Top 10 Differences Between Spanish And English

Before understanding the differences between Spanish and English languages, do you know both of them are from the same family? Yes, they are from an Indo-European family. But their subgroups are different.

English comes from the Germanic branch; on the other hand, Spanish comes from the Italic branch. That’s why there are some differences between Spanish and English languages.

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As we know, when you start learning Spanish, then you can understand the differences between Spanish and English language. However, if you know the fundamental differences between Spanish and English before learning Spanish, it will be easier for you to learn Spanish. Moreover, it will help you to learn faster than other learners who are aware of these differences.

This blog post will discuss the basic differences between Spanish and English languages that help you learn Spanish faster than anyone.

Key differences between Spanish and English – Must Read

Every language has some unique attributes that made a language special. But in this section, we will not discuss every language attribute. However, we will discuss the difference between Spanish and English.

Significant differences between Spanish and English consist in their sentence structure and grammar. Moreover, some other differences are also found in their pronunciation and the way of writing.

Here, we will discuss significant differences between English and Spanish

1. Article Differences Between Spanish and English:

In English, we don’t consider gender before using articles. A, An, and The are applicable in every gender. But in Spanish, genders should be considered before using the article.

Like, in Spanish, the article “the” means “el” representing male and la represents female/ feminine. In terms of the plural number, Spanish speakers use “Los”(Male) and “las” (female).

You can’t use the same Spanish article for both male and female or both plural and singular. However, it is easy to find out male or female in Spanish by using articles.

2. Number of Letters:

If you want to learn any language, first of all, you have to know how many letters, vowels, consonants exist in that particular language. Spanish and English are not different from each other.

However, almost 40% of words in English are related to Spanish. Still, there have some differences between Spanish and English in terms of letters, vowels, consonants, and sounds.

There are 30 letters in the Spanish alphabet; on the other hand, there are 26 letters in the English alphabet. Both languages have 5 vowels on their alphabet. But in terms of consonants, English has 24 consonants, among them 21 included in the regular English alphabet.

As opposed to Spanish has 22 consonants. Moreover, with 44 sounds, English has more sounds than Spanish, which has 39 phonetic sounds.

3. Orders of Noun and Adjective:

In English, if we describe characteristics of a noun, what we do? First of all, we put the adjective first, and then you give the Noun. Like, “Beautiful car.” Here “beautiful” is an adjective, and “car” is a noun. Isn’t it? Yes, it is an English structure that we usually follow.

But in Spanish, this structure is different. They put Noun first, then adjective. Like, “Car beautiful.” However, this rule can be different from different perspectives. In terms of quantifier adjective, you must follow the previous English rules Adjective + Noun.

Example: “The only car” in its Spanish version is “el único coche.” It has the same order as English.

4. Every Spanish Noun Has Gender:

For the first time, I have found this attribute in Spanish that every Noun has a gender. It is different from other languages.

In English, there is a specific number of genders. As a result, it is straightforward to determine. But in Spanish, there are a considerable number of genders because every Noun has gender. As a result, it is very complex to decide on the correct gender.

If you are a native Spanish speaker or practicing Spanish for a long time, it will be easier for you to find the correct gender. But for a beginner, it is like a dilemma.

However, a simple trick can help you to determine the correct gender. If a letter ends with the word “O” is masculine, or if a letter ends with the word “a,” it is feminine. But this trick you can’t apply everywhere. Because there are so many words that don’t have “a” and “o” but are still masculine or feminine. So, it is not so easy, like English, to find the correct gender.

5. Use of Verbs Differences Between Spanish and English:

Present, Past, Past participle, I think who have a little bit knowledge about English. They know these terms. Yes, these are different forms of the verb in English. These terms are very much confusing. Because in different English, kinds of suffixes can be used in this term like ed, d, t, sometimes no suffix.

On the other hand, In Spanish, mostly used suffixes are –ar, -er, or –ir, and these are very much easy to use. Like English, you don’t need to be confused about which suffix would be perfect.

Check out another fascinating blog post on 15 Factors Tell How Long Does It Take To Learn Spanish?

6. Simple Negation:

In English, negation is very complex compare to Spanish. Because if you want to negate words in English, then you have to use a variety of prefixes like “non-,” “un-,” “dis-,” “in-, “and many other critical negative words.

Luckily, in Spanish, it’s much more straightforward. If you just put “no” before the verb, it will be negated in a sentence. However, there are fewer prefixes that can confuse you.

Making Spanish sentences, you can use double negatives. But in English requires mix negative and affirmative words that may create confusion for non-native English speakers. It is straightforward to understand what is being said in Spanish since the words agree with each other.

7. Subject of the Sentence:

It is challenging to memorize the different conjugations of Spanish verbs. However, when you can understand how each conjugated form is applied. You can exclude the subject when you’re speaking.

8. Statement and question:

The most interesting differences between English and Spanish are their statement and question sentence patterns. Why is it interesting? Do you think that a statement and a question sentence can both be the same? It is impossible to use the same sentence structure in English, both statement sentence and question sentence.

But in Spanish, you can use the same sentence structure, both statement, and question. Yes, it’s true. You don’t believe it, then let’s look at the example.

9. Preposition Differences Between Spanish and English:

The majority of the new learning will agree that the most challenging part of English Grammar is the preposition. We use dozens of prepositions in the English language. Moreover, we have to put it perfectly considering time, date, place, and object.

Now, I will not tell you that in Spanish, there is no use of the preposition. Prepositions play an essential role in Spanish. But it has fewer words, which is not much complex as English. For many cases, we use “in,” “on,” and “at” in English. On the other hand, we can just use the word en in Spanish instead of in, on, at.

So, we can say that in some contexts, Spanish is more manageable than English. Check out another mindblowing blog post on Japanese to English Translator.

10. Spelling Differences Between Spanish and English:

Most of us have a misperception that Spanish spelling is very complex. That’s why we don’t show much interest in it. But if you read this part of the article. All your misperception can be converted into your motivation to learn this language.

In the English language, there is a lot of irregular, complex, and unintuitive spelling. But in Spanish, spelling a word is so easy that it can almost always be accomplished by sounding it out.

In English, letters can be sound long, short, or even silent. Moreover, it creates over a dozen different vowel sounds. On the other hand, in Spanish, there are only five. Simply, each vowel in the Spanish language has one unique sound. Moreover, there are many similarities between Portuguese and Spanish.

11. Which language is easier?

You can never understand one language until you understand at least two. It is difficult to say which language is easier. It depends on one’s perception.

A native Spanish speaker says English is difficult to learn; on the other hand, an English speaker says Spanish is difficult. After discussing the differences between the Spanish and English languages.

We have found that in some perspectives, Spanish is easy, and in other views, English is easy. However, both of them have the same level of difficulties also. In short, we can say that both languages are easy to learn compared to other languages.

Check out another interesting blog post on 9 Languages Similar To Spanish – The Language Treasure.

Summary:

More than 580 million people speak in Spanish, on the other 360 million people speak in English. Both languages are essential. Knowing the differences between Spanish and English is crucial for those who want to learn both languages. Here we have discussed some fundamental differences which are must be needed to know.

There are some basic Grammar, vocabulary, and article changes we can find between them. We have seen some similarities in both languages in some places because they are from the same language family.

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