Explain the use of affirmative and negative expressions.
Have you ever heard the old song, “You got to accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative. Don’t mess with Mister in-between?” For every positive reaction there is a negative reaction. During this part of the lesson, we will not only be accentuating positive expressions but learning their negative antoynms as well.
Affirmative and Negative Contrasts
| sí—yes | algo—something |
| no—no | nada—nothing |
| alguien—someone | algún día—someday |
| nadie—nobody | siempre—always |
| nunca—never |
| alguno/a—some, any* | también—also |
| ninguno/a—no one* | tampoco—neither |
| ya—now, already | o . . .o—either . . .or |
| todavía no—not yet | ni . . . ni—neither . . .nor |
* Before a masculine, singular noun: alguno is changed to algún and ninguno is changed to ningún.
You probably learned in English class that we never use two negative expressions in the same sentence. You wouldn’t ever say, “I don’t eat no vegetables.” Now, I’m going to ask you to forget that rule when you are speaking Spanish. Double negatives are okay. The rule is: If the negative expression follows the verb, we use no before the verb. If the negative comes before the verb, no is not used.
Take a look at the following examples.
Tenemos algo para Sara.
No tenemos nada para Pablo.
Alguien está en la clase.
No hay nadie en la clase.
Algún día vamos a hacer la tarea.
Nunca vamos a hacer la tarea.
Me mandé una carta también.
No me mandé una carta tampoco.
Now for the real test. Find an authentic Mexican or Hispanic restaurant in your area. Take yourself, a date, a family member, or a friend out to dinner and try ordering everything in Spanish. Your mesero or mesera will be quite impressed!