Spanish Translation of Sentence Structure and Word Order I

We will consider some of the differences that distinguish sentence construction and word order in Spanish from sentence construction and word order in English. Awareness of these differences will enable translators to avoid embarrassing mistakes while working on a Spanish translation.

In the first place, the structure and word order of Spanish sentences is dissimilar from that of English sentences. In a Spanish sentence the verb comes before the subject, and the sentence takes the following form: object + verb + subject. On the contrary, in an English sentence, the verb comes after the subject. The English declarative sentence generally uses the following word order: subject + verb + object. Thus, the Spanish translation of the English sentence ‘It is true but my father does not believe it´ will read as ‘Es verdad pero no lo cree mi padre.

In the second place, the word order in a Spanish sentence is more flexible than the word order in an English sentence. The flexibility in word order enables the Spanish to shift the emphasis from one syntactical element to another without too many hiccups.

In a Spanish sentence a noun direct object cannot come before a subject because of the possibility of confusion between the two. In a Spanish sentence the preposition ‘a´ is used before the object in order to distinguish it from the subject. Thus, the Spanish translation of the English sentence ‘Legend conquers history´ will read as ‘La leyenda vence a la historia´.