Tricks for finding synonyms

 It is important to know that you DO NOT have to know what a word means to
be able to find its synonym
 There are various tricks that can be used to find the synonym by a process of
elimination

Verb recognition

• It is vital that you are able to recognise…

1. What ‘person’ a verb is in- is it in the yo, tú, él/ella, nosotros, vosotros or
ellas/ellas form?

2. What tense a verb is in- is it in the present, preterite, imperfect, future, is it the
invfinitive?

If the verb is an infinitive e.g. hablar then the synonym is most likely an infinitive
as well- this means that if will be the name of the verb and it could end in AR, ER
or IR

If it is a verb in the 3rd person plural preterite e.g hablaron then it will be another
verb in the 3rd person plural preterite however this could be an AR, ER or IR verb
also. Therefor the word could be does not have to end in –aron it could also
end in –ieron e,g dicieron

Remember if the verb is reflexive the infinitive could end in ARSE, ERSE, or
IRSE

A synonym in the future or conditional tense will be the easiest to spot because
they keep the infinitive of the verb and then add on the endings e.g habará or
hablaría you are looking for a verb that keeps the infinitive and adds á or ía

Even if you are looking for the synonym of a sentence and it contains a verb-look
at the verb see what tense and person it is in and look for a verb with the same
tense and person in the text, then work out the rest of the sentence

Words ending in ado/ido or ados/idos

 These endings are interchangeable this means that if the word ends in –ado
or ido- the synonym will probably also end in –ado or –ido
The same applies for words ending in –ados or –idos
E.g aumentado could become subido or aumentados could become subidos

A = un/ una/ unos/unas (they all mean A!)

 If the word begins with un or una then the synonym will most likely also start
with un or una
  If a word starts with unos or unas the synonym will start with unos or unas
E.g. una habitación could become un dormitorio
Or unas habitaciones could become unos dormitorios

The = el/la/los/las (they all mean the!)

 The same applies for ‘the’ if a word begins with el or la the synonym will
probably start with el or la
 If it starts with los or las the synonym will start with los or las
 E.g la habitación could become el dormitorio
 Or las habitaciones could become los dormitorios

Negatives

 No: not/no  Nunca: never  Ningún sitio: nowhere

 Nadie: nobody  Jamás: never  Remember that opposites
 Ninguna persona:  Nada: nothing can also be used e.g. no
nobody es segura = es peligrosa
Possessive pronouns
Possessive pronouns are hard to replace- these are…

 Mi(s)  Nuestro(s)
 Tu(s)  Vuestro(s)
 Su(s)
Therefore if it is mi in the question the synonym will propbably have a mi or mis in it
If its nuestro in the question the synonym will probably have a nuestro or nuestros in
it
Prepositions
These are all interchangeable but they are also hard to replace so if there is one of
these in the question there will probably be one of these in the synonym

 Que  A  Sobre
 De  Por  Después de
 En  Para  Antes de
 Para que
Adjectives

Is the adjective masculine/ feminine/ singular/ plural? You will be looking for the
same type of adjective in the text

E.g. buenas is a feminine plural adjective…which of the following could be a

synonym for buenas?

 Bonitos/ bonitas/ bonita/bonito