{"id":13838,"date":"2025-03-12T03:03:06","date_gmt":"2025-03-12T02:03:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/no-necesito-dormir-o-necesito-no-dormir-negation-in-spanish\/"},"modified":"2025-03-31T23:03:06","modified_gmt":"2025-03-31T21:03:06","slug":"no-necesito-dormir-o-necesito-no-dormir-negation-in-spanish","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/no-necesito-dormir-o-necesito-no-dormir-negation-in-spanish\/","title":{"rendered":"\u00bfNo necesito dormir o necesito no dormir? Negation in Spanish."},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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egation in Spanish is primarily formed using the word "no". I say primarily because, as we will see in this article, there are other ways to construct negation in the language. In addition, we will see different constructions in which the word "no" can be placed in different positions in the sentence, changing its meaning.<\/p>\n\t<\/div>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t

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When we use a single verb, the word no <\/i> comes before the verb. This is the simplest way to construct a negative sentence in Spanish.<\/p>

Mar\u00eda come pizza. Mar\u00eda no <\/b>come pizza. Mar\u00eda eats pizza. Mar\u00eda doesn’t eat pizza.<\/p>

Juan estudia espa\u00f1ol. Juan no <\/b>estudia espa\u00f1ol. Juan studies Spanish. Juan doesn’t study Spanish.<\/p>

When we use compound tenses, that is, tenses that require an auxiliary verb, the word “no<\/i>” goes before the auxiliary verb.<\/p>

He comido pizza. No <\/b>he comido pizza. I have eaten pizza. I have not eaten pizza.<\/p>

Hoy he estudiado espa\u00f1ol. Hoy no <\/b>he estudiado espa\u00f1ol. Today I have studied Spanish. Today I have not studied Spanish.<\/p>

This position remains the same regardless of whether we change the order of the sentence.<\/p>

Mar\u00eda pizza no come.<\/b><\/p>

Espa\u00f1ol yo no he <\/b>estudiado hoy.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Verbal periphrases are structures widely used in the Spanish language, in which there are two verbs: an auxiliary verb that is conjugated and a main verb that appears in a non-personal form, namely, in the infinitive, gerund, or participle. In the specific case of infinitive periphrases, although the most common position for “no<\/i>” is the same as in the previous examples – before the conjugated verb – in this case, it can change, adding a different subjective meaning. Verbal periphrases themselves, which are very frequently used in the language, will be the subject of another article, but let\u2019s look at a couple of examples.<\/p>

El jugador volvi\u00f3 a jugar<\/b> despu\u00e9s de su lesi\u00f3n: )The player played again after his injury): volvi\u00f3 a jugar is the verbal periphrasis. Volver is the auxiliary verb, it is connected to the main verb jugar <\/i> by the preposition a<\/i>, and together, both verbs convey one only message.<\/p>

El jugador no volvi\u00f3 a jugar <\/b>despu\u00e9s de su lesi\u00f3n. (The player did not play again after his injury). This is the most common position of no <\/i> in relation to a verbal periphrasis, and it negates the entire periphrasis.<\/p>

El jugador volvi\u00f3 a no jugar <\/b>despu\u00e9s de su lesi\u00f3n:If we place no <\/i> before the verb in the infinitive, although the general message remains the same – that the player did not participate in the game – this word order adds a subjective nuance. In this case, it could mean, for example, that the speaker expected the player to participate in this particular game.<\/p>

In the case of the other types of periphrases mentioned above, this change in the position of no <\/i> is ungrammatical.<\/p>

No estoy aprendiendo <\/b>mucho. I’m not learning much.<\/p>

Estoy no aprendiendo <\/b>mucho<\/del> (ungrammatical).<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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There are other words in Spanish that introduce negation. When these words come before the conjugated verb, they do not require the word no<\/i>; in other words, they introduce negation on their own. However, when they are placed after the verb, they require the word no <\/i> to appear before the verb. This is what is known in Spanish as double negation<\/i>.<\/p>

Nadie<\/b>: Nadie vino.<\/i> \/ No vino nadie.<\/i> Nobody came.<\/p>

Nada<\/b>: Nada quiero.<\/i> \/ No quiero nada.<\/i> I don\u2019t want anything.<\/p>

Nunca\/Jam\u00e1s<\/b>: Nunca lo vi.<\/i> \/ No lo vi nunca.<\/i> I never saw it.<\/p>

Ninguno\/a<\/b>: Ning\u00fan estudiante aprob\u00f3.<\/i> \/ No aprob\u00f3 ning\u00fan estudiante.<\/i> No student passed.<\/p>

Tampoco<\/b>: Tampoco yo lo s\u00e9.<\/i> \/ No lo s\u00e9 tampoco.<\/i> I don\u2019t know it either.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Negation and direct and indirect objects.
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When, in addition to the verb, we have direct, indirect objects, or both (you can read about these topics here<\/b><\/a>, here<\/b><\/a>, and here<\/b><\/a>), the position of no<\/i> changes when we place the object pronouns before the verb, because in these cases, no <\/i> goes before the pronouns.<\/p>

Mar\u00eda plant\u00f3 un \u00e1rbol. Mar\u00eda no <\/b>plant\u00f3 un \u00e1rbol. Mar\u00eda planted a tree. Mar\u00eda did not plant a tree.<\/p>

Mar\u00eda lo plant\u00f3. Mar\u00eda no lo <\/b>plant\u00f3. Mar\u00eda planted it. Mar\u00eda did not plant it.<\/p>

Yo le regal\u00e9 un libro a mi padre. Yo no le<\/b> regal\u00e9 un libro a mi padre. I gave my father a book. I did not give my father a book.<\/p>

Yo se lo regal\u00e9. Yo no se lo <\/b>regal\u00e9. I gave it to him\/her. I did not give it to him\/her.<\/p>

As we saw in the article about the indirect object in Spanish, redundancy of the indirect object pronoun is very common. For this reason, the pronoun le<\/i> appears in the previous example, even though we explicitly mentioned the indirect object. Even though the pronoun is redundant, no <\/i> comes before it.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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Negative imperative.
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The imperative is a verb mood used to give orders, advice, and even to make requests. The verb is conjugated in the imperative mood, and in the case of the negative imperative, this conjugation coincides in Spanish with the present subjunctive.<\/p>

Ordena <\/b>tu habitaci\u00f3n. No ordenes <\/b>tu habitaci\u00f3n. Tidy up your room. Do not tidy up your room.<\/p>

Pon <\/b>la mesa, por favor. No pongas <\/b>la mesa, por favor. Lay the table, please. Do not lay the table, please.<\/p>

Do you notice the difference in verb conjugation? The subjunctive mood can be a headache for those learning Spanish. In fact, many times, those learning the language omit using the subjunctive, and the message, although ungrammatical, is understood, as no other message is being conveyed by that ungrammaticality. For example, if someone says “necesito que vienes<\/i>” instead of “necesito que vengas”,<\/i> the message will likely be understood, as “necesito que vienes<\/i>” is an incorrect construction, and the closest one is “necesito que vengas<\/i>“. However, in the case of the negative imperative, omitting the use of the subjunctive can lead to misinterpretations, as if we say “no ordenas tu habitaci\u00f3n<\/i>“, we are making an assertion using a grammatically correct structure.<\/p>

I think this is enough information for this article. Thank you for reading, I hope these lines have been helpful, and as always, if you have any doubts or questions, I’ll read them in the comments or, if you prefer, you can write to me. Here<\/strong> <\/a>are excercises to practise this topic.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t<\/path><\/svg>Prev<\/span><\/span>Anterior<\/span>No me hagas pirar porque piro: Why is it worth learning colloquial expressions in our target languages?<\/span><\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
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\n\t\t\t\tSiguiente<\/span>\u00bfCu\u00e1ndo fue la \u00faltima vez que hiciste algo por primera vez? Ordinal numbers.<\/span><\/span><\/path><\/svg>Next<\/span><\/span><\/a>\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Negation in Spanish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":15120,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[144],"tags":[182],"class_list":["post-13838","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-grammar","tag-down-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13838","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13838"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13838\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16222,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13838\/revisions\/16222"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15120"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13838"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13838"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/conexionsp.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13838"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}