Spanish Word of the Day
Tuesday, July 16, 2013

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dos, adjective,, pronoun
two

Dos is no doubt one of the first Spanish words you learnt. Today we’ll be looking at some of the set phrases you can use it in.

Entraron de dos en dos.
They came in two at a time.

Entraron de a dos.
They came in two at a time.

In fact, you can use the structure de + number en + number (or de a + number in Latin America) with any number to mean ... at a time.

Entraron de tres en tres.
They came in three at a time.

Entraron de a tres.
They came in three at a time.

If something happens repeatedly, especially something you don’t like, or don’t approve of, there’s another phrase with dos which you can use: cada dos por tres every five minutes.

Cada dos por tres me viene con otra pregunta.
Every five minutes he comes and asks me something else.

And just as in English, it’s a superstition that bad things always come in threes:

No hay dos sin tres.
Bad things always come in threes.

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