Have you ever wondered what is the correct way to say “a night” or “last night”? Believe it or not, there are many people who do not know how to write this expression and who believe that they are two words or that they are one. Today there are many people who do not know how to write phrases or common words, this is partly due to the fact that student education today is more relaxed and less strict, as well as many people do not have the facility or the interest to learn to handle the Spanish language well. That is why many people do not know how to write a night or last night.
If you still have that doubt and you don’t know how this expression works, what it is useful for or why so many people don’t know how to write it, don’t worry. We have a very detailed article with which you will be able to know what is the most appropriate way to use this expression, as well as we will tell you some of the reasons why such simple phrases end up being misapplied and what are their origins and uses.
Don’t feel bad if you don’t know how to write a phrase or word, this is one of the big problems people face that also encourages misunderstandings of the Spanish language to grow and cause it to be degraded. The fear that people will know that we do not know how to do or how to say something can cause people to move away from understanding or learning a subject or activity. Yes, that’s right, although it sounds contradictory, the fear of appearing ignorant can make our ignorance grow.
It is never too late to learn something and the fact that we do not know something well is not a reason to feel ashamed or keep us in the dark of knowledge. It is better to find a way to increase our knowledge and we should feel satisfied and happy to know that regardless of the situation we will not close ourselves to learning or lock ourselves in ignorance, since ignorance is never good.
Anyway, take a notebook and a pencil and write down the things that we will be telling you in this article, from how you can use words well to how to express yourself correctly according to the grammar and spelling they advise us. We do not intend to single out anyone or make people feel ignorant or deficient, but to support the knowledge and correct use of the words of this beautiful and versatile language. Let’s see how to write to night or last night.
Instructions for writing at night or last night
- How do you spell “at night” or “last night”? That is the question that we are going to clarify in this first step to learn how to use this expression properly. The first thing you have to do and record in your memory is to write “last night” not “at night”. “Last night” is one word while “a night” is two words and applying them separately is incorrect. This may seem a bit confusing since “last night” is a compound word – that is, it is made up of more than one word but does not form a sentence. There are many words that we can take as a reference to understand what we mean as compound words. For example: “Basketball” . This last word is composed of two simple words or lexemes, which are “ball” and “basket”.
- It would be incorrect to write “basketball”, since we will be referring to two different things and not one. The same goes for “at night”. “A night” is not a compound word, but two different ones that is a phrase that may be meaningless. When he says “a” it is generally a word that helps us to write a fact such as “I am going to go home and then to sleep”. On the other hand, there are few times when we can use “at night” with meaning. We cannot say “I went to dinner at night”, since it is a meaningless phrase since night is not an activity or a place for us to go for it. In this way we can finish understanding that “last night” will always be the compound word and that it is used to describe a situation in the past tense and not in the future or present tense as it occurs frequently when we use the word “a” of “night”.
- Why does this confusion arise between individual and compound words? The explanation for this is easy to say, since in itself it could be said that there are many reasons that consequently generate this type of grammatical conflict. One of those reasons is the lack of attention or interest in carrying out good writing. In part this may be due to personal conflicts of each individual such as contempt for cultivating, lack of education, lack of interest in learning, careless grammatical attitudes, lack of knowledge and even setback or degradation of school student systems. However, this lack of knowledge about Spanish grammar is becoming common, which is why many people could take it as something normal and not give it much importance.
- How can I avoid misspelling these kinds of compound words? It is important to make the difference between simple and compound words, because if we don’t do it correctly, we could end up getting confused and misspelling a word. Just as it is wrong to write “with me” when it should be “with me “, it is also wrong to write “to see” when it should be “to see”. The same happens with “last night”, this is a single word and even if it is composed, we must try to avoid writing it as if it were two, since this way the writing we are doing loses quality, seriousness and meaning.
- There is some acceptance that words are compounded or decomposed as they are adapted and socially accepted. One of those examples of non-existent compound words are “depronto” and “compermiso”, neither of which exist. The correct thing is to say “suddenly” and “with permission”. In the case of “last night” it is the other way around, since it is a compound word, the correct thing is not to separate it or break it down because it loses its total meaning and cannot be applied well in any well-done writing. This can mostly be seen as something that commonly happens on social media, as people tend to be more careless with their writing on these sites.
- “Last night” is a single word that is generally used to describe a situation in the past tense. There are other phrases that are not compound words that can help us well to replace “last night” as it is “at night”. For example: “Last night I went to brush my teeth but since there was no toothpaste I used bicarbonate of soda with water”: as you can see, a phrase as simple as “at night” can help us perfectly to replace “last night” with the big difference that “at night” can be used in past, present and future tense as well, For example: “Today I will go to the movies at night” or “I prefer to study at night and not during the day”.
- You can write down these tips and explanations in a notebook to remember how compound words are written and thus not make the mistake of writing a compound word as if they were two simple words again. We also suggest you read more of the articles on grammar that we have on this website. We know that they will be very useful when writing what you want so that everything is correct and in order.
Tips for writing at night or last night
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