#la gramatica

Also in poetic or lyrical Spanish you may also find that verbs go at the very end of sentences. Partially because it’s dramatic, partially for rhyming.

So like consider No se habla de Bruno:

Bruno con voz misteriosa habló = Bruno with a mysterious voice spoke

In your regular Spanish you’d say Bruno habló con voz misteriosa “Bruno spoke with a mysterious voice”

The example saying habló at the very end pulls focus to the very end of the sentence and it’s dramatic

Another example of some changeable syntax is Isabela’s line:

Él vio en mí un destino gentil - una vida de ensueños vendrá. Y que así el poder de mi don como uvas va a madurar

“He saw within me a pleasant fate - a life of my dreams will come. And as such the power of my gift like grapes will ripen”

You see basic syntax in vio en mí rather than en mí vio which is also possible

Then you see una vida vendrá while more basic would be vendrá una vida

And, then again el poder de mi don va a madurar which could be phrased as va a madurar el poder de mi don

So it’s really a matter of where you want your emphasis and how emphatic you’d like to be

I will say that Spanish does sometimes like phrase something as SOV [subject object verb] and leave the verb all the way at the very end for things like poetry… partially for emphasis on the verb, partially because it’s easier to rhyme verbs in Spanish

SOV (and OSV potentially) in Spanish is also a kind of… suspension effect. You say your whole line and finish with a verb, so you’re sort of waiting to see what will happen. Isabela’s second line reads very much like that. It has a theatrical quality designed to capture attention and sort of keep you waiting

These kinds of constructions make more sense in context and many times carry over the sentiment into other languages; they’re things people do naturally

 One of the parts of accent rules / esdrújula that gets glossed over sometimes is the use of monosyllabic words

Multisyllabic words have different rules about where the tonic stress [the part you accentuate when you speak], but by definition monosyllabic words only have one syllable and so that’s always where the tonic stress is

That becomes more important when you have compound words

So for example, think dos “two”,tres “three”, and seis “six”

They all are monosyllabic so that tonic stress couldn’t be anywhere else

Then you have words like veintidós “22″, or veintitrés “23″, or dieciséis “16″ and suddenly there are more syllables

BUT - here’s the thing. That stress is still there… there are just more syllables now. That’s why there’s an accent mark on the last syllable (along with some other more complicated rules)

-

The same issue exists with un “one/a” with masculine nouns and then its derivatives for countable nouns:

un / una = one / a
algún / alguna = some
ningún / ninguna = none, not a single one

un año = a year
algún año = some year
ningún año = no year, not a single year

Tiene un año. = He/She is one year old.
Tiene veintiún años. = He/She is 21 years old.
Tiene treinta y un años. = He/She is 31 years old.
Tiene cuarenta y un años. = He/She is 41 years old.
Tiene cincuenta y un años. = He/She is 51 years old

ciento un dálmatas = 101 Dalmatians 

*Note: For tener X años which is “to be X years old” it’s technically a “countable noun” expression… you have X amount of years, that’s why you’re seeing un rather than uno “one”; the number 11 is ommitted from my list because the word for “eleven” is once and so the un/una rules don’t apply to it

Whenun becomes are one single word like veintiún for countable nouns it takes the accent mark… when they’re separate like treinta y un there’s no need for the accent mark because un goes back to being monosyllabic

NOTE: Also because you’re seeing un you have to keep in mind that countable nouns are technically gendered

un día = a day
un mes = a month
una semana = a week
una hora = an hour

veintiún días = 21 days
veintiún meses = 21 months
veintiuna semanas = 21 weeks
veintiuna horas = 21 hours

un hombre = a/one man
algún hombre = some man
ningún hombre = no man
veintiún hombres = 21 men
ciento un hombres = 101 men

una mujer = a/one woman
alguna mujer = some woman
ninguna mujer = no woman
veintiuna mujeres = 21 women
ciento una mujeres = 101 women

For additional info: Please check out this link

I find that countable nouns really kick my butt when it comes to currency the most because whether it’s dollars or euros or pesos or pesetas it’s all technically gendered

-

As far as accents: These rules are pretty standardized in Spanish. They’re there to make sure a reader knows where to put their vocal emphasis for multisyllabic words. Native speakers may omit these accent marks sometimes because they (generally) already know what syllables are stressed or unstressed