Breakdown of Necesitas escribir el mensaje correctamente.
Questions & Answers about Necesitas escribir el mensaje correctamente.
How do we get correctamente from the word for 'correct'?
The adjective for 'correct' is correcto. To turn an adjective into an adverb (words that often end in '-ly' in English), you first take its feminine form, correcta. Then, you add -mente to the end. That gives us correctamente (correctly). Why is escribir not conjugated?
In Spanish, when you use a verb immediately after necesitar (to need), the second verb stays in its infinitive (dictionary) form. Since necesitas is already conjugated to match 'you', escribir stays as 'to write'. I thought words ending in 'e' could be masculine or feminine. Why is it el mensaje?
You are right that 'e' endings can be tricky! However, there is a helpful rule here: Spanish nouns that end in the letters -aje are almost always masculine. This is why it is el mensaje (the message), just like el viaje (the trip) or el equipaje (the luggage). Could I put correctamente before the verb, like 'You need to correctly write the message'?
It sounds unnatural in Spanish to put this kind of adverb before the verb. Adverbs ending in -mente that describe how you do something almost always go after the verb phrase they modify, which is why it sits at the end of the sentence here. Learn Necesitas escribir el mensaje correctamente and more in Spanish
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