - JoyceM Mar 12, 2011
• well I guess that's where that total immersion and practice, practice practice comes in. - Ron_Austin Mar 12, 2011

Answer 7

Have you ever tried learning German, a closely related language to English. In German the verb comes at the end of the sentence. And their street signs?

A hint to get past some syntax problem in dealing with direct and indirect objects in Spanish.Somebody once told me that if you can not follow Spanish speakers when they use the direct or indirect objects what you must do is memorize some indirect and direct phrases. IE: Me dijeron, tu me lo dijiste ect. So I made flash cards. It worked like a charm, not only could I use theses phrases when I want to say something, I could hear them in spoken Spanish with out translation the sentence in my head. You don't have to memorize a lot of phrases, just ones that you would you frequently. Once your brain understands the process it will do the rest, better than the any translation site. The truth be know mistakes still will happen, but at least you will not be so hampered by what seams to you the illogical placement of of objects before the verb.

• Great advice! - GAPPY Mar 12, 2011

Answer 8

Why is it in Spanish that they flip the words around which don't make much sense in English?

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I have to translate the English sentence into Spanish.

If you translated sentences (ideas) you would have fewer problems. However, your initial question shows that you are trying to translate word-for-word and that rarely works. There is nothing sacred about English word order (in the sense that it's more "logical" / "natural") that's simply the way English does things and, therefor, what you're used to.

Answer 9

Every language is different. Spanish and english are from two totally different language family. For example:

• in english you say 'I am' - you need to use 'I', because without the personal pronoun, you wouldn't be able to know what is it about.

• in spanish you say 'yo soy', but you can just say 'soy', because there is conjugation, so you don't have to use personal pronouns, because the form indicates the meaning.

Conjugation is only one of many examples that can show you, that every language is different. For example polish (my lang), there is conjugation(verbs), declination (nouns, adjectives,etc.). We don't use many prepositions.

Spanish is more complex languages than english at some points. That's why you need to learn the language's grammar. E.g. a Korean can learn japanese in about a year, because word order and grammar are the same, so he just has to learn the vocab. But spanish and english are different, so you have to learn vocab, grammar, and everything else if you want to be correct and fluent.

Answer 10

Once you have studied the Spanish language awhile, the syntax will be second nature to you. You will know if it sounds right or not. When you are at that point, you are on your way.

Answer 11

Well, any language is meant to make sense into other language, you have to see the differences between one and another but above all know that most of the times they wont match or make sense.

• your answer is the best so far! - funkymonkey2 Mar 11, 2011
• it's difficult for me because i have to translate the english sentence into Spanish and then I get confused and get marks taken off my Spanish homework! :D - funkymonkey2 Mar 11, 2011

Answer 12

English is, of course, a very simple language. For example, consider the first two sentences many school children encounter:

See Spot.
See Spot run.

Once you grasp the grammatical analysis of these two sentences with their readily identifiable subject, verb, object functions, you will find that Spanish is also very simple.

• Buena respuesta - Amor_y_paz Mar 12, 2011
• Ha hahahahahah. Yeah it's super simple till you have to "run Spot out of town" - rabbitwho Mar 12, 2011
• See Spot spin tops around posts.:) No probs. - ian-hill Mar 12, 2011
• Run, Spot, run. That was my favorite book when I was very small. - JoyceM Mar 12, 2011
• Corrimos a Spot del pueblo! - pacofinkler Mar 12, 2011
View 3 more commments >>

Answer 13

A Spanish girl said exactly the same thing to me about English the other day!!

Answer 14

In our opinion it is english that flips the words around! Which by the way, has no sense in spanish!

Think spanish is a challenge?, go here

http://www.personal.psu.edu/adr10/hu1.html#vocab

• Touché - pacofinkler Mar 12, 2011

Answer 15

Funkymonkey veo que eres un tío divertido.Si los dos idiomas siguieran las mismas estructuras lógicas,nos comprabamos todos una traductora portátil por 10 € y a correr. Tómate esta cervecita que invita la casa.

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