Spanish Negation: Complete Guide to Using Spanish Negative Words

Spanish negation can be a bit complicated for new learners of Spanish. Fortunately, many of the concepts and rules when using negative words in Spanish are really similar to those used in English.

Spanish negation can be as simple as saying no in Spanish when responding to a yes or no question, or it can be a little trickier when using double negatives as in the case with tampoco. Rest assured, we’ll break down all of the rules when it comes to Spanish negation and you’ll be using negative words in Spanish like a pro in no time.

Spanish Negation at a Glance

Spanish Negative Words

No

Let’s start off easy. Negation in Spanish can be done through the word no. This word can be used to answer yes-no questions, for example, if someone asks you ¿Te gusta jugar al tenis? (“Do you like playing tennis?”), you can simply answer No.

But it can also be used to negate the verb in the sentence, and so it should always precede it. Its meaning is similar to the English word “do not” or “don’t”. Following the previous example, we could say: 

And, of course, we could also ask a negative question like:

When answering, you can simply reply with No, if you want to answer in the negative, or you could say

If you notice here, in the Spanish response, no is used twice. This structure is followed if you’re answering no to a yes or no question.

Nadie

Nadie in Spanish basically means “nobody” or “no one”. This negative word is used when referring to people.

And it can sometimes mean “anybody,” especially in questions like:

Nunca

Nunca means “never,” and it’s used as an adverb of frequency, just like in English:

And it can also be used as the negative answer. And it can be more interesting than simply answering “no”.

Jamás

Jamás is a synonym of nunca. It means also means “never”. Even though it is less commonly used than nunca, jamás can be used in the same way:

But these two adverbs can also used together forming the phrase Nunca jamás, which is used for emphasis. It’s similar to saying “never ever”.

Todavía no

Todavía no means “not yet,” and is used in the following way:

The English is translated a bit awkwardly, but I wanted to make it easier show a direct translation. Simly that todavía no simply means not yet.

These words can also be rearranged in the sentence with the same meaning in the following way:

Note that todavía can either go at the beginning, at the end, or in the middle of the sentence. However, no here negates the verb and so no should always go before the verb.

Ya no 

Ya no means “not anymore”. Anymore is usually said at the end in English, but in Spanish, Ya no is put in the beginning and the principle is simliar to the previous examples of Spanish negation. We are negating the action, so the negative word, ya no goes before the verb.

Nada

You’ve probably heard the word nada before. It’s a quite popular Spanish word among English speakers and it means “nothing” or “anything,” depending on the context.

When used with another negative word, nada takes on the meaning of “anything”. Let’s take a look at some examples below.

But nada when used on its own, without any accompanying negative words, it takes on the meaning of “nothing”.

Ni

The Spanish negation ni is similar to the English “nor”. It is the connector word that is used when listing something and when you’re using a negative statement. In Spanish ni always accompanies another negative word.

Ni … ni

Now that we know how to use ni, using ni … ni should be simple. It’s similar to the English use of “neither… nor”—we can use it when we want to talk about two or more negative things. The difference between using one ni or repeating it is that when we repeat ni we emphasize the negation. Let’s take a look at two different ways of using the ni … ni pairing.:

Tampoco

Lastly, we have tampoco which is similar to “neither,” “either,” or “also not.” This word is usually used with other negative words:

Though it can appear on its own in a sentence, there should always be something before that triggers the use of tampoco. For example, if someone said No me gusta jugar al tenis (“I don’t like playing tennis), we could answer A mí tampoco me gusta jugar al tenis (“I don’t like playing tennis either”).