ILTS World Language: Spanish (260) cheat sheet

Ser vs. estar: ser marks inherent identity, origin, profession, and time of events; estar marks location, temporary state, and progressive aspect (está lloviendo).

Preterite vs. imperfect: preterite = completed bounded event (ayer llegó); imperfect = background, habit, or ongoing state (siempre llegaba, tenía veinte años).

Subjunctive triggers: Wishes, Emotion, Impersonal expressions, Doubt/denial, Ojalá, and conjunctions of time (cuando, hasta que) referring to future or unreal events.

Por vs. para: por = cause, exchange, duration, movement through; para = purpose, destination, deadline, recipient, opinion (para mí).

Gender of nouns ending in -a/-o is usually predictable; Greek-origin -ma nouns (el problema, el tema, el sistema, el clima) are masculine.

Reflexive vs. pronominal verbs: reflexives show the subject acting on itself (se lava); reciprocal se = 'each other' (se conocen); impersonal se removes the agent (se habla español).

Object pronouns precede conjugated verbs but attach to infinitives, gerunds, and affirmative imperatives (dámelo, but no me lo des).

Relative pronouns: que for restrictive clauses; quien/quienes after prepositions or for nonrestrictive human reference; el cual agrees in gender/number; cuyo = 'whose' and agrees with the possessed noun.

Accent rules: words ending in vowel, -n, or -s stress the penultimate syllable; others stress the last; all proparoxytones (esdrújulas) carry written accents.

Skim for text type and register first: a recipe uses imperatives and impersonal se; a news report uses preterite narration plus imperfect background.

Identify cohesive devices: sin embargo, no obstante, por lo tanto, en cambio, a pesar de - these signal contrast, consequence, or concession.

Distinguish cognates from false friends: actual = current (not 'actual'), realizar = to carry out, largo = long, éxito = success, asistir = to attend.

Infer vocabulary from morphology: prefixes re-, des-, in-, sub-, and suffixes -ción, -dad, -mente, -oso often reveal meaning without a dictionary.

Track pronoun referents across sentences: lo/la/le, su, dicho, el mismo - mismatched referents are the most common comprehension trap.

Tone and purpose questions: decide whether the author informs, persuades, criticizes, or narrates; look for evaluative adjectives and modal verbs (debería, hay que).

Literary devices to name: metáfora, símil, personificación, hipérbole, ironía, aliteración, anáfora.

Main-idea questions: the thesis usually appears in the first or last paragraph of expository prose; supporting details only illustrate it.

Formal letter/email frame: Estimado/a Sr./Sra. + apellido, opening (Me dirijo a usted para...), closing (Atentamente / Cordialmente), signature.

Informal register markers: tú, vocatives, diminutives (-ito), exclamations; formal register uses usted/ustedes, conditional politeness (¿Podría...?), and full forms.

Cohesion checklist: vary connectors (además, asimismo, por otra parte, en conclusión), avoid repeating the same noun by using synonyms or pronouns.

Argumentative paragraph structure: thesis, two or three supporting reasons with evidence, concession (si bien / aunque), rebuttal, conclusion.

Written accent placement changes meaning: el/él, mi/mí, si/sí, mas/más, aún (still) / aun (even), solo/sólo (adverb).

Punctuation conventions: inverted opening marks ¿ ¡; dialogue dashes (-) are more common than quotation marks in Spanish narrative.

Common interference errors from English: 'realizar' for 'realize', 'actualmente' for 'actually', missing personal a (Veo a María), and overusing possessive adjectives.

Spanish /b/ and /v/ are the same phoneme; /d/ between vowels softens to [ð] (nada), and syllable-final /s/ may aspirate in Caribbean and coastal varieties.

Distinctive consonants: ll vs. y (yeísmo merges them in most varieties), ñ = /ɲ/, rr = alveolar trill, j = velar fricative [x].

Stress placement determines meaning in minimal pairs: hablo (I speak) / habló (he spoke) / háblo is nonexistent - but papá/papa, sí/si, esta/está contrast.

Regional variants to recognize: voseo (vos tenés) in Argentina, Uruguay, and parts of Central America; vosotros in Spain; ustedes as plural of both registers in Latin America.

Politeness strategies: diminutives soften requests (¿Me regala un cafecito?), conditional and imperfect soften refusals (Yo quería pedirle...).

Listening for numbers, dates, and times: Spanish uses a period for thousands (1.000) and a comma for decimals (3,5); dates follow day-month-year order.

Discourse markers in speech: pues, bueno, o sea, entonces, es que - they signal hesitation, reformulation, or explanation rather than literal meaning.

Major pre-Columbian civilizations: Maya (Yucatán, Guatemala; writing and calendar), Aztec/Mexica (Tenochtitlán, Nahuatl), Inca (Andes, Quechua, quipu record-keeping).

1492: Gramática de la lengua castellana by Antonio de Nebrija and the first Spanish grammar; the same year marks the arrival of Columbus in the Americas.

Siglo de Oro authors: Cervantes (Don Quijote, 1605/1615), Lope de Vega (Fuenteovejuna), Calderón (La vida es sueño), Quevedo and Góngora (conceptismo vs. culteranismo).

Modernismo: Rubén Darío (Nicaragua), Azul..., Cantos de vida y esperanza; influenced by French symbolism and Parnassianism.

Boom authors: García Márquez (Cien años de soledad), Cortázar (Rayuela), Fuentes (La muerte de Artemio Cruz), Vargas Llosa, and later Isabel Allende.

Poets: Federico García Lorca (Romancero gitano, Bodas de sangre), Pablo Neruda (Veinte poemas de amor), Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz (baroque, colonial Mexico).

Cultural festivals: Día de los Muertos (Nov 1–2, ofrendas and cempasúchil), Semana Santa processions, Carnaval (Cádiz, Oruro, Río), and La Tomatina in Buñol.

Spanish is official in 21 countries; US Spanish-speaking population is the second largest in the world after Mexico.