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Tip of the Month - ¿hay? ¿ahí? ¿ay?

There is a Spanish sentence, quite "famous", by the way, among students, that somehow can help you distinguish these three words. Because... Yes! For some strange reason, native Spanish speakers, from 8 to 10 years old... or older! also need to learn how to spell these words.

So, the sentence is:

"Ahí hay un perro que dice ¡ay!"

    Ahí means "(over) there" and always takes the accent on final letter "i"
    hay from the verb "haber", and means "there is / there are".
    ay, or better: ¡ay!. Yes, that's an exclamation, and its English equivalent is "ouch!"
So, let's translate this sentence, literally.

"Ahí hay un perro que dice ¡ay!

"(Over) There there is a dog saying ouch!

Well, the sentence is not specially brilliant, but it can be quite useful to differenciate the use and meanings of these three words.


Hope this helps!


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