last time

Question

I want to say Is this the last time you will be here'

Answer 1

The volume is suddenly raised on the last word; not before. How do you write that in English, by the way? Do you make the font bigger for "no"? Do you capitalize it'

As Natasha has indicated, the only way to do this in English is to use a direct quote. We can't do it with an indirect quote, unless we make the entire sentence an exclamation, which we often do. Or, we can split it into two sentences.

I've told you, "NO!"
I've told you, no!
I've told you. No!

In the real world, there is very little difference between the above three.

Answer 2

This was my firt post, and I have learned a lot! Thank you to all who replied. Gracias! Bonnie

Answer 3

Lazarus said (probably a rhetorical question, but anyway . . .)

:

How do you write that in English, by the way? Do you make the font bigger for "no"? Do you capitalize it?

I've told you (before), "NO!"

Answer 4

Natasha said:

Noralia & Lazarus, your comments are very helpful for those of us who are learning Spanish. I always write the ¿ in front of a question, but I didn't realize why we need it.

También ha venido su hermano (statement)
¿También ha venido su hermano? (question)

English has a strict subject verb inversion in questions, and it has the auxiliary "do" which alerts others that the construction is going to be a question (you know something / do you know something) even without the final question mark, but in Spanish the word order is more flexible and there is no such auxiliary, so without the opening question mark we don't know whether it is a question or not unless we can see a sign, and if only the closing one is used, and the sentence is long enough for us not to see it, we'd begin to read the sentence as a statement... just to realize that in fact it was a question, and we'd have to re-read it again with the proper intonation.

Likewise, I think that the opening exclamation mark is very useful if you want to change from a neutral tone to a emphatic one in the middle of a sentence:

Te he dicho que ¡no!

The volume is suddenly raised on the last word; not before. How do you write that in English, by the way? Do you make the font bigger for "no"? Do you capitalize it'

Answer 5

Natasha said:

Thanks for the input, Noralia. Should ÿsta have an accent here?

Noralia said:

You are right! ÿsta here is a pronoun and not an adjective, so it should have accent.

(esto, estos, eso, esos, aquello and aquellos never have accent)

You can say: "¿Esta es la última vez que vas a estar acá'"Remember that even though in English you need to place the verb at beginning of the question, in Spanish many times it sounds more natural not to do it. Both are grammatically correct, but as a native speaker I wouldn't start this question with "es".

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Answer 6

Noralia & Lazarus, your comments are very helpful for those of us who are learning Spanish. I always write the ¿ in front of a question, but I didn't realize why we need it.

Answer 7

Eddy said:

Esto/esta es sounds like a statement of fact. If it is a question, like the poster has said, wouldn´t ¿es esto/esta? be more appropriate?

No, it doesn't sound like a statement: the initial intonation of the sentence is raising, like most interrogative ones, and it is pretty clear when you hear it. Of course, on paper you need to rely on correct orthography. That's why the opening question mark is essential when writing Spanish.

Answer 8

? es esta la ultima vez que estas aqui'

Answer 9

Eddy said:

Noralia said:

You can say: "¿Esta es la última vez que vas a estar acá'"Remember that even though in English you need to place the verb at beginning of the question, in Spanish many times it sounds more natural not to do it. Both are grammatically correct, but as a native speaker I wouldn't start this question with "es".

Esto/esta es sounds like a statement of fact. If it is a question, like the poster has said, wouldn´t ¿es esto/esta? be more appropriate?

Not at all! We start questions all the time with "esto", "este", "esta" etc.
Expamples: ¿Esta es tu casa?
¿Este es tu hermano?
¿Esto le vas a regalar para le cumpleaños?
¿Estos son tus libros o los míos?
and loads of etc.

Answer 10

Thanks for the input, Noralia. Should ÿsta have an accent here?

Noralia said:

You can say: "¿Esta es la última vez que vas a estar acá'" Remember that even though in English you need to place the verb at beginning of the question, in Spanish many times it sounds more natural not to do it. Both are grammatically correct, but as a native speaker I wouldn't start this question with "es".

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Answer 11

Noralia said:

You can say: "¿Esta es la última vez que vas a estar acá'"Remember that even though in English you need to place the verb at beginning of the question, in Spanish many times it sounds more natural not to do it. Both are grammatically correct, but as a native speaker I wouldn't start this question with "es".

Esto/esta es sounds like a statement of fact. If it is a question, like the poster has said, wouldn´t ¿es esto/esta? be more appropriate'

Answer 12

You can say: "¿Esta es la última vez que vas a estar acá'"
Remember that even though in English you need to place the verb at beginning of the question, in Spanish many times it sounds more natural not to do it. Both are grammatically correct, but as a native speaker I wouldn't start this question with "es".

Answer 13

Natasha said:

Should it be "Es esta . . ."?

Eddy said:

Es esto la última vez que está/estas aquí

One thing's for sure, it should definitely be estás.

Answer 14

Should it be "Es esta . . ."?

Eddy said:

Es esto la última vez que está/estas aquí

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Answer 15

Es esto la última vez que está/estas aquí