Basic sentence structure

The basic structure of simple sentences in Spanish is the same as in English: subject – verb – object.

Basic sentence structure: yes-no questions

Either they have the same word order as a simple sentence and are spoken with a rising intonation instead of falling, or the verb and subject are reversed (verb – subject – object).

Note that Spanish does NOT use an auxiliary or helping verb like English (do/does).

• ¿Estudiamos el español? (Do we study / are we studying Spanish?)

Basic sentence structure: negation

Answering affirmatively: say “sí” (yes) and state your answer.

• Sí, estudiamos el español.

Answering negatively: put the word “no” before the verb (subject – no – verb – object). The Spanish word “no” means both “no” and “not”.

• No estudiamos el francés. (We do not study French.)

Modal verbs

Some verbs can have another verb as their object; these are called modal verbs. The same person needs to be doing both actions, and the second verb is not conjugated.

• Deseo estudiar un idioma de cada continente. (I want to study one language from each continent.)