Question on Beginners Spanish Course--Exercise 4, number 2

In doing Exercise 4, number 2 one has to put the right order of the words given. The order I gave was the following, " Que(can't show accent) diciendo me estas(can't show accent). The answer given in the back is as follows: "Que me estas diciendo". I am at a loss as to what structure rules I am to follow, since I didn't see any in the book with respect to the above. Is there rule based structure that one can follow so that given any set of words (subject, verb, adjectives, etc.) one would follow the rule based structure and come out correct every time? Thank you, Henk

I don't know about rules, but in this case the structure is not all that different from English, except for the placement of the pronoun "me." If you want to say "are you saying" or "you are saying," in Spanish you would say *estás diciendo*-- the same order that you'd use in English. :idea: If you want a rule, I suppose it's true that in Spanish, as in English, the verb to be should precede the present participle (the -ing word, in this case "saying"). Also, remember that in Spanish, pronouns tend to precede the verb (_me_ estás diciendo), while in English they usually follow the verb (you are saying _to me_). Thus, qué me estás diciendo--literally, what to me are you saying, or more normally "what are you saying to me?" The situation with pronouns is a little more complicated than I've presented it, but for figuring out how to word your sentence, what I've said applies. I hope that helps.

Yes, it does help. Thank you!