![]() Adding to the confusion, momento is the word for “moment” in Spanish and Italian. After all, we take photographs and keep things like a child’s first tooth or a matchbook from a restaurant to remember the moments associated with them. It’s easy to think that memento should be spelled momento. Quite often, we associate mementos with particular episodes from our past, which is probably why we sometimes encounter the spelling momento. A memento can be the foul ball you caught at a baseball game, or your grandfather’s letters home from the war. Memento comes from Latin, where it is the imperative form of meminisse, a Latin verb that literally means "to remember." The term memento mori, meaning something that is a reminder of death, literally means “remember that you must die.” Not coincidentally, the mem- sequence found in memento can be found as well in memory and remember.Ī term we closely associate with memento is souvenir. Use this simple sentences structure: “Hay un/una noun“įor example, “ Hay una silla“, “ Hay un lápiz“.Most usage guides consider 'momento' an error, but it's been included as a variant in a number of dictionaries. Look around the room you’re in now and name 5 things you see, where the quantity is one. Una silla (a chair) -> unas sillas (some chairs) Una casa (a house) -> unas casas (some houses) Un libro (a book) -> unos libros (some books) Un bus (a bus) -> unos buses (some buses) Let’s take the above nouns and make them plural: Unos and unas are used to describe an unspecified quantity of something, in the same way as we use the word “some” or “a few” in English. ❽ónde está la salida? Hay una a la izquierda y otra a la derecha. ![]() ![]() Una de mis hijas empieza la escuela este año.Un goes before masculine nouns ( un hombre, un perro), while una goes before feminine nouns ( una mujer, una casa). Note that in both of the sentences above, the words un or uno would typically be emphasized- as in “ hay sólo uno“, or “ Hay sólo un tenedor“. A tip to remember: it shares the same root as the verb tener (to have). Now, what if you wanted to say “There’s only one fork”, what would you say?Īnswer: you’d say, “ Hay sólo un tenedor“ This is un tenedor. “ Oye amor, ¿cuántos tenedores ya están en la mesa?” But if multiple arrive, unos buses llegan. However, if you wanted to say “Look, there’s a bus coming now” you’d say This is because you are saying how many - without repeating the noun (bus). “❽ónde está el bus? Llevamos mucho tiempo esperando” [Where’s the bus? We’ve been waiting a long time” Here’s a scenario where you would say uno: Same thing for feminine words: depending on the context, una casa could be translated as one house or a house. So “ un libro” could be translated as one book or a book, depending on context. Note that Spanish doesn’t make a clear distinction between one and a/an like we do in English. Remember, we say un libro - not uno libro! Same thing goes if you’re talking about a book ( un libro), a keyboard ( un teclado), or a microphone ( un micrófono). Since momento is a noun, and it’s masculine, you drop the o. So when you’re doing math, or counting how many people are at the party, you’ll use uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco, etc.īut as soon as you introduce a person, place, or thing into the mix, it becomes un or una. The words un or una are used before nouns, exactly the same as we use a or an in English. The word uno is most often used for counting. Why do you say Un momento and not Uno momento? Why do you say Un momento and not Uno momento?.
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