Geografía básica y alfabeto en español fácil

When do you use “sino” instead of “pero” in Spanish?

Spanish has two words for “but”. Pero adds an idea, but sino corrects one. You use sino only after a “no” sentence, to swap the wrong thing for the right one: “not this, sino that”. So Argelia no está en Europa, sino en África means “Algeria is not in Europe, but in Africa”. If there is no “no” before it, you cannot use sino; you use pero.

A quick test: if you can replace “but” with “on the contrary”, use sino; if you can replace it with “however”, use pero. The clip uses it again and again: El Tajo no es un río grande, sino un río pequeño (the Tajo is not a big river, but a small one).