Spanish language Q&A Forum

Hola!

I started doing the relative pronoun lessons and quizzes before I even had a complete understanding of what a relative clause was!! (Maybe some different organization of the B2 lessons would alleviate this for other students???)

I needed more understanding so I did a search, and lo and behold, I found this lesson and the lights came on!! 

I get it now and it makes perfect sense to me. 

Thank you so much for this lesson Inma! (I see it's quite recent)

As a forever student, the lessons and explanations make learning Spanish so much fun for me and have taken my studying and learning to a whole new level. 

I really love the dictation and writing exercises!!  I was wanting to train my ear to hear better and these exercises fit the bill perfectly!!

 I'm so glad I found Kwiziq!!

Muchas Muchas Gracias y Feliz Navidad!!

Hello,

I'm interested in the flexibility when there are multiple objets. The first example on the page is: A mí me diste muy poco dinero pero a ella le diste mucho.

Would 

A mí me diste muy poco dinero pero a ella mucho.

also be correct?

And what about: 

A mí me diste muy poco dinero pero a ella diste mucho.

?
thanks!

Maybe just worth pointing out that in the sentences with "a" the preposition is used in two different ways: 

- as a "normal" preposition, for example, indicating motion: "El partido al que fui" 

- as a "personal a", where there is a direct object (Los cantantes a los que los fans adulaban) but where "a" is needed because the object is personal.

I think that's so, isn't it?

I'm confused by the title of this article: "personal "a" verbs". Isn't the issue whether the direct object is a person or not, rather than the verb used? In addition to the verbs mentioned, isn't the same true of all the verbs on https://spanish.kwiziq.com/learn/theme/830919 as well as necesitar, golpear, ... indeed any transitive verb? 

Hi,

Just wanted to share a thought as a person using this platform to learn Spanish. At the end of the exercise when you show the whole text in Spanish, I feel like it would be helpful if you showed the entire text in English as well, as it would help in trying to look back at how you translated everything as a whole. 

Lo que ha bebido Juan

La de vino que ha bebido Juan 

Cuánto ha bebido Juan

For Question 8   I answered 'trabaje' believing it to be the correct subjunctive form but it was marked incorrect and 'trabaja' was given as the correct answer.  Would you please explain.  Many thanks.

Lesson Haciendo Snowboard en Formigal:   I couldn't find how to add it to notebook. Can you help me? Randy

Spanish speakers seem to habitually use the imperfect tense for "deber" where English speakers would use the past tense, e.g.,

"Paul owed her his life" => "Pablo le debía la vida" instead of "Pablo le debió la vida"

"You guys must've figured something out" => "Debíais haber descubierto algo" instead of "Debisteis haber haber descubierto algo"

... and sometimes where English speakers would use the present tense, e.g., "But the Lord said he must go to Ninevah" => "Pero el Señor insistió en que debía ir a Nínive" instead of "Pero el Señor insistió en que debe ir a Nínive."

They also use the imperfect in situations that seem to call for a past-tense conditional ("should have"):

Si querías baile, debías haber recurrido a mí  => If you wanted dancing, you should have come to me

I would have expected "Si querías baile, deberías haber recurrido a mí" (should have). Sometimes I do see "deberías haber" for "should have", and I can't see any pattern to why one is chosen instead of the other.

In some cases, the imperfect is used where the present-tense conditional seems clearly called for, e.g., "debias esperar hasta que llamara" for "you should wait until he calls." There's nothing past-tense-ish about that sentence.

"deberían" ('they should") in particular is used interchangeably with "debían" (literally "in the past they must"), and neither is used for past-tense "they should have".

Can someone explain how Spanish speakers conceptualize these tenses of "deber"?  Does the choice of tense work the same way for "deber" as "owe" and "deber" as "must", or are they treated differently?