Basic Sentence Structure

Understanding how to put words together in the right order is fundamental to speaking Spanish. While Spanish sentence structure is similar to English in many ways, there are some important differences — particularly with adjective placement, negation, and flexibility of word order.

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The Default: Subject-Verb-Object (SVO)

Like English, the most common sentence structure in Spanish is Subject + Verb + Object (SVO).

Subject	Verb	Object	Translation
María	come	una manzana.	María eats an apple.
Yo	estudio	español.	I study Spanish.
El gato	bebe	leche.	The cat drinks milk.
Nosotros	leemos	el periódico.	We read the newspaper.
Ellos	hablan	inglés.	They speak English.

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Flexible Word Order

One major difference between Spanish and English is that Spanish has more flexible word order. Because verb conjugations tell you who the subject is, the subject can move around — or be dropped entirely.

Subject After the Verb

In Spanish, the subject often appears after the verb, especially in these cases:

1. In Questions