escribiendo en español

Question

Hola,

I was on Lang-8 site and I wrote something in Spanish and I wanted to know what you thought about my writing. Here it is: Tan último semana escribí mi madrastra un correo electrónico por su cumpleaños. Es fue mi primera vez escribiendo en español a una familia miembro.

Here is what it says in English: So last week I wrote an email my stepmother for her birthday. It was my first time writing in Spanish to a family member.

How did I do. I am going to continue to write on that site and repost it here if you guys don't mind so I can get feedback and to work on my writing. It's one part of my language learning that is weak and I would love to strengthen it.

Gracias

Could you incluir the English please amiga , gracias. - ray76, Mar 31, 2015

There you go Ray sorry about that - Rozalyn01581, Mar 31, 2015

Answer 1

Tan último semana escribí mi madrastra un correo electrónico por su cumpleaños. Es fue mi primera vez escribiendo en español a una familia miembro.

Valiant effort! I might would write it as ;

La semana pasada le escribí a mi madrastra un correo electrónico por su cumpleaños. Era la primera vez (o era mi primera vez) que he escrito en español a un miembro de la familia.

Answer 2

Jack is almost 100% right. Only a small thing with the verbs: Era la primera vez que escribía...or... es la primera vez que escribo...or ha sido la primera vez que he escrito.

Ha sido la primera vez??? - Jack-OBrien, Mar 31, 2015

Yes. Ha sido la primera vez que he escrito en español a un miembro de la familia. You would picture her or him right closing the envelope for the letter. If you say "era la primera vez que escribía" it seems that some time has passed since. Can't mix both - 0006873e, Mar 31, 2015

Sorry, still can't understand how "ha sido" = "it was". - Jack-OBrien, Apr 1, 2015

I was telling the different possibilities in your sentence. In this case it is "era la primera vez que escribía" and not "era la primera vez que he escrito" because it happened one week ago. - 0006873e, Apr 1, 2015

Answer 3

I would say: La semana pasada le mandé a mi madrastra un correo electrónico para su cumpleaños. Fue la primera vez que le había escrito en español a un familiar.

Also the title of your post should read "Escribir en español".

Perdóname pero no veo la concordancia "fue" pretérito con "había escrito" pretérito pluscuamperfecto. Sería "fue + escribí" o "había sido" + "había escrito" . Por concordancia. Saludos. - 0006873e, Apr 2, 2015

Answer 4

Sorry, still can't understand how "ha sido" = "it was". - Jack-OBrien

To put in a quotes from my book to help explain what Gazpachuelo is trying to say:

A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish Butt and Benjamin, 5 th edition page 226-7:

In Spain, but rarely in Latin America outside Bolivia and Peru, the prefect may optionally be used for any very recent event, in practice any event that has happened since midnight. Very recent events, (e.g. seconds agoa) are almost always expressed by the perfect tenses in European Spanish:

Esta mañana me he levantado a las seis.

I got up at six this morning

Han sonado hace poco dos tiros.

There were two shots a moment ago.

...

(iii) The above examples are chosen to show how European Spanish freely uses the perfect of recency...where English only allows the simple past.

Simply put, English and the Spanish of Spain differ in this, and literal translations do not work here.

Answer 5

Very good effort, Ros

The only point I would like to add is that you need to pay attention to agreement of gender:

I will give you two examples:

Fue la últimA semanA de mis vacaciones.

El últimO númerO en la secuencia es siete.

I hope this helps

Feliz I didn't know that Ultima could be femine thanks for looking out for me. - Rozalyn01581, Mar 31, 2015

You are welcome, Roz :) Check any word as a adjective in a good dictionary and it should give you the masculine and feminine if both exist! - FELIZ77, Mar 31, 2015

Not all words exist in both forms eg cariño, as a term of affection, only exists in the masculine form although you can use either cariñoso / or cariñosa :) - FELIZ77, Mar 31, 2015

I know cariño is a noun not an adjective.;) - FELIZ77, Mar 31, 2015