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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert Spanish teachers
5,930 questions • 9,700 answers • 983,473 learners
I am having a lot of trouble knowing which one of these to use. The explanations I have found don't make sense to me. For instance "haber estado" refers to something in the past that expresses movement. Then why, when I receive something from Amazon Mexico, does it say "Tu paquete ha sido entregado". ? Very confused about this and I can't find any coherent answers.
What is the difference between Tengo catarro and tengo resfriado pls?
can you explain why, even though we're talking about a female, we would say "trabajas duro"? Gracias!
If gustar is followed by a verb, you always use gusta, right? Example: Me gusta nadar con los delfines. VS Me gustan los delfines.
Am I understanding that correctly?
when would you use soler (imperfect) + verb rather than the actual imperfect of the verb? For example why in the first example above wouldnt you say
yo cantaba
instead of Yo solía cantar
I love this article! I spent over two years in the ROP and I loved the people! I think an article on how Spanish affected the major indigenous language Tagalog would be fascinating. For example the Tagalog greeting "Komo staka" is very close to Como esta and the term for very good "may sarap" is from muey sabroso. (My spelling of Tagalog words are probably wrong.) I also remember that the word for stop in Tagalog is "parar". I know that during my time of the ROP I never heard anyone speak in Spanish. I only wish that I had known some Spanish back then (circa 1977-1980). It certainly would have helped me to learn more Tagalog phrases.
Just a comment. I think this subject is difficult without making the English incorrect. It becomes much more understandable when the translation is made using correct English. Some examples:
¿A quién le enviaste la carta?
Who did you send the letter to?
The English should be: To whom did you send the letter?
¿Para quién has comprado esas flores tan bonitas?
Who have you bought such pretty flowers for?
The English should be: For whom have you bought such pretty flowers?
¿Con quiénes vais de vacaciones?
Who are you going on holiday with?
The English should be: With whom are you going on holiday?
¿Por quién harías una locura?
Who would you do something crazy for?
The English should be: For whom would you do something crazy?
This does not include all the examples, but it is enough to see the problem.
In the A0 lesson "Expressing dates in Spanish" the definite article is used: "El 7 de febrero de 1986", but in this lesson it isn't: "Hoy es 25 de septiembre". Is the definite article only used when the date isn't preceded by "ser"?
I've just realised that this lesson needs more detail to cover ser and estar.
When talking about something earlier in the day, generally, something that uses estar will use imperfecto, not perfecto nor indefinido, breaking the rule completely! Whereas ser will follow the rule.
So if we ate something delicious this morning we'd say, "!Estaba rico!" not "he sido rico" nor "estuvo rico".
Estar by its nature expresses more transient states of being than ser and the imperfect tense matches this (at least, that's how it feels to me but as I'm not a native Spaniard, I look forward to hearing Kwiziq's native experts' views to expand or correct this for me!)
In this lesson it said to translate “Dad’s computer”. So I entered “La computadora de papá”. It said that is incorrect and should be “El ordenador de papá”. Can you help me understand why computadora would not be correct? Thank you!
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