Past tense of "deber" 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?
Hola,
This looks to me like a passive construction. Yes /No?
Is there a lesson about using it this way?
Gracias. John
Why does the speaker sound like he is making some kind of extra sound before saying the first word "estoy"? I listed to it over and over and it sounds so strange to me - like a "y" or "e" sound before he says "estoy". Am I missing or misunderstanding something? Thanks!
Unfortunately for me, I keep answering La instead of El and my score for the lesson is melting down.
The noun "búho" [= eagle owl] is an illustration of the way in which a 'silent h' has no bearing on whether or not there is a hiatus. At first glance, foreigners might think [incorrectly] that it should form two syllables *without* the need for a tilde.
In the example sentence, “ Tengo que ir al supermercado. Me falta fruta y carne.”, should the verb be faltan, since the subject of the sentence is fruta y carne?
Hi, I had a question about the translation for "What should I do?". In this exercise, it said the correct translation was "¿Qué hago?", but wouldn't "¿Qué debo hacer?" also be correct?
1. In your "hint", you told us to "... use a pronominal verb for 'take advantage' " -
- but despite that^, in order to get a correct answer we were supposed to write: "Aprovecha la ruptura para conocerte más a ti misma" - [i.e., with 'aprovecha', a non-pronominal verb?]
("Aprovecha la ruptura ..." is of course quite consistent with the guidelines given in your lesson at Spanish verb Aprovechar vs Aprovecharse (pronominal verbs) [number 7478] ... so it is only your 'hint' which needs to be modified, not your text).
-.-.-.-.-
2. In your sentence: "... ya que ambos estábais sumergidos en una relación tóxica", there should not be a tilde in 'estabais'?
Can you please explain when to use the future perfect vs the forms of deber in this lesson? Do they all mean the same thing or are there distinct use cases?
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?
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