Morning! 😃 ☕️
Down to two words left standing.
Today's the day the grammar gets genuinely useful, there's a real rule buried in this short phrase that will help you well beyond this one proverb.
In today's email...
-
📱 Day 4: Only two words are left. The rest is up to you
-
🌟 The grammar rule hiding in two letters
-
🏃♂️ Why Spanish treats a monk differently than it treats money
📧 subscribe here | ⭐ manage subscription | 📩 free upgrade (14 days) | 📆 yesterday’s newsletter
☕ FREE REFILLS
More free reads — on the house.
We teamed up with a few brands to pour you something extra: a short list of genuinely great newsletters.
Every one is free, and every one actually sends emails worth opening.
Help yourself. ☕
MEMORIZE 🧠
__ hábito __ ____ __ monje.
As always, the answer key and audio are at the bottom of this email.
CULTURAL MOMENT 🍅
Here's a genuinely useful rule hiding in this proverb: Spanish requires the word "a" before a direct object when that object is a specific person.
This is called the "personal a," and it has no equivalent in English at all. English just doesn't mark this.
That's exactly why "hace al monje" uses "al" (a + el) instead of just "el." The monk is a person, so the personal "a" is required before him, grammatically, even though he's not literally receiving an action the way a person receiving a gift would.
You can see this rule clearly by comparing our phrase to a similar one: "El dinero no hace la felicidad" ("Money doesn't buy happiness").
The rest is for paid readers.
Paid already? Open this from the link in any of your emails and the rest unlocks.
Not a paid reader yet? See what you are missing →
There's a better way to learn.
Phrase Café sends you a letter from Sara every morning, with the English under every line and her voice reading it. Then a coach walks you through it. 5 to 10 minutes a day.