Breakdown of Yo no tengo con qué escribir la correspondencia.
yo
I
no
no, not
tener
to have
qué
what
escribir
to write
con
with
la correspondencia
the correspondence
Questions & Answers about Yo no tengo con qué escribir la correspondencia.
Why does qué have an accent mark here when it's not a direct question?
In structures like no tener con qué, the word qué acts as an interrogative pronoun meaning "what." Even in indirect questions or these special phrases where you express lacking the means to do something, interrogative words keep their accent marks.
The English translation uses "anything", but there is no nada in the Spanish sentence. Why?
The phrase no tener con qué + infinitive literally means "not to have with what" to do an action. In English, we naturally express this lack of means by saying we don't have "anything" to do it with. You could technically add nada (no tengo nada con qué escribir), but it is redundant because the structure itself already implies it.
Why do we use the infinitive escribir here instead of the subjunctive?
We use the infinitive because the person who lacks the item (the subject of tengo) is the exact same person who will be doing the writing. If the subjects were different, we would need the subjunctive. For example, No tengo con qué escribas would mean "I don't have anything for you to write with."
Why is the preposition con in the middle of the phrase instead of at the end like the English "write with"?
Spanish strictly forbids ending a sentence or clause with a preposition. A preposition must always come immediately before the relative pronoun or noun it connects to. Therefore, "anything to write with" must be restructured as con qué escribir (literally, "with what to write").
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