Breakdown of Para ser persuasivo, tienes que hablar lento y mejorar tu entonación.
ser
to be
y
and
tener
to have
hablar
to speak / to talk
tu
your
para
for
mejorar
to improve
lento
slow
persuasivo
persuasive
la entonación
intonation
Questions & Answers about Para ser persuasivo, tienes que hablar lento y mejorar tu entonación.
Why is the adjective lento used here instead of the adverb lentamente?
This is an adverbial adjective. In conversational Latin American Spanish, it is very common to drop the -mente ending for certain common adjectives (like lento, rápido, or fuerte) when they describe how an action is performed. Using lentamente is grammatically correct, but hablar lento sounds much more natural in everyday speech.
Since lento is technically an adjective, would it change to lenta if giving advice to a woman?
What about persuasivo? Does that change depending on who I am talking to?
Why does the sentence start with Para instead of Por?
Para followed by an infinitive (like ser) is used to express a purpose, goal, or destination. It translates directly to 'in order to'. If you used Por, it would imply a cause or reason, like 'because of being persuasive', which doesn't fit the advice being given here.
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