Spanish language Q&A Forum

In one quiz there was a sentence:   Hace calor.  Saldré al jardin un rato.   Voy a salir  sounds more natural and is what I hear more often from South Americans. Is the use of the future tense more common in Spain?

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?

When I tried to take the quiz, the questions were posed in English.  Consequently I got zero  However, when I looked at the details correct/incorrect responses, these were presented in Spanish.

It says above "if  the sentence has me, te, se, le, nos, os, les then no goes in front of these"

But what about direct  object pronouns los, las, lo, la?

How is the future perfect used for probability in the past

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

My question and answer: How would you say "For many years I have done Tai Chí"?  I picked "Desde hace muchos años hago Taichí.  But it says the correct answer is Desde much años hago Taichí.  

Looking at the lesson that the link takes me too, I only see to use Desde when the time is specific like 1 year.  

Please help.

Hi,

What if I wanted to say "the other lamp" instead of "another lamp"?

Would that be "la otra lámpara"?

Fred