"No veo porqué mi amiga tiene que ser bonita." I can't seem to get these "porqué", "por qué", "porque" straight ("por que" I think I've got). I came across an explication below for "porqué" but I don't see how it fits the above sentence: Porqué. Es un sustantivo masculino que equivale a causa, motivo, razón, y se escribe con tilde por ser palabra aguda terminada en vocal. Puesto que se trata de un sustantivo, se usa normalmente precedido de artículo u otro determinante: - No comprendo el porqué de tu actitud [= la razón de tu actitud]. - Todo tiene su porqué [= su causa o su motivo]. - Como otros sustantivos, tiene plural: - Hay que averiguar los porqués de este cambio de actitud.

¿Por qué? = why? 2 words, literally "for what?" Qué is a question word so the e is accented. Porque = because. One word, no accent. Answers the question ¿por qué? Porqué = reason. I did not know this word existed until I looked it up in my dictionary just now. Gracias! I cannot find a reference to "por que" (unaccented.)

Hola, Here is a link to the "four porques". http://spanish.about.com/od/writtenspanish/a/porque.htm Saludos, Ricardo

Thanks, guys. My question still remains however. I don't understand why it is "porqué" in the phrase I quoted and not "porque".

If this phrase is in Rocket Spanish, it could just be an error. I have sent a few phrases that I questioned the correctness of the grammar and most of them, my intuition is good and RS modified and corrected it. One time, I told them about the present tense conjugation of a verb and they answered me that there is no error. It was in the subjunctive mood. Either way, I am still learning. Congratulations Steven W15 for the intensity of your Spanish studies. I still wonder about the other Steven. You guys are really like a global community for me.

Thanks, Aurora. I have sent in so many false "corrections" that I'm on a first name basis with the entire RS support team... ;-) Thankfully they're incredibly gracious and helpful.

Hola todos! I enjoy reading the posts today with all the grammar! Steven, I think that your phrase above translated is something like: I don't see (the reason) my friend has to be pretty. Hence, the use of porqué as a noun. Dan, I too am uncertain of por que. I think it could be an idiom, or actually two words loosely translated to (for that). Perhaps Cristian or others will surf through and give expert guidance!

Patrice, Dan - I found explanations for the variants in the following link (including "por que"): http://www.rae.es/consultas/porque-porque-por-que-por-que I'm still not getting it. From what I'm reading, it's almost like you can insert an "el" prior to "porqué" as in the following example: "No comprendo el porqué de tu actitud". In the phrase "No veo porqué mi amiga tiene que ser bonita.", it still sounds to me like "I don't see (why) my friend has to be pretty."

Steven: I agree with your translation of the second sentence. As does Bing Translator, for whatever that is worth. It is a very odd sounding sentence. It makes the speaker sound jealous of her (or his?) friend. And like it should be followed by, ¿Por qué ella no puede ser fea como yo?

Wow! This is awesome. You guys sound that you are really learning. I wish I can get you all together in a room and just listen to the discussions. I am still just following the lessons of Rocket Spanish. Someday, I really will find a "mother" who would just be willing to listen to my attempt at speaking the Spanish language.

Le dije a mi novia que yo necesitaba contratar a una mucama que habla a español, así que tengo a alguien a practicar con. Ella dije ¡NO!

Aurora - I do these lessons daily (that's largely where my questions come from) and will be doing so for the foreseeable future. I've been through the course a bunch of times and it lends itself to all kinds of improvisations: Write it! I now listen to the audio only once prior to writing the phrase and flag any error to be repeated (I'm hitting 20% errors and that with some cheating...). I haven't even started to touch the punctuation... Hear it! Say it! Every time I go through this, I'm seeing something new: Why was an article (lo, la, el) used or not used? Why por and not para? Etc. Eventually it would be interesting to try and change the verb tenses on the fly. Play it! This is the best. I can sort of get through the conversation with the set dialogue but I am looking forward one day to being able to improvise with totally different answers at the native setting.

Steven: In the email announcing this post you wrote that you do a complete audio and grammar lesson daily. May I ask how much time you devote to Spanish each day? I think that I spend a lot of time learning Spanish, but with the longer lessons as the course progresses, I cannot get through an entire lesson in a day. I know that part of the reason I am slower is that awhile back I adopted the Scriptorium Technique. So when I am studying a lesson I write each sentence in the conversation transcript and the additional vocabulary longhand. Then write it out again two more times as I work through the Hear it Say it and Know it testing sections (writing it on the computer in the Write It section does not count). For me anyway, this slow, methodical process is an advantage, because as I write and speak each word, I am able to think about that word, what it means, why it is where it is in the sentence, and whether it needs an accent. It keeps me from glossing over things that I am unclear of. I also incorporate other resources into my "curriculum." I have a couple of easy Spanish readers that I read while eating, and I look for Spanish videos or podcasts to listen to. I see that you have been at this for several years. Do you consider yourself fluent; able to hold a conversation in Spanish with a native speaker? When I started RS my goal was to be fluent in a year. What a laugh! I work hard at learning Spanish every day, but after a little more than a year I realize that the more I know, the more I have yet to learn. I am going back to Cuba in December and I will be very interested to see how well I can communicate in Spanish and how often I will have to fall back on English.

Hi Dan. I spend between 2 and 2.5 hours in the course daily: "Hear it Say it!"in the Interactive Audio Lessons right through to the end of the corresponding grammar lesson (I don't listen to the audio part any longer with Amy, etc.). When I first started out, I spent about the same amount of time but could only get through half a lesson (and at the time there wasn't the new "Write it!" and "Play it!" sections). Now it goes really fast - you'll see. I also listen to Latin music pretty regularly and spend at least 30 minutes a day watching some video in Spanish which I can follow reasonably well (original films in Spanish are still too difficult, though they are in "Spain" Spanish where I am which takes some getting used to). Maybe 20 minutes a day reading as well. I really don't know how fluent I am. I have zero contact with Spanish speakers here (well, there is this one guy from Spain who refuses to speak anything other than English with me). I suspect I'm at least semi-fluent and I'm reasonably confident that I would be quite fluent if I could get in a week of intense immersion in Spanish. It sounds like you're working with a good plan in learning Spanish. I think being fluent in a year would only be possible with total immersion. I'm sure you'll do great in Cuba. Looking forward to hearing about your trip!

p.s. I should add that I've only been properly using Rocket Spanish since I started the Platinum course last year (prior to that I was just listening to the audio conversations).