Alguna is modifying the noun pregunta, so it is an adjective. By the time you finish this post, you will be able to tell these twins apart with ease! “Have a good day!”. The rest of the members of both families do not change when they “transform” into pronouns: ¿Tienes alguna amiga de México? But algún and ningún do not live by themselves! As we know, algún is an adjective and he must be followed (or taken care of) by a noun: ¿Has leído algún libro de García Márquez? The plural option sounds weird nowadays. You should use tanto/a to describe in number a noun, or the sentence structure tanto + como  to as “as much as” or tanto/as + noun + como to say “as many ___ as”. Indeed. However, the reality is that this apocope is quite formal for spoken Spanish. Ninguna keeps referring to pregunta, but the noun does not appear. “I’ve bought one hundred books.”, He contado cien personas (f). FluentU uses a natural approach that helps you ease into the Spanish language and culture over time.

Postrero is from the same root as the English word posterior, meaning last, usually in a series. In the second example sentence, the noun día is singular and masculine, which resulted in the “o” being removed. For example, the adjective ninguno/a (no/none), when used before a masculine noun, turns into ningún. Click here to get a copy. Santo is used when talking about saints in the general sense without specific names. PIMSLEUR® is a registered trademark of Beverly Pimsleur, used by Simon & Schuster under exclusive license. Usually, you can replace the use of cuán with inquiries using question words like qué or cómo. Both Santo and San mean saint but they follow different grammatical rules.

Alguno, on the other hand, is a pronoun, so it does its job by itself: Sí, he leído alguno. “I’m poorly accustomed.”, No me gusta Juan – me cae muy mal.

I always tell my students that alguno is the older, independent brother that lives by himself in his own apartment and only comes to visit from time to time. However, just as alguien and nadie can only refer to unspecific people, algo and nada can only refer to unspecific objects. El ejercicio es bueno para tu salud. learn Castilian Spanish or Latin American Spanish. ¡Qué malo! Alguna is its femine form. The most basic definition of apocopation is the shortening of words or omitting the last letter, syllable, or part of a word. Therefore, when it is plural, use cientos. I can't differentiate between those words, however. Antonio es uno de los hombres más brutos que yo he conocido (one of the stupidest men I’ve ever met). What's the difference between algún/ningún and alguno(a)/ninguno(a). “Someday I want to be a lawyer.”. If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn Spanish with real-world videos. But let’s delve deeper into things by giving the concept a closer inspection. “I want to read a book.”. When the apocope cualquier is used, it always precedes a noun and thus loses the a, following the pattern cualquier + noun. This is important because the Spanish language also has many of these short-form words that are used in daily conversation, and these can be particularly difficult for Spanish learners to get the hang of.

To do that, you will need to learn about indefinite adjectives and indefinite pronouns.

Cuánto can mean how much, the more, and a lot.

He comprado cien libros (m). “How great is his love!”.

Years later when you started Spanish 1, you probably learned the word un gato (a cat) and you wondered what happened to the word uno!

Do not forget that masculine singular adjectives add an extra -o when they transform into pronouns. ), Nada te parece bien. “I haven’t met as many people as Roy has.”, Tan is used to modify an adjective or adverb, and follows the pattern tan + adjective to describe “so ___” or tan + adjective + verb to describe “as ___ as…”, Los mangos están tan deliciosos que me los comí todos.

It is mostly used in poetry and literature, i.e. “There are hundreds of people in the auditorium.”. Exactly the same ningún/ninguna y ninguno/ninguna. the song “Cuán Grande Es Tu Amor”. You might recognize many cities in California and all over Latin America that follow this pattern. Malo (bad) is a masculine adjective that always follows the noun, i.e. “I don’t like Juan. A red book with a blue corner, exactly 129 pages, 56 of which are grey? The apocope also precedes mil, millón, and billón (a thousand, a million, and a billion), because they are masculine nouns. As I understand it, alguno is shortened to algún when placed in front of a masculine noun. Words like “admin” instead of administration, “fab” instead of fabulous, or “totes” instead of totally, for example. The adjectives ningunos and ningunas do exist and are still sometimes used, but native speakers are turning their backs to them and generally prefer using only their singular counterparts.

You now finally have enough background and grammar information to dive into these word pairs. Learn all the vocabulary in any video with FluentU’s robust learning engine. “There are so many people in this party.”, Nadie llora tanto como ella! “First, I need to go to Europe.”. If you bear in mind Spanish makes adjectives and pronouns agree with the noun they refer to and that a negative indefinite at the beginning of a sentence does not allow no to appear in said sentence, you will not have any problem with this topic. Ninguno is what is called a negative adjective, meaning no or none. Note that in the first example, the word postrero is used in its plural form, postreros momentos (last moments).

This is not just me being misogynist. (There is no one here.). (I have forgotten a few things.). ningún hombre (no man). As it happens with every indefinite adjective and pronoun, the one starting with n- is the negative counterpart of the duo. “There was a twenty percent increase in sales.”. For more practice with Spanish indefinite adjectives and pronouns, watch them in action with FluentU. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc, or its affiliates. Because the subject is plural, ninguno was not shortened to ningún. Cuán more closely translates to “so” or “how” in English. In the first sentence, the subject ellos (them) is plural and masculine. There are various reasons this occurs. We use "alguno", "ninguno" or "uno" (some, none, one) are used to generalize about quantities and either we do not want to specify or we do not know the information to do it. They are similar to alguien and nadie in that they can only be pronouns and one (nada) is the negative equivalent of the other one (algo). If we say: ¿Tienes alguna pregunta? “None of them wanted to go to the beach.”, Ningún niño quería ir a la playa. The same rule applies here: Ningún needs to be followed by a noun, while ninguno does its job by itself and does not accept any: Although they share the same meanings, alguna only works with singular, feminine nouns. (I do not have any Spanish friend.). He rubs me the wrong way.”. (Nobody loves me, instead of *Nadie no me quiere.). I know that the algún and alguno(o) mean some and they are both affirmative words. Every definition has examples that have been written to help you understand how the word is used. ), No quiero ninguna camiseta. Depending on the context, ‘algún’ can be translated as ‘any’, ‘a’, ‘an’ or ‘some’. Celebrate Leif Erikson Day with Virtual Zoom Backgrounds of Norway, Want to stop saying “Bon-Jer”? Primero is used instead of its apocopate form primer when using it as an ordinal number. un hombre (a man). Although singular, ninguno can be translated to English using either singular or plural words. I know that ningún and ninguno(a) mean none and they are both negative words. Use primer when using it to describe a singular, masculine noun. Con cualquiera de los dos vestidos luces delgada.

Buckle your seatbelts for this bumpy grammar ride! Ningún means “no” or “not any,” also depending on the sentence. These two words are exclusively pronouns, which means they will always appear by themselves. Try to avoid using it whenever you can. can take anywhere. That’s why we’ve compiled a list of the most common Spanish shortened adjectives, pronouns, and adverbs, so you can navigate these bad boys with ease!

and to order by phone.

“Juan is a bad friend.”. El es el tercer hombre en la fila. FluentU is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. In translation, either "He has what no person can resist" and "He has what no people can resist" mean essentially the same thing.

(Do you have any question?). Ningún vs. Ninguno Just as it happens with algún and alguno , the difference between ningún and ninguno is that ningún is an adjective and ninguno is a pronoun.

Let’s take the word alguna (some/any, feminine) as an example. For each of them you will find an English translation and examples of use. The simple explanation is that one word (ningún) is an adjective, while the other (ninguno) is a pronoun. To see how obsolete the word cuán has become in everyday life, just take a look at this simple example of a Google search with the question word “¿Cuán?” below. El primer país que voy a visitar es España. It follows the pattern ninguno + de + noun.