A pronoun is little more than a type of grammatical shortcut — a way of referring to a noun without repeating it. But not all pronouns are created alike. They can function in sentences in at least eight ways, sometimes being the main point of a sentence, other terms mere used to link other words together. Mastering pronouns is one of the most important steps in learning how to put sentences together.

One of those concepts that can be difficult to grasp at first for Spanish students is that some of the verb or sentence structures that we use in English are also used in Spanish — but they're often used for a different purpose. One example is the use of reflexive verbs, a verb form in which the subject of the verb acts on itself. Read more...

There are perhaps no more confusing word pairs for Spanish students than the prepositions por and para. One of our readers recently asked this question: In President John F. Kennedy's inaugural address, in the statement "Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country," why is the "for" translated by por instead of para? Our answer is here. If you can give an explanation makes the concept clearer, feel free to do so by commenting below.

Just because ser and estar are usually translated as "to be" doesn't mean that they're very much alike. To the native Spanish speaker, they're neither confused nor interchangeable (except for a few rare exceptions). So rather than thinking of ser merely as a verb for "to be," think of it as the verb that refers to the nature of a person or thing, or the verb that is used to indicate time or equivalence. Our recently expanded lesson on ser also explains other common uses.