giving your opinion in spanish

Give Your Opinion in Spanish with these 6 Easy Phrases

When doing a language exchange, giving opinions is one of the easiest aspects to practice. Almost in every conversation we have in our lives, we have the chance to give our opinion. There are some typical ways to do it, that almost all Spanish students know such as “En mi opinión” (in my opinion) or “Yo pienso” (I think). These two are very popular ways to give your opinion in Spanish because they are almost a direct translation from English. However, there are many other options and actually “Yo pienso” is not very common among native Spanish speakers.

So let’s see some other phrases with which to give your opinion in Spanish.

Yo creo que

This is the most common way to say “I think” in Spanish. As you see instead of the verb “pensar” (think) we use the verb “creer” (believe). For some foreign speakers this is hard to remember, but the truth is that it sounds much more natural, and it is just a matter of getting used to use this verb.

In contrast, the negative version of “you creo que” can be “no creo que + subjunctive” or “yo creo que no + indicative”. These variations give you a way to give an opposite opinion to your partner and are very useful.

En mi opinión

This is more natural than “yo pienso” (I think) and is also very easy to remember. The English direct translation would be “In my opinion”.

Me parece que

This phrase is mostly used when your opinion is not completely formulated, so it is a useful phrase for when you are not 100% sure. The meaning of this phrase it “it seems to me that..”

giving your opinion in spanish

Estoy de acuerdo

It is the direct translation of “I agree”. Remember that in Spanish you need to use “estar”. The most common ways are:

  •    Estoy de acuerdo en que + idea
  •    Estoy de acuerdo con + person
  •    Estoy de acuerdo con que +  idea

Additionally, you can use it in negation as well: “No estoy de acuerdo…”. Or if you want to show partial agreement: “Estoy de acuerdo en parte, pero…”.

Si me dan a elegir yo + conditional

What we are doing here is explaining how we would act if we would be free to do whatever we want. Contrary to what it looks like, you are not expressing a choice, but giving an opinion. For example, if in a shop the owner asks us for what we want to choose, we wouldn’t use “si me dan a elegir…”. We would use it in a conversation in which we are deciding something with other people. For example, if you are discussing whether to go to a lake or a mountain, you could say, “si me dan a elegir yo iría a la montaña”.

Con respecto a

With these words, you are introducing your opinion about a topic, but you have to clarify which topic you are going to speak about. For example, “con respecto a la crisis económica…” (regarding/concerning the economic crisis), and then you can use one of the other options mentioned above:

  1.    … me parece que
  2.    …en mi opinión
  3.    … yo creo que
  4.    or … opino (I believe/think/am of the opinion)

There are many other ways and you can combine all the phrases mentioned in this article and give your opinion in Spanish. For example, when you want to give a different opinion to the one that was just said, in informal speech you can use “pues” (well), as an introductory word, while in formal speech you can use “sin embargo” (however, nevertheless).

“Pues yo creo que ….” – “Sin embargo, yo creo que…”

Start practicing one of some of these until you can use it naturally, and then see how your partner gives opinions and copy them.  You will see that soon you will have a bunch of nice options to use to give your opinion in Spanish.

About the author:
Miguel Bratos is a freelance content writer from Spain who also teaches Spanish to foreign learners by Skype. He likes reading, writing and has practiced a lot of hours of language exchange when he was studying English. He has a blog about the freelance writer career as writer and copywriter of spanishwriterpro.com.

give your opinion in spanish

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