Learn the answer to the question 'When should I use E instead of Y?'
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| Ask a Teacher, Lesson 8 - When do you have to use the conjunction e instead of y? | |
| Hi everybody! Rosa here. Welcome to Ask a Teacher, where I’ll answer some of your most common Spanish questions. | |
| The question for this lesson is… | |
| When do you have to use the conjunction e instead of y? | |
| First, let’s go over some background information on how to use y. | |
| Y is a conjunction is Spanish that means “and.” It’s a conjugación coordinada copulativa or “copulative coordinating conjunction.” It’s used to connect words or sentences. | |
| An example with words would be-- | |
| He estudiado historia y literatura. meaning “I’ve studied history and literature.” Here, the words historia “history” and literatura “literature” are connected with the word y “and.” | |
| An example with sentences would be-- | |
| El sábado iré a Madrid y el domingo quiero ir al museo del Prado. meaning “On Saturday I will go to Madrid and on Sunday I want to go to the Prado Museum.” Here, y meaning “and” is used to connect both weekend activities. | |
| Now, on to the question for this lesson. When the word y precedes a word that begins with an i sound, it changes to e. This includes h and i together because h is silent in Spanish. | |
| Let’s go through some examples so you can learn when to use e instead of y. | |
| Mañana quiero levantarme temprano e ir de compras. means “Tomorrow I want to get up early and go shopping.” Here, the verb ir meaning “to go” begins with an i. Therefore, y changes to e. | |
| Let’s do one more example-- | |
| Son hermanos, pero parecen padre e hijo. “They are brothers, but they look like father and son.” Here, the word hijo, “son” is spelled h-i but has an i sound. Therefore, y changes to e. | |
| A good thing to remember is words that have been borrowed for other languages such as English and maintain their original pronunciation also require y to change, like in this example-- | |
| Me pidió dirección e e-mail. meaning “He asked for my direction and e-mail.” This is because the word “e-mail” has an i sound. | |
| Now, here's the tricky part. If the word begins with i or hi but doesn't make an i sound then you don’t have to use e instead of y. | |
| For example, words that have an initial diphthong like... | |
| Coge la olla y hierve las verduras. meaning “Pick the pot and boil the vegetables,” don’t need y to change as the sound is different than i. | |
| So why do the words change? That’s easy. Because it’s easier to pronounce! | |
| How was this lesson? Pretty interesting right? | |
| Do you have any more questions? Leave them in the comments below and I’ll try to answer them! | |
| ¡Hasta luego! “See you later!” |
3 Comments
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Hola SKM,
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Cristiane
Team SpanishPod101.com
Quite interesting!