GCSE-readyGCSE and International GCSE Spanish: common mistakes
The wrong answers students pick most often in our Spanish questions, and why they are wrong. Read these before a test, then open the lesson for anything that surprises you.
Getting started
- Nouns: el, la, un, una and agreement
- Not “el”. El is masculine. Ciudad is feminine.
- Not “grisas”. Adjectives ending in a consonant do not have a feminine -a form, and gatos is masculine anyway.
- Four key verbs: ser, estar, tener and ir
- Not “Soy cansada.”. Ser is not used for how you feel at the moment.
- Not “Estoy cansado.”. A girl needs the feminine ending -a.
- Not “es”. Ser is not used for where something is.
- Numbers, dates and time
- Not “65”. 65 is sesenta y cinco.
- Not “9:45”. Menos takes a quarter away from nine, so it is before nine.
- Not “Son las una.”. Una is singular, so the verb must be es, not son.
Theme 1: My personal world
- Vocabulary: appearance and personality
- Not “I am boring”. I am boring would be soy aburrido.
Theme 2: Lifestyle and wellbeing
- Mental wellbeing: stress, feelings and getting help
- Not “Siento solo.”. Sentirse needs the reflexive pronoun me.
- Vocabulary: the body, illness and healthy living
- Not “Me duele los pies.”. Pies is plural, so the verb is duelen.
Theme 5: Studying and my future
- Vocabulary: jobs, work and future plans
- Not “Mi padre es un fontanero.”. Spanish leaves out un / una before a job after ser.
Theme 6: Travel and tourism
- Holidays and travel
- Not “Nieva”. Nieva means it is snowing.
- The preterite: key irregular verbs
- Not “hizo”. Hizo is the él / ella form.
- Not “hago”. Hago is the present tense.
- Vocabulary: countries, nationalities and greetings
- Not “Mi amiga es Española.”. Nationalities do not take a capital letter in Spanish.
Grammar
- The present continuous: estoy hablando
- Not “somos preparando”. Use estar, not ser.
- Not “estamos preparado”. Preparado is the past participle.
- Not “leído”. Leído is the past participle.
- The preterite: dar, poder, venir, poner, querer, decir, traer
- Not “dijó”. Irregular preterites have no accent.
- Prepositions with infinitives; cada, otro, mismo, todo
- Not “cenando”. Spanish does not use the gerund after a preposition.
- Not “un otro día”. Spanish never says un otro.
- Adverbs: how, when, where and how often
- Not “facilmente”. The written accent of fácil stays.
- Higher: parece, hace falta, vale la pena and questions with prepositions
- Not “Hay que”. Hay que is followed by an infinitive, not a noun.
- Not “da”. Idiomas is plural, so the verb is plural.
Key vocabulary
- Vocabulary: 50 key verbs
- Not “Sé Madrid bien.”. Saber is for facts and how to do things, not places.
- Vocabulary: cognates and false friends
- Not “I am constipated”. That is a false friend trap.
- Higher vocabulary: adjectives, adverbs and linking words
- Not “The actual situation is serious”. Actual is a false friend: it means current.
Grammar
- Linking ideas: e, u, sino, cuyo and desde hace
- Not “pero”. Pero does not correct a negative statement; sino does.