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I'm learning Spanish and it was "Is he your brother" on Duolingo.
Apparently it's El es tu hermano.
I thought it's Es El tu hermano. I know in Spanish some things are flip flopped, like "red dress" is "vestido rojo" but of course Duolingo didn't explain the original question above and I can't figure out why it's flip flopped so I know in what situations do reverse them like id say it in English.
Sorry I hope this isn't a dumb question. I'm learning via Duolingo and I think I'm genuinely learning, I got a strong base it's just my vocabulary and grammar is horrid. Thanks
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You can say both and even without the pronoun:
¿Él es tu hermano?
¿Es él tu hermano?
¿Es tu hermano?
We don’t usually use the pronoun unless we want to emphasize the person. In fact, the third option is the most common one.
And this is why Spanish uses the inverted question mark (¿). Because the word order in Spanish yes-no questions can be the same, (e.g. "Él es tu hermano" vs. ”¿Él es tu hermano?"), the inverted question mark signals that the sentence is a question and not a statement.
Duolingo can be quite exacting (and won't let you go until you get it right the way it wants). You can also visit the forums (for each answer) to read what actual humans have to say.
Most, if not all, other languages fair rather well without the leading question mark. Why does Spanish need one? Why do you need to know from the start that it is a question?
Other languages like English have verb-subject inversion when it is a question, so obviously they don't need a beginning question mark.
But most importantly, the beginning question mark prevents starting a sentence with the wrong intonation and then having to re-read the whole sentence using the proper intonation?
Because intonation is your only clue that something is a question. In English, we change the word order so even if I speak in a total robot monotone you can tell which things are questions and which are not. So Spanish writing puts the ¿ to tell you to alter your intonation when reading the text.
That said, you could just have angry teachers saying you should be able to read a sentence ahead of what your mouth is saying like my angry teachers told me. It's a question of how hard do you want to make things on your readers.
But you only need to raise your pitch in the end, where the regular question mark is. Sure, you could do what already with "es", but is that any clearer than doing that with the last word?
Yo no lo se. I dunno. Each language has it's own rules. *Insert Rick Astley here
Tell this to Duolingo because these pronoun are screwing me over.
You need to know how to use the pronouns. Then you can omite them.
In fact, you can smite them.
Oh Peanut, idk why that hit me as hard as it did 😂
In fact, you can smite them.
Yes, but it's not a good practice if you don't have a good level of Spanish. If you can understand every possible conjugation without a second thought then you are ready to drop the pronouns.
Spanish doesn't have an interrogative or affirmative word order. You just chuck in a properly conjugated verb somewhere and the subject is implicit. So you can leave it out. Or put it at the end of the sentence. Spanish does have syntax, but it's pretty much " up to you"
El vivió en esa casa (tilde en la E, maldito teclado)
En esa casa vivió él?
Sí, vivió él en esa casa
OR si me apuro -
Ellos comen patatas, Patatas comen ellos, Comen patatas ellos and Comen ellos patatas are all correct and affirmative
Or interrogative if the intonation goes up at the end
yeah but they all have an unnamably different vibe
this is partially why i quit using duolingo- i kinda got to a point where it was just confusing me more than anything because of stuff like this. it served me well while i needed it tho 🫡
I use Duolingo but look up what I just learned on SpanishDict.com so I actually understand the rules
Duolingo should accept versions with the pronoun or without. If they're marking it as wrong, the error is something else or the exercise is wrong. From my experience, the Spanish course is pretty accurate.
don't use duolingo
yeah. hire a private native tutor, way better than duolingo!
Might do this in a nearby future, Duolingo isn’t really doing much. Even listening to Spanish songs or audio does more to me.
I can agree with this.
The only part of DuoLingo I really like for language learning (especially Spanish) is the DuoLingo podcast where they tell short stories in intermediate-level Spanish. The stories are excellent and you hear native speakers talking about compelling topics… very contextual and interesting!
But…
“Yo bebo agua” or “La mujer tiene dos manzanas” is not the most useful way to become conversational in Spanish.
That’s my opinion, after trying many methods.
Tbh, this works in English as well. "Is he your brothe?" and "he is your brother?" Are both valid sentences although they are used to emphasize different aspects... so kind of similiar to Spanish, no?
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Just one of those funny language things where the second option reads as being shocked that he's your brother
There's more to it than that. I think most people wouldn't use "he's your brother?" Unless they've reasonably deduced, or have straight up been told, about him being your brother, and looking for confirmation of what they think they've learned. I don't think anyone would say "he's your brother?" If they weren't really sure or are even expecting a no, in those cases "is he your brother" wins out. There's obviously lots of other cases, like shocked repetition or sarcasm or something as well
The second one isn't really a question. It's an indicative statement said in a questioning tone, which serves to ask for confirmation. This is not the same as in Spanish, where it could be both that or a proper question.
It's good to remember that pronouns are often "implicit" in Spanish
¿Tu hermano es él? also works.
Slightly different meaning
And then some people put it as an article instead of as a pronoun, to add more confusion.
Es aquel el tu hermano Es este el tu coche Es la tu madre
Maybe these are errors made by beginners and are all wrong, as you know.
Remember that the article is never stressed but is pronounced together with the noun. The pronoun is stressed and always (should) have a tilde on it.
el queso (the cheese)
él quiso (he wanted)
In English, to ask a question you flip verb and pronoun. In Spanish you don't need to do it, you change the intonation, and in the written form you add interrogation signs at the beginning and at the end.
It's possible to flip those words, but it doesn't sound natural.
Good description. Gonna copy and paste this for my notes
Seems to me that both Spanish and English can and do use intonation to signal a question but both can also leave it out if there is a question word in the sentence (how, why, what, ...). Because "he is your brother?" is a completely valid question in English. Though I feel that in the "es tu hermano/is he your bother" case Spanish will still sound like a statement whereas English sounds like question if you leave out the inflection.
İ'm learning it too. In Spanish there is no question structure. You can give question meaning with emphasizing
There are never dumb questions when learning a language... Other redditors answer correctly, you CAN flip subject and verb when asking and I even would say flipping them is the most correct way to do it, but you don't really need to, because either the initial question mark when written and the intonation when spoken denote the question enough by themselves.
In other case like "vestido rojo / rojo vestido" you flip words in order to stress the part you're interested in. That usually depends on the context and the intention of what you're saying. "Ella se puso un vestido rojo" does not stress anything, she put a red dress as it could have been green or blue. "Ella se puso un rojo vestido" stresses the adjective, in this case you want to send the message that the dress is red for a special reason, whatever it is and whatever you explain it later or not. Flipping adjectives is usually used in a more literary context.
"Los tiburones blancos nadaban a su alrededor" -> He was surrounded by white sharks, not whale sharks, not any other kind of sharks.
"Los blancos tiburones nadaban a su alrededor -> He was surrounded by sharks which happen to be white. You stress they where white, but you don't give any explanation if they where white sharks, albino hammer sharks or sharks who weren't really white but seemed white because of the way the sunlight reflected on them.
you shouldn't use the word stress here imo, it may be confused with stress in syllables. A better word would be emphasis
Sure. For me stress is fine but you're also right.
Stress works fine.
I don't think I'm that far along. Idk what alrededor is! Or tiburones or nadaban. So much vocabulary to learn for an entire language.. idk how to accelerate that which I don't know.
You’re all good, man. Spanish is a lot like Latin (unsurprisingly) so the way verb forms work imply a subject. The Él is unnecessary because A) Hermano is a male noun, and B) Who else would you be talking about? If you were, let’s say, pointing at someone and asking to be specific, like at a party or something, or wanting to be emphatic, saying “¿Él es tu hermano?” would be sort of like saying “Is he your brother?”
And word to the wise; don’t use Duolingo. It’s good if you have no other options and can’t afford to spend a little but their use of A.I. has completely ruined the app. If you can afford to drop a little cash, I really recommend Gramática de Uso de Español - Teoría y Práctica by Luis Aragonés and Ramón Palencia - it’s essentially a textbook and you can purchase it on Amazon. Personally, I’ve combined this Grammarly and listening exercises available for free on YouTube. I’m still a beginner, but I’ve progressed quickly. Good luck!
You can also use ChatGPT and make it recommend sentences for you to translate and then make it correct them. Really useful for more advanced levels.
Works in English too.
He’s your brother?
He’s your brother.
Is he your brother?
It would be ¿el es tu hermano? Intonated like a question
I am about a B1 level, and this has always been somewhat confusing to me.
Or maybe I'm not confused, but the explanations have been inadequate.
When I see the first sentence (¿Él es tu hermano?) it strikes me as being more of a surprise to the questioner, as if they are surprised that he is actually their brother.
The second (¿es él tu hermano?) or even "¿Es tu hermano él?" strikes me more as just a general question looking for information.
Am I looking at it right, or does it really not make one bit of difference?
Your conclusions are right, but it will all depend on the intonation. Word order is more flexible than in English. So questions, exclamations and surprises are mainly expressed through the way one pronounces the sentence.
And that has been my problem with Duolingo.
The algorithm for pronunciation doesn't take into account the meaning or the word order.
Sometimes it doesn't even pronounce the word correctly.
That is right...
"He is your brother?" is oft-heard, but not technically correct English in any style guide or editor's guide. We usually say, and would always write "Is he your brother?"
"¿Es el tu hermano? is rarely-heard, not stylistically favored but technically correct Spanish. We usually say "¿El es tu hermano?" or "¿Es tu hermano?" if we know from context who we're talking about.
The reason is Spanish does not change word order for questions the way English does.
"El es tu hermano." and " Es el tu hermano" are also both technically correct statements in Spanish although I'm sure you're now seeing why choice 1 is the natural sounding sentence. The natural sounding statement in Spanish is _also_ the natural sounding question, but with different intonation.
Thank you for posting this!