How to use ‘como’ in Spanish is the question we are going to try to answer today on the Spanishviaskype.com blog. This connector has many functions in our language. However, we are not going to deal in this article with interrogative uses (¿Cómo estás?) or relative uses (Hazlo de la forma como te enseñé.). Instead, we are going to study how to use ‘como‘ in Spanish in adverbial propositions of manner, cause, condition and comparison.

How to use ‘como’ in Spanish in propositions of manner

Adverbial propositions of manner are subordinate clauses that express the way in which the verbal action is performed.

In this type of sentence, como is the most commonly used conjunction. This connector introduces the manner that is real and known in the indicative:

Debo hacer el examen DELE como me enseñó mi profesor.

On the other hand, we use the subjunctive when the way of doing the verbal action is unknown or unreal.

Puedes estudiar español como quieras, pero te recomiendo hacerlo con un profesor.

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After this advice, let’s see how to use ‘como‘ in Spanish in causal propositions.

 

 

‘Como’ in causal propositions

Causal adverbial clauses express the reason why the action of the main verb occurs. Among other conjunctions, como is used in the indicative to indicate cause. But, be careful because we always place it in front of the main clause:

Como está lloviendo, voy a quedarme en casa.

In this example, the cause of staying home is the rain.

How to use ‘como’ in Spanish in conditional propositions

Adverbial clauses of condition introduce the requirement that must be met for the verbal action to be possible. How to use ‘como’ in Spanish to express conditions is very simple. We only need to use the verb in the subjunctive.

Como llueva mañana, me quedaré en casa.

In this case, the rain is not the cause of staying at home, but the condition. Only if it rains, the subject will stay at home.

The conjunction ‘como’ in comparative propositions

To finish, let’s know the usage of como in comparative clauses. This connector introduces a comparison between two elements of the sentence. In front of the adverbial clause, we use a quantifier or intensifier: tan, followed by adjectives or adverbs, and tanto/a plus a noun:

Mi casa es tan grande como (es) la tuya y tiene tantas habitaciones como (tiene) un palacio.

Como podemos ver, habitualmente omitimos el verbo subordinado si se repite en el mismo tiempo que el principal. Sin embargo, debemos hacerlo explícito si cambiamos el tiempo verbal:

As we can see, we usually omit the subordinate verb if it is repeated in the same tense as the main verb. However, we must make it explicit if we change the verb tense:

Mi casa es tan grande como era la tuya.

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