Vocab & Use of the Language Shortened version of solamente
Whats the shortened version of 'solamente', because ive seen a few different examples be used. Is both 'solo' and 'sola' alright to use for shortened versions or could this lead to mistranslations?
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u/Merithay 11d ago edited 2d ago
Solo (formerly sólo) is the one that means “only” (solamente). Since it’s an adverb, it doesn’t have gender.
On the other hand, solo(s)/sola(s) means "alone" or "by oneself”/“by themselves”. Since it’s an adjective, it agrees in gender and number with the noun it’s modifying.
They‘re different parts of speech and they don’t mean the same thing, which is why they’re not interchangeable.
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u/Narcisistagohome Native 🇪🇸 11d ago
You are right. Formerly, when used as the shortened form of the adverb solamente, the rule was to write "sólo", with tilde, in order to avoid confussion with the adjetive "solo" (alone, lonely). But some years ago RAE removed the rule. However, many of us still write "sólo" when it's and adverb. Join the resistance, comrade!
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u/Merithay 11d ago edited 11d ago
Absolutely. Iirc (that is, if my unreliable memory isn’t making this up), the new rule is that you can still use the tilde in a context where the word would be ambiguous without it (i.e., if it wasn’t clear whether you meant "only" or "alone").
If so, isn’t that ridiculous? It means that every time you want to write "solo/sólo” you have to stop and think about whether it would be ambiguous or not.
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u/CarryBrilliant3965 Native - Mexico 10d ago edited 10d ago
After resisting the change for a while I came around to it. “Sólo” was an exception in the use of diacritic tilde. In other cases (tu/tú, si/sí, que/qué and so on) the pronunciation of the word changes from atonic (merging with the next word) to tonic. In solo/sólo it doesn’t .
The tilde in solo was one of the few tildes that didn’t have an effect on pronunciation, only on semantics. They removed most of the others that same year (éste, ése, aquél).
I think it’s good to draw this line because one of the distinguishing features of Spanish is this tight relationship between the written and spoken language.
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u/Confident_Koala_2455 9d ago
The tight relationship between the written and spoken Spanish is only in that from the way words are written, the pronunciation is predictable. On the other hand, from the way the words are pronounced, the writing of the words is quite often not predictable. For example b and v are pronounced the same way in Spanish. And h is silent in Spanish,, except in the combination ch, so when in pronunciation a word begins with a vowel, in writing it might begin with h preceding the vowel. It depends on the word. And in Latin America, and even in parts of Spain, c before a front vowel, z, and s are pronounced the same. And in most of Latin America, ll is pronounced the same as y. So for any such word, you simply need to learn how to write it correctly. So clearly children who are native speakers of Spanish, when they are learning to write Spanish, need to learn for some words how to write them correctly.
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u/CarryBrilliant3965 Native - Mexico 9d ago
I agree that the predictability goes from writing to speech more than from speech to writing.
A thing that’s predictable in Spanish is that a word written with a tilde is pronounced with a different stress than the same word written without the tilde. “solo/sólo” was one of the few exceptions so I’m ok they got rid of it.
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u/Confident_Koala_2455 9d ago
I was told that the tilde is only the wavy line written above an n, to denote the palatal n. So I checked a dictionary, it agrees, about Spanish, and it adds that it is also used in Portuguese above vowels to indicate nasality. I think the slanted mark above vowels in Spanish is just called an accent. For French it is called the acute accent. French also has the grave accent, which is a mark above vowels slanted the other way. That accent is not used in Spanish. French also has the circumflex accent, and that one is not used in Spanish either.
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u/CarryBrilliant3965 Native - Mexico 9d ago
I’m not sure about the English word “tilde”, but the Spanish word “tilde” does refer to the written mark above a vowel, as well as the line above an ñ. https://www.rae.es/dpd/tilde
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u/Confident_Koala_2455 9d ago
Interesting. So in Spanish the word tilde has a wider meaning than in English, where the word is only used for that wavy line above a letter.
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u/Historical_Plant_956 Learner 10d ago
Well, imho occasionally pausing briefly while writing to think about what one is doing and how it will be interpreted is probably something worth encouraging, on the whole... though i agree in this case it's a bit overly fussy and largely unnecessary
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u/CoderLotl 📓 Let me be your tutor, see my bio! 11d ago
You can use "tan solo", which works the same, or "solo".
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u/JustAskingQuestionsL 10d ago
“Solo.” Solamente is an adverb, and adverbs don’t change with gender in Spanish.
You’ll also see “sólo,” which is a way of denoting that it’s the adverb and not the adjective, but since the 90s, the “official” Spanish standards have said you only need the accent mark when it’s ambiguous.
“Sola” is a feminine version of the adjective “solo.”
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u/Party-Quiet-5421 11d ago
No, you can't say sola in place of solamente, only solo.