Sometimes you don’t exactly know what you want to refer to. It could be something, someone, or anyone, for that matter.
These sorts of words are indefinite words. Spanish has them just as English does.
Note that algo and alguien never change forms--there is NO such thing as “algos” or “alguienes”. However, alguno and cualquier do change forms according to gender. Alguno also changes form according to quantity (in which case it translates as “several”).
Resources for further reading:
Some other useful words along this vein are:
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Algo pasó en el banco.
Something happened in the bank.
Alguna vez en mi vida, quiero volar en un avión pequeño.
Sometime in my life, I'd like to fly in a small plane.
Alguien está en mi cuarto.
Someone is in my room.
¿Cuál bebida te gusta? —No me importa; cualquiera está bien para mí.
Which drink do you like? —I don't care; whichever is fine for me.
Vamos a llevar algunos en caso de emergencia.
We're going to take several in case of emergency.
Por ejemplo:
Héctor siempre va al colegio en bus.
Hector always goes to the high school by bus.
Perhaps, though, you don’t want to talk about somebody or something. Perhaps you prefer to talk about nobody and nothing. These are negative indefinite words. In Spanish, there is a word with exactly the opposite meaning for each of the positive words you learned above.
| Positive Indefinite | Negative Indefinite |
|---|---|
| algo - something/anything | nada - nothing |
| alguien - someone/anyone | nadie - no one/nobody |
| algún - some | ningún - not any, none |
| cualquier - any/some | ninguno(a) - neither one |
| simpre - always | nunca, jamás - never |
| también - also, too | tampoco - neither/not either |
Forming negatives in Spanish can be tricky. Sometimes you can form a negative sentence in Spanish just as you would in English.
Por ejemplo:
Jamás he jugado fútbol.
I have never played soccer.
Yo tampoco.
Me neither.
Nadie tiene ganas de salir.
No one wants to go out.
There’s another way of forming negative sentences; however, this involves placing the word no before the verb (make sure that you do NOT place it before the subject).
Por ejemplo:
If you want to add a negative indefinite word like “nobody” or “nothing” to a negative sentence, you’re going to have to unlearn some English grammar!
Remember how you learned in school that you should never say things like…
These are called double negatives... and they’re perfectly fine in Spanish!
In fact, you have to form double negatives in Spanish, because that’s the proper way to form those sentences grammatically.
Por ejemplo:
No tengo nada.
I have nothing.
Hope that helped! See you in the next lesson on Spanish nouns!
Check out Spanish grammarfor more useful info! Here are some recommended lessons:
Mauricio Evlampieff: Rocket Spanish
Reinforce your learning from this lesson with the Rocket Reinforcement activities!