Cleft sentences and fronting: putting the spotlight where you want it
To emphasise WHAT, wrap it in lo que ... es — exactly like English "what I need is...".
Lo que necesito es dormir. (What I need is sleep.)
Lo que más me molesta es el ruido. (What annoys me most is the noise.)
Pattern: Lo que + clause + es + the highlighted element. Instantly upgrades your spoken and written Spanish.
To emphasise WHO, use ser ... quien/el que. The tense of ser matches the action.
Fue María quien encontró las llaves. (It was María who found the keys.)
Es mi hermano el que cocina en casa. (It's my brother who cooks at home.)
Fue ... quien for past events, es ... el que/quien for present habits. The verb after quien agrees normally.
Spanish loves moving the object to the front for emphasis — but when you do, you must repeat it as a pronoun.
Eso no lo sé. (THAT I don't know — eso fronted, lo repeats it.)
A Juan no lo he visto hoy. (Juan I haven't seen today.)
El postre lo traigo yo. (The dessert, I'm bringing.)
The duplicate pronoun (lo, la, los, las) is obligatory — "Eso no sé" sounds broken.
The cleft family extends to places, times and things.
Es aquí donde nos conocimos. (It's here that we met.)
Fue entonces cuando lo entendí. (It was then that I understood.)
Es el precio lo que no me convence. (It's the price that doesn't convince me.)
Match the connector to the element: place → donde, time → cuando, thing → lo que. Never plain "que" here.
Two more native-sounding intensifiers for conversation.
Sí que: Esta paella sí que está buena. (This paella really IS good.)
Lo + adjective + que: No sabes lo cansada que estoy. (You don't know HOW tired I am.)
lo cansada que estoy — the adjective agrees (cansadA, speaker is female) even after neutral lo.
Traps for English speakers
These are the errors English speakers make most often.