Spanish language Q&A Forum

Hello, I appreciate the speed at which these exercises are read; it allows me to follow along and train my ears to pickup words during PURE listening. 

Question: my weakest skill is listening comprehension during a conversational speech at a standard rate. What tips do you advise me to understand better native speakers speaking at normal speed?

Thank you for your anticipated answer and this resource

Podemos usar yo de ti en vez de yo que tú aqui?  Intentó "yo de ti" pero estuvo marcado como error. ?Por qué?

Kevin 

what's the difference between usted and vosotros?

Hi. I'm a big fan of this site, for many reasons, so I am pointing this out in a spirit of collaboration, not criticism: I think this page should refer to "present continuous" and "present participles", not gerunds. 

The gerund is a form, derived from a verb, which ends in --ing, but it is the noun from the verb. This page is all about an alternative verb form. 

For example: "Smoking is bad for you."

"Smoking" is a gerund, as it has become a noun.

"That man is smoking" is the present continuous form of the verb. "Smoking" in this sentence is the present participle, i.e. not a gerund.

I am prepared to accept that this might be a US/UK English thing; I'd be very interested to hear if this were the case.

Best wishes

Andrew Wenger

For example "They are talking about the least successful novel ever written", can I say "Hablan de la novela menos exitosa jamás escrita"?

I think I've managed to wrap my head around how the passive works in a basic sense, but I'm wondering if anyone can offer, or refer me to, any guidance on WHEN to use different passive/impersonal forms, or how the nuances change? I know this is a rather broad question, so I'll try to narrow it down to a couple examples:

When is it prefered to use the true passive versus the se refleja form? for example, I was reading an article that said "las piedras habían sido extraídas de rocas que se formaron hace miles de millones de años." Here we have two different forms used in the same sentence! Could the writer have instead said "las piedras se habían extraído de rocas que fueron formado"--or some other combination--and if so are there different nuances?! Is one simply more formal? Or is there another specific reason the se pasiva wasn't use for one but it was used for the other? 

Also, I know this is a lot at once, but I'm struggling to grasp how the use of the passive with "se" differs from the use of the "ellos" impersonal construction. For example, if a house is under construction down the street, would you say "se construye una casa" or "construyen una casa" and if both are equally valid, how are the nuances different? And are there cases where one is possible but the other isn't? For instance, I've often noticed that when the object of an action is a person rather than a thing the action is often not expressed with se--the ellos form seems to be the choice in some cases like "le robaron" (but not "se robó"?). And yet... we do have "se buscan secretarias"? I can't quite see what is going on here...

Mil gracias in advance for any help on any of these questions... 

One of hints is to "use the EN phrase order". What does that mean?

In the last sentence, the word "ojalá" has the accent in the wrong place.

Isn't there an exception for locations of events? For example in: "¿Dónde es la reunión?"