In the initial learning stages of positive and negative in Spanish, students must master the terms for positives and negatives as they would a new vocabulary list. It is helpful to think of the terms in categories and as opposites. For example, también and tampoco are opposites, and they belong to the same category as they are both used to express agreement. También is used to agree with an affirmative statement, while tampoco is used to agree with a negative statement.
In this activity, students will create a grid to illustrate the meaning of opposite positive and negative words. Students should organize their terms into the three categories: people, things, and quantities. With a more advanced class or students, have them also include a sentence in the description box below each cell that uses the vocabulary term and describes or matches the cell illustration. For a more beginner class, students can put the English translation in the description box instead.
The chart below contains what are termed as positive and negative words in Spanish. They are used to communicate absence (negative) or presence (positive) of something—whether a person, a thing, or a quantity.
| Positive | Negative | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Agreement | también | also/too | tampoco | neither |
| Conjunction | y, o | and, or | ni…ni | neither…nor |
| Person | alguien | someone | nadie | no one |
| Thing | algo | something | nada | nothing |
| Time/Frequency | siempre | always | nunca | never |
| Quantity | alguno/a(s), algún | some | ninguno/a, ningún | none |
(These instructions are completely customizable. After clicking "Copy Activity", update the instructions on the Edit Tab of the assignment.)
Student Instructions
Create a chart that illustrates positives and negatives for each category: people, things, and quantities.