Tips for Writing in Spanish

In this document you will be able to find tips about how to improve your writing skills in Spanish.
These tips focus on translation, spelling and comprehension of words in Spanish. All of this will be
useful when writing emails, letters, messages and other day to day written communications.

Definition of a word
When you are looking for a definition of a word in Spanish we recommend checking the Real
Academia Espaola (http://www.rae.es/). It is a source that many people consider as the
official dictionary for the Spanish Language. You may also try to define words by looking for
them in Google. By defining the words in Spanish you will also be able to see how they are
correctly spelled.

Translation of words (Spanish to English and English to Spanish)

You can easily translate words from Spanish to English and from English to Spanish by using the
following websites: www.linguee.com and https://translate.google.com/ . With these tools you
can switch from Spanish to English to English to Spanish with ease.
When translating words in google translate remember that you can translate several words but
you have to put a period after every word so it can translate each word instead of all of them as a
sentence. Below is an example. You can continue adding words but you should put a period after
every one so it doesnt translate all the words together.

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When using google translate remember that you may need to write more words or write a whole
sentence in order for the translator to have a context of the word that you need. An example is
below. If you want to translate the word stroke as in medical illness and you only write stroke it
will translate it as carrera. This is not the translation that you want but if you but a full sentence
the translator will take into to consideration the context and give you the correct translation which
is derrame cerrebral. When using this translator you also need to use common sense in order
to understand if the translation is correct.

www.linguee.com is also a great tool for translating words that are not translated in google
translate.
www.wikipedia.org is also helpful when translating because you can search for the term or word
in English Wikipedia and then change the Wikipedia to Espaol on the left hand side so it can show
you the Spanish translation. This may not always work because there may not be a Spanish
Wikipedia for every word or term in Wikipedia.

Spellchecking
When you are writing something in Spanish you can type it into Microsoft word in order to check
the spelling. Microsoft will sometimes automatically change the language to Spanish but you can
also change the spellcheck manually (this option is at the bottom close to the word counter). You
can write your emails in Microsoft word first and correct the mistakes and then copy and paste the
text to the email you will send. By using Microsoft word and the spell check your written
communications will be more professional and formal.

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You can also change words by selecting them (highlighting them) and right clicking on them in
order to find synonyms and replace that word with that synonym. This will help increase your
vocabulary in Spanish and allow you not to repeat as much. Hermosa is the word we found
synonyms for.

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Facebook: Dream In Mexico
Twitter: @Dreaminmexico

Accents
There are many rules for learning where accents go on words (we encourage you to learn these)
and how to be able to sound out a word and know where the accent goes. While you learn to do
this you can use Microsoft word to help you put the accents correctly. This will help you when you
dont know where to put the accents. You can memorize where some of the accents go as well
(for example most words that end with ON have an accent on the O like camin, ratn, bastn) .
You can think of clever ways of remembering where the accents go. An example of that is the
word TREE in Spanish is rbol (with an accent on the A). You can imagine that trees have leaves
and the accent is like a leaf on the rbol.
You can test yourself to see if you are improving with accents by writing your email in Spanish on
the text box of your email server. When you are done dont send it just yet. Copy the text from
the text box of the email and paste it in Microsoft word. You will be able to see how many accents
are missing and how many words you misspelled. You can then copy the corrected text and paste
it on the email you are going to send. Your errors will be fewer with time.

Paying attention to how words are spelled in Spanish

Paying attention to how words are spelled in our surroundings can help us remember how words
are spelled and where accents go. Most of the time formal printed signs on the street and other
places are spelled correctly. Packaged products that we buy also have the correct spelling of
words on them. Sometimes hand written signs are not written correctly and we should be careful
with following those examples. Keeping a list or a log of the words in Spanish that we learn each
day can be helpful.

http://dreaminmexico.org
Facebook: Dream In Mexico
Twitter: @Dreaminmexico