Family by marriage
When you marry, you gain los suegros (parents-in-law) and los cuñados (brothers- and sisters-in-law). The feminine forms are regular: la suegra, la cuñada.
| man | woman |
|---|
| parent-in-law | el suegro | la suegra |
| sibling-in-law | el cuñado | la cuñada |
| parent (what you call them) | el papá | la mamá |
Mamá and papá are what you call your parents. In Spain they work like names, with no article and no mi:
Love, kisses and hugs
Te quiero (I love you) is said to a partner, but also to your parents, children and close friends. Kisses and hugs are given, so they take an indirect object pronoun: dar un beso, dar un abrazo.
You get married to someone with casarse con — never casarse a. And you miss someone with echar de menos + personal a:
Liking people: caer bien
To say you like a person, Spanish usually says that the person cae bien to you. It is built exactly like gustar: the person you like is the subject, and you are the indirect object.
| Spanish | English |
|---|
| me cae bien | I like him / her |
| te cae bien | you like him / her |
| le cae bien | he / she likes him / her |
| me caen bien | I like them |
The opposite is caer mal. Saying me gusta about a person often means you find them attractive.
y becomes e, o becomes u
Before a word that starts with the sound i (spelled i- or hi-), y becomes e. Before the sound o (o- or ho-), o becomes u. It only avoids two identical sounds in a row.
Y stays before hie-, because that sounds like ye: agua y hielo.
