Common Mistakes in Spanish

Here are some common mistakes which you should try to avoid when speaking or writing in Spanish:

Femenine nouns with masculine articles

The word eagle, in Spanish "águila " is a feminine noun, however the word is used with the masculine article "el " (instead of the feminine "la "). The reason is purely phonetic, feminine nouns beginning with stressed "a " are preceded by the masculine article to avoid having to pronounce "la + á "

Here is an example showing that the masculine article goes before the word "águila " while the adjective is correctly used in feminine (blanca and not blanco) El águila blanca

EE.UU.

EE.UU. is the correct form of the abbreviation for Estados Unidos de América (USA) in Spanish. The first letter of "Estados" is duplicated since it is plural, followed by the period of the abbreviation, and the "U" of "Unidos" is also duplicated, followed by the period of the abbreviation.Example: George Washington fue presidente de EE.UU.

Latinoamérica vs Hispanoamerica

Latinoamerica refers to countries in America that were colonized by European countries whose languages derived from Latin (Spain, France and Portugal). Hispanoamérica is the word used for countries in America where Spanish is the official language.

Examples:

Méjico es uno de los grandes países de Hispanoamérica

Brasil es el país latinoamericano con más extensión.

Other common mistakes here