Image source, Daniel Arce/BBC Mundo Article information Author, Drafting Author’s title, There is festivalcartagena@bbcmundo January 27, 2025 If you receive such a message you can have several things for insurance, such as who writes it has confidence with you and belongs to the millennial generation. The phrase, which was originally part of a meme with a funny flame with chuecos eyes, is possibly the first with obvious errors that went viral. And it is more or less clear that, who writes it, knows that there are several spelling fouls – “Hello, what are you doing?” It would be the right phrase. But there are other grammatical errors that are also viral, only that they have sneaked in our day to day without being part of a meme. We talk to Mónica Helguera, better known in networks such as “La Profe Mónica”, a graduate in Castilian language and who is dedicated to the creation of educational content today With her we saw some of the most common mistakes we committed in Spanish, both when writing and speaking. 1. The verb to have If we could make a ranking of beaten and vilified verbs by the Spanish speakers, the verb would have won the first prize. It is one of the most used and, perhaps that is why, with which greater mistakes are made. “This verb has a very complex situation. It can function as the main and as an auxiliary and, at the same time, it can even accompany two verbs at the same time.” This, without a doubt, can generate a lot of confusion. In the first place, having, as auxiliary verb, is used to form compound times. To do this, all the simple ways of having are combined with the participle finished in -or of the verb that is being combined: he has bought, we wanted, he had come. Here comes one of the first errors, which is to use the form we have, archaic, to form the first person of the plural. ❌ We have seen your brother. ✅ We have seen your brother. Image source, Daniel Arce/BBC Mundo Its other use, as the main verb is, at the same time, impersonal. That is, it is a verb that is generally used in the third person of singular and, in this case, denotes the presence or existence of something, as in the phrase “there is bread.” In this case, errors are trying to make a concordance between the verb and the subject that has no place. “It is complex to think that a verb cannot pluralize, being that accompanies a plural subject, but in this case, it is a mistake,” says Helguera. ❌ There were several girls. ✅ There were several girls. Recently another meme became viral and, in some cases, the verb has appeared with this error: ❌ When I am a millionaire, I will say nothing, but there will be signs. ✅ When I am a millionaire, I will say nothing, but there will be signs. With the impersonal use of the verb having in the present there are also errors in the way of writing it. They have seen “ay”, “hai” or “there” where “there are”. A classic phrase that is usually taught to differentiate how it sounds about how it is written is as follows: There is a man who says Oh! There – adverb of place. There are – the impersonal form of the verb to have present. Oh! – Interjection to express many and different spirits, from pain to joy. The fourth of errors with this verb is perhaps the most curious and quite repeated and is born by confusion in pronunciation. Let’s see. In this case, the auxiliary verb is confused in infinitive, having, with the sequence constituted by the preposition and the verbal infinitive see. 2. Homófonas words What are homophones? Well, they are pronounced the same, but they are written differently. And here are great confusion that lead to errors, for example: The confusion between AS/has/beam .. and yes, here we have an example that includes the verb having. Have you looked for that AS of football? Look for it. Do what I tell you. Has – form corresponding to the second person of the singular of the present of indicative of the verb to have. AS – One of the cards of the deck or a person who stands out remarkably. Do – imperative form corresponding to the pronoun you of the verb make. “Especially in the difference between you and do, I always try to explain it in the simplest way for people to understand. And I usually do it by asking people to look at the participle. If there is a word that follows that ‘you have ‘or’ do ‘and it is observed that it ends in ado, gone, to, so and cho (as in erased, eaten, broken, printed and said), it will tell me that the previous word is (you have slept, you eaten , you have broken, you have printed, you said), “says Mónica Helguera. Another way to distinguish between you and do is see that the latter indicates an order. Other words that usually confuse because they sound the same are going, berry and fence. Go to the fence to collect berries. Go – third person of the imperative of the verb go. Valla – Cercado or Wall. Bayas – a type of fruit. Image source, Daniel Arce/BBC Mundo Another example of homophones are there, be there, find and aya. Find this detail: there, next to the tree, which is a beech, there are children with their aya. Find – Second person of the singular of the present of the verb find, which means finding. There – demonstrative adverb that place. Hay – a type of tree. Aya – person in charge of caring for children. Another problem with the homophones are those that go with V with B, both sounds that less and less Spanish -speaking people distinguish themselves by pronouncing … Read more
