Sentence Order
I am still having trouble with the Spanish sentence order. Is there a template out there to help me with this? I know the more emphasized or important part goes last but how do you know what is the "important part" of the sentence that goes last or toward the end?
3 Answers
Firstly, a minor point: it's "word order" (i.e. the order of words within a sentence). "sentence order" would refer, if anything, to the organizing of sentences within a paragraph.
On the whole, Emily's response is correct the standard SVO (subject-verb-object) order of English is also the most common in Spanish. However, Spanish is more flexible (and English is particularly rigid) about word order. I'm not at all sure that I agree with your assertion that (in Spanish) the most important/stressed element goes last. However, my primary focus is on the spoken language and, there, overall intonation plays a more important role.than word order.
In general, Spanish sentence order very closely follows English sentence order. Sometimes in questions the subject and verb can be switched, but generally in sentences just put the words in the same order you would in English. Obviously there are exceptions (most notably object pronouns- lo/la/me/te/le/etc), but its a basic rule that will get you by in most cases.
Well, in English the order normally goes like this. My beautiful, red, shiny new car, or my gorgeous, wise and intelligent wife. All the adjectives come first and the subject goes last. Opposite to Spanish were the subject generally comes first and all the adjective will follow. On the other hand, English is more rigid than Spanish. in English There is pretty much one way for the order of a sentence. Spanish can be bend and twisted to be more upfront, romantic, or poetic depending on the situation.
The most difficult part of English is Pronunciation, The most difficult part of Spanish is Conjugation
