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Errors 1
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“To look at”, “to look for”, “to ask for”, “to wait for”
Several Spanish verbs include in their meaning what appear to be prepositions in English such as “at” or “for”. These include mirar (“to look at”), buscar (“to look for”, “to search for”, or “to look up [something in a reference source]”), pedir (“to ask for” or “to request”) and esperar (“to wait for [someone/something]”).
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Mamá miró la cuenta unos minutos sin decir nada.
Mom looked at the bill a few minutes without saying anything.
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Busqué el anillo una hora entera.
I looked for the ring for a whole hour.
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Esta mañana pedí un aumento de sueldo.
This morning I asked for a pay raise.
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Voy a llegar tarde; no me esperes.
I'll be late; don't wait for me.
Do NOT use gerunds as subjects of verbs or objects of prepositions
The “-ing” form of verbs as subjects and objects. It is important to distinguish between three special verb forms:
1) the infinitive —e.g., hablar—, which is a verbal noun and can thus serve as the subject or object of a verb or as the object of a preposition.
2) the past participle —e.g., hablado—, which is a verbal adjective and can thus modify a noun.
3) the gerund or -ndo form —hablando— which is a verbal adverb and which cannot be used as a noun or adjective.
Do NOT use gerunds as subjects of verbs or objects of prepositions.
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Cantar es lo que le gusta a ella.
Singing is what she likes.
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Salimos después de ver solo la mitad de la película.
We left after seeing only half of the movie.
“Mr. and Mrs. [García]” or “The” + the plural of a family name [the Garcias], or “Mr. and Mrs.” + a family name is usually expressed with the article "los" plus the last name given in the singular form: los García.
Anoche conocí a los Gómez.
Last night I met Mr. & Mrs. Gómez [the Gomezes.]
“To sit down/be seated; lie down/be lying down”
When dealing with positions for the human body, be careful to distinguish between the action and the resultant state or position. For example, sentarse expresses the action of sitting down, whereas estar sentado/a describes some as being in a seated position. A partial list of these actions/positions:
ACTION RESULTANT POSITION
acostarse (to lie down) estar acostado/echado (to be lying down)
arrodillarse (to kneel) estar arrodillado (to be kneeling)
sentarse (to sit down) estar sentado (to be sitting/seated)
levantarse (to stand up) estar de pie (to be standing)
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Me senté, pero mientras estaba sentado, no podía menos de seguir moviendo los pies.
I sat down, but while I was sitting, I couldn't help but keep moving my feet.
“To learn”: aprender and enterarse de
Aprender means to “learn by studying”, whereas enterarse de is to learn in the sense of “to find out”, somewhat similar to "descubrir".
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En esa clase aprendimos mucho vocabulario.
We learned a lot of vocabulary in that class.
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Nos enteramos de que alguien nos espiaba.
We learned (or: found out) that someone was spying on us.
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Errors 2
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Errors 3
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Errors 4
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