Spanish language Q&A Forum

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?

In English, we often express the imperfect tense (a past habitual action) using the modal "would":

When I was young, I would eat sugar.

I can't find examples of the Spanish equivalent:

Cuando era joven, comería azúcar.

But just using the Spanish imperfect seems like it might be wrong:

Cuando era joven, comía azúcar.

... seems to translate literally as "When I was young, I was eating sugar", which doesn't seem to clarify that it was a habitual action rather than a one-time thing.

So, how would you say "When I was young, I would eat sugar" in Spanish?

In the question "¿________ semana te vas de vacaciones?" the answer was Que, but since a specific week was being requested, wouldn't the answer actually be Cual? (sorry it seems I cannot make letters with an accent in the Q&A Forum fields)

> My boyfriend is always asking me to be patient with him.

Translating this into the English subjunctive would be “My boyfriend is always asking that I be patient with him.” And that keeps the “que=that” part of things too!

In a sentence like "I don't know what he knows" or "I don't know if he knows" the sentence can express doubt or merely be a statement of fact. Wouldn't the choice of whether to use the indicative or subjunctive depend on what you are trying to convery (ie:  "No sé lo que sepa" if I am trying to express doubt about what he knows but "No sé lo que sabe" if I am simply stating the fact that I don't know what he knows)?

Can you explain what an impersonal verb is an how I know when to use it, please?

One of the examples is:

Su actitud se volvió violenta de repente.

Is it correct to assume that the change is a lasting one, as with someone who got hit on the head with a shovel and after that was a violent person?

Compared to:

Su actitud se puso violenta de repente.

In this case, cowboys in a saloon in a Western movie insult someone and he stands up quickly and draws his gun?

Just want to double check that these differences are correct.  Thanks.