When I went to El Salvador ...
Cuando fui a El Salvador hace 3 años atras...
When you say this, do you say the "a" ? When I put the sentence in acapela, it does but was just wondering if the people actually sound out all the words. Maybe this is a silly question but sometimes hearing them speak, I don't hear all the little words that are in the actual sentence.
3 Answers
I think that it would be improper to not pronounce the word, any more that it would be correct to not write the word as Eddy points out.
I think the problem is probably more of elision, in that the word gets combined with other words more than omitted entirely. (Listen to an English speaker whose culture is obsessed with overusing abbreviations talk about not omitting sounds!)
You might find reading Christopher's comment made in his blog on elision interesting. I can't link to the specific blog, but I can get you close. The name of the blog entry is: Why don't I understand spoken Spanish? Scroll down the page to find it.
Thanks. I was wondering whether I should make the effort to pronounce all the words . I would not want to risk being misunderstood.
When i speak, each sound is heard because I speak slowly with a lot of effort like I'm reading it but listening to others I don't always hear these small words.
Rachel
I believe the answer is yes. The preposition "a" is required. Examples from Collins gives "voy a la tienda". "voy a trabajar". Hope this helps, however a more grammatical is sure to follow.
