Marvelous Diglot Newbie Greece Joined 4901 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Greek*, EnglishB2 Studies: GermanB1, Spanish
| Message 1 of 6 07 July 2011 at 8:34pm | IP Logged |
For example whats the difference between:
"Tengo un hermano" and "Yo tengo un hermano"?
Does it make any differnce and if yes what is it?
Thanks,Nick.
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Cainntear Pentaglot Senior Member Scotland linguafrankly.blogsp Joined 6012 days ago 4399 posts - 7687 votes Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic Studies: Catalan, Italian, German, Irish, Welsh
| Message 2 of 6 07 July 2011 at 8:55pm | IP Logged |
The pronoun is used for emphasis or for comparison.
EG "El tiene un hermano?" "Yo tengo un hermano, el no."
It is also used when the sentence would otherwise be ambiguous, but "tengo" is never ambiguous.
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Marvelous Diglot Newbie Greece Joined 4901 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Greek*, EnglishB2 Studies: GermanB1, Spanish
| Message 3 of 6 07 July 2011 at 8:58pm | IP Logged |
thanks,apparently it works the same way as in Greek,kinda confusing non the less
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ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5229 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French
| Message 4 of 6 07 July 2011 at 9:24pm | IP Logged |
It's about the difference between:
"I have a brother."
and
"I myself have a brother."
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Marvelous Diglot Newbie Greece Joined 4901 days ago 10 posts - 11 votes Speaks: Greek*, EnglishB2 Studies: GermanB1, Spanish
| Message 5 of 6 07 July 2011 at 9:27pm | IP Logged |
what does it mean when is being used in a question?
EG "tienes un hermano?" "tu tienes un hermano?"
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ScottScheule Diglot Senior Member United States scheule.blogspot.com Joined 5229 days ago 645 posts - 1176 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Latin, Hungarian, Biblical Hebrew, Old English, Russian, Swedish, German, Italian, French
| Message 6 of 6 07 July 2011 at 9:41pm | IP Logged |
Exactly the same. It's simply used for stress, the difference between:
"Do you have a brother?"
and
"Do you yourself have a brother?"
Technically, Spanish is what we call a pro-drop language, which means if the pronouns can be dropped without (too much) ambiguity, they'll be dropped (more specifically, it's the subject pronouns that can be dropped). Other examples are Portuguese, Catalan, Romanian and Italian. Casual English shows some pro-drop characteristics. Non-pro-drop languages include English, German, and French. In these languages subject pronouns are necessary. Thus one can say: "You are eating cheese" but not, in proper English, "Are eating cheese."
Edited by ScottScheule on 07 July 2011 at 9:45pm
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