Breakdown of Últimamente intento apreciar los pequeños momentos de felicidad con mi familia.
Questions & Answers about Últimamente intento apreciar los pequeños momentos de felicidad con mi familia.
Últimamente means “lately / in recent times / these days.”
It suggests something that has been true over a stretch of time up to now, often with a sense of continuity.
Recientemente means “recently”, and it often refers more to a specific recent event or a shorter time frame.
In this sentence, Últimamente intento… sounds like an ongoing trend or habit that has been developing over a period of time, which is why últimamente is more natural than recientemente here.
Yes. The most common positions would be:
- Últimamente intento apreciar los pequeños momentos de felicidad con mi familia.
- Intento apreciar los pequeños momentos de felicidad con mi familia últimamente.
Both are correct.
Putting Últimamente at the beginning is very natural and emphasizes the time frame first, similar to English: “Lately, I try to…”
Spanish often uses the simple present (here, intento) where English uses the present continuous (“I am trying”).
- Intento apreciar… = “I try / I’m trying (in general, as a habit or a current tendency).”
- Estoy intentando apreciar… is also correct, but it puts a bit more focus on the process right now, like “I am in the middle of trying (these days).”
For general efforts or habits, intento is more natural and common in Spanish than estoy intentando.
Intento is:
- Verb: intentar (to try, to attempt)
- Tense: present indicative
- Person: first person singular (yo)
So it literally means “I try” or “I am trying” depending on context.
In Spanish, some verbs are followed by another verb in the infinitive form. Intentar is one of them.
Structure:
intentar + infinitive
= to try + to do something
So:
- intento apreciar = “I try to appreciate”
You do not conjugate the second verb after intento; you leave it in the infinitive: apreciar, not aprecio here.
Yes, but the meaning changes slightly:
- apreciar: to appreciate, to value (noticing their importance)
- disfrutar: to enjoy (focus on pleasure from them)
- agradecer: to be thankful for / to thank (focus on gratitude)
Possible variations:
- Últimamente intento disfrutar los pequeños momentos de felicidad con mi familia.
→ Lately I’m trying to enjoy the little moments of happiness with my family. - Últimamente intento agradecer los pequeños momentos de felicidad con mi familia.
→ Lately I’m trying to be grateful for the little moments of happiness with my family.
Apreciar emphasizes recognizing their value, which matches the idea of “appreciate” in English very well.
Adding los (the definite article) makes it more specific and natural in Spanish:
- pequeños momentos de felicidad
→ “small moments of happiness” (general idea, could be any) - los pequeños momentos de felicidad
→ “the little moments of happiness” (the ones that occur in your life)
English often drops “the” in this kind of abstract or general statement. Spanish tends to keep the article (los) when talking about abstract nouns made more specific like this.
In Spanish, most adjectives normally go after the noun, but some very common and descriptive adjectives (like pequeño, gran, bueno, malo, nuevo, etc.) can also go before the noun.
- pequeños momentos focuses more on the type of moments, in a more natural, almost “fixed phrase” way, like “little moments.”
- momentos pequeños is grammatically correct but sounds more literal, as if you were describing their physical size rather than using the familiar expression “little moments.”
So los pequeños momentos is the idiomatic, natural way to say “the little moments.”
Both are possible, but they feel slightly different:
- momentos de felicidad
→ literally “moments of happiness” (emphasizing the abstract feeling of happiness filling those moments). - momentos felices
→ “happy moments” (adjective directly describing the moments as happy).
In many contexts, they are interchangeable.
Here, momentos de felicidad sounds more poetic or reflective, focusing on the experience of happiness itself rather than just labeling the moments as “happy.”
Con means “with” and shows you are sharing those moments together with your family.
- con mi familia = with my family (they are accompanying you in those moments).
A mi familia would usually mark a recipient (to my family) and would not fit here. For example:
- Le doy las gracias a mi familia. = I thank my family.
- Le conté a mi familia. = I told my family.
In this sentence, the idea is sharing moments with them, so con is the correct preposition.
You could say it, but the meaning changes:
- mi familia = my family (your own family)
- la familia = the family (could mean “family in general” or a specific family previously mentioned)
The sentence is personal and talks about your own life, so mi familia is the natural and expected choice.
The sentence:
Últimamente intento apreciar los pequeños momentos de felicidad con mi familia.
is perfectly natural and widely understood both in Spain and in Latin America.
There is no vocabulary, grammar, or structure here that would be region-specific.
Any differences would be more about accent and pronunciation, not about the words or grammar used.
You would change the verb intento to first person plural intentamos:
- Últimamente intentamos apreciar los pequeños momentos de felicidad con nuestra familia.
→ “Lately we try to appreciate the little moments of happiness with our family.”
If “our family” really means a shared family, nuestra familia is more accurate than mi familia.
If the idea is that each person appreciates moments with their own family, you might still use nuestras familias, but that adds complexity. In most everyday contexts, people just say nuestra familia.