NZ Scholarship Spanish cheat sheet

Spanish Language: Deep Understanding, Critical Thinking and Application

• Argument structure in Spanish: thesis (tesis) + supporting points (argumentos) + conclusion (conclusión); connectors such as «por consiguiente», «en cambio», «no obstante» signal logical relations, not decoration.

• Register markers: «usted»/«ustedes» + «leísmo» avoidance signals formal register; «tú»/«vosotros» + diminutives («-ito/-illo») and intensifiers («muy», «un montón») signal informal or affective register.

• Subjunctive triggers to check in any text: W-E-I-R-D-O (Wishes, Emotions, Impersonal expressions, Recommendations, Doubt/denial, Ojalá); after «aunque» the mood distinguishes fact («aunque llueve» = it is raining) from hypothesis («aunque llueva» = even if).

• «Se» values to disambiguate: reflexive, reciprocal, passive («se venden pisos»), impersonal («se dice»), and accidental («se me olvidó»); the passive/impersonal «se» takes a third-person verb only.

• Tense contrast as meaning: pretérito indefinido (completed event) vs imperfecto (background, habit, description); the imperfecto can express «attenuated» politeness («quería preguntarle»).

• Reported speech shifts: present→imperfect, pretérito→pluscuamperfecto, future→conditional; deictics shift («hoy»→«ese día», «aquí»→«allí», «mañana»→«al día siguiente»).

• Cohesion devices: anaphora (éste, aquél, dicho, tal), elision of subject pronouns (Spanish is pro-drop; an overt pronoun often adds emphasis or contrast), and lexical chains via synonymy/hyponymy.

• Text-type conventions: a «carta al director» argues and closes with a call to action; a «reseña» evaluates with justified criteria; an «informe» is impersonal and organised by headings; a «columna» mixes opinion with rhetorical questions.

• Evaluation criteria for a critical response: relevance to the task, coherence (logical sequencing), cohesion (connectors, pronouns), lexical richness (variation, collocation), grammatical accuracy, and appropriateness of register.