Does yes always mean yes in Spanish?

Denying negative sentences and questions? What does that mean? Well, basically it means that sometimes we have to be very careful while answering a question in Spanish. Everything depends on a type of a question.

Popcorn and gummy bears

Let's get straight to the point and take a look at two simple questions:

¿Quieres ir al cine?

Here things are simple. If you want to go to the cinema, you say "sí".

If you don't want to go, you say "no".

¿No quieres ir al cine?

It seems easy, but sometimes it can be confusing.

If you don't want to go to the cinema, you say "no, no quiero ir al cine" or simply "no".

However, if you do want to go the cinema, you have to say "sí, quiero ir al cine". In other terms, you have to deny the negative sentence.

Why is that so important?

Because if, for some reason, when responding a question like "Quieres ir al cine?", you say "Sí, no quiero ir al cine" in order to confirm the whole sentence, instead of refering yourself to its sense, for a Spanish-speaking person this sentence won't make any sense. And what will happen is that she will ask you again how about the cinema tonight.

Hope it helps!

Sí, no quiero ir al cine - it doesn´t make sense

By the way, the same rule applies to the French language, so if your'e studying these both languages, this little information will be very useful to you.

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