what is the correct mis amigos y yo or mis amigos e yo??

Question

what is the correct ???

Answer 1

Mis amigos y yo is the correct way. "E" is only used before words beginning in "i" or "hi".

Answer 2

You can think of this in a similar manner to the commonly misunderstood grammatical rule in English about always using "an" before nouns that start with vowels.

I say commonly misunderstood because that's not the actual rule; the actual rule is to always use "an" before nouns that start with vowel sounds. If I were referring to a person from Uganda, I would say "A Ugandan" and not "An Ugandan" even though Uganda begins with a vowel. The "u" of "Ugandan" is pronounced with the "you" sound, not the "oo" sound. To contrast this, if I were to say I will be ready in one hour, I would say "I will be ready in an hour" and not "I will be ready in a hour" because the word "hour" begins with the vowel sound "ow" and not the "ache" sound of "h"

And so the rule in Spanish about switching from "y" to "e" or from "o" to "u" follows a similar rule... You must pay attention to the sound of the letter and not just the letter itself.

As is the case with "Mis amigos y yo," the word "yo" begins with a y sound (pronounced like "yuh" in English) even though the letter "y" is pronounced "i griega" in Spanish. You would switch from "y" to "e" if the word coming after "y" began with the Spanish "i" sound (which is the "ee" sound from the English word "bee").

So, if you were going to say "Mis amigos y Isabela" you'd need to change that instead to "Mis amigos e Isabela" because "Isabela" begins with the Spanish "i" sound.

I think this is a cause for confusion in Spanish because the Spanish alphabet is mostly phonemic, meaning the letters generally have a consistent pronunciation, no matter when or where they appear in the language. Of course, it's only mostly phonemic, because as we see in the cause of "y" and "yo" the letter "y" is pronounced differently.

I hope that helps! As always, try to understand how knowledge of your L1 (your primary language) can help you in your L2+ (second or other language).

What a good answer! - 0083f5dc, Jul 18, 2013