Spanish language Q&A Forum

I just completed a translation exercise which included the following sentence:

"... we see the fireworks and we receive gifts from Father Christmas."

I translated the sentence as follows: "... vemos los fuegos artificiales y recibimos regalos desde Papá Noel". Kwiziq indicated that the correct translation should have been "... vemos los fuegos artificiales y recibimos los regalos de Papá noel."

I have two question about this: 

1) Why was it necessary to insert "los" in front of "regalos"? I do not understand fully the rule of when the definite articles (singular or plural) must be used. As you can see, I inserted it when  "the" was included before "fireworks" in the English translation, but omitted "los" when "the" was not included before "gifts" in the English translation. Again, what's the rule on this? When I practice the writing exercises seems use of articles is hit and miss.

2) I am confused about why "de" was used as translation of "from" instead of "desde". Seems "regalos de Papá Noel" would translate in English to Santa Claus's gifts. Please explain.

Thank you!

Pati Ecuamiga.

For the final section (i.e.,  "to enjoy the evening") the hint was "disfrutar (de)". I do not understand the significance of "de" as a hint for that segment of the sentence. Why was "(de)" part of the hint?  I was completely thrown off by that "hint".

Pati Ecuamiga

It might have been helpful to include a little more information about El monumento al Encierro. I searched broadly but even Wikipedia had nothing on it other than that "Encierro" has to do with the running of the bulls in Pamplona. However, not wishing to be defeated, after much probing I found:

El encierro es una práctica dentro de la tauromaquia que consiste en correr (dentro de una vía urbana cercada) delante de una manada no muy abundante de toros, novillos o vaquillas. Los encierros son muy populares dentro de España y América Latina, en los lugares donde se celebran Fiestas Taurinas. El Monumento al Encierro es una gran escultura del artista Jalisciense Jorge de la Peña Beltrán, que representa a siete toros y un caporal a caballo camino a la corrida donde habrán de revelar su coraje. Es una obra fundida en bronce, donde cada toro pesa por lo menos media tonelada; el caporal 1,700 kg. El monumento mide 24 metros de largo por 10.5 de ancho y tiene una altura de 6.5 metros. Su existencia es un continuo homenaje a los ganaderos aguascalentenses ya que cada toro lleva marcado el fierro de una ganadería de la zona.

¡Eso es casi suficiente para que quieras ir a verla!

I wish it was better explained when to use this tense instead of just giving examples 

In the sentence ¿Deben invitar a Luis a cenar? I am wondering why the sentence does not read ¿Deben invitar a Luis cenar?

What is the grammar rule that requires the second 'a'?

Thanks!

Leo

Several of my answers in several tests are misrecorded. I answered one way and it says I answered something else. What's going on?

Also, you should have explained that capitalizing, punctuation and accents must be correct. I was marked wrong for not putting a period at the end nd not capitalizing at the beginning. I don't mind but I would like to have known before i took the test.

II want to know the name of the wordthat goes with haber to form phrases dado estado etc

So, how does Portuguese get into the mix of official languages? Is there a native African language first and then Spanish? And the French?