English and Spanish are both SVO languages. The basic sentence order in both languages is the subject first and then the verb and the object. However, the two languages also exhibit syntactic differences.
In English adjectives precede nouns. In Spanish adjective phrases, the adjective usually follows. For example, the phrase la comida deliciosa means the delicious food. The adjective deliciosa (delicious) follows the noun comida (food).
The sentence I don't understand is Yo no entiendo in Spanish. The word order is the same as in English. However, Spanish is a pro-drop language. This means that the subject pronoun does not need to be expressed. As a result, No entiendo is also fine. To add emphasis, the pronoun yo (I) can be placed at the end. Another possible sentence is No entiendo yo.
In the sentence Yo veo un avión (I see a plane), the two languages use the same word-order. However, Spanish often drops the subject pronoun, which means that Veo un avión is also correct. If the object is replaced with a pronoun, the order of the Spanish sentence changes. To express I see it, Spanish says Yo lo veo or Lo veo. In this case, the word order is SOV or (S)OV.
The basic sentence structure of English and Spanish is SVO. In fact, both languages share similar syntax. However, in certain cases, the syntactic structure of English and Spanish sentences is different.
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