Spanish language Q&A Forum

Hola Inma,

I'm trying to understand better why the subjunctive is used. Are negative opinions like no creo que, no opino que, no pienso que, no parece que etc, always assumed to reflect an element of doubt on the part of the person i.e. "I don't think so .... but I may be wrong." 

If you are adamant that the negative opinion is correct [for example using one of the examples in the associated lesson] "I don't think María is jealous," couldn't that also be taken as a clear statement of my opinion without any doubt in my head at least? This would be possible in English. In which case would it be expressed differently in Spanish for example "Estoy seguro de que María no es celosa."

Saludos. John

Hola Inma,

Regarding the sentence "¿A quién no le gustaría quedarse en un lugar así? With the meaning "who would not like to stay in a place like this" I expected that the subjunctive may be needed, though exactly how this would work with the conditional is beyond me. Perhaps the inference is that absolutely nobody would refuse to stay there but I am speculating. Can you help?

Saludos

John

Hola,

Is the ‘hitting’ azo always in the masculine form?

I’m seeing cabezazo rather than cabezaza.

Gracias,

I see a translation of "Yo suelo ir" as "I usually go" but a translation of "suelo" as ground or floor. Is it an idiomatic phrase?

Are "antes de que" and "antes que" fully interchangeable? Does one sound better than the other or is used more in one or another situation? (It could help to say this explicitly.) 

Also, you run through the various past/present/future possibilities of "después de que" noting where the subjunctive or indicative is used. You don't give as many cases for "antes de que". Is it correct to infer that regardless of whether we are referring to a past, present or future event, "antes de que" must always be followed by the subjunctive. (Might help to say so explicitly if this is the case.) 

I still don't get email notifications when new answers are posted. 

One of the choices was "Comportándose" which was marked wrong. However, according to this lesson, wouldn't that also be correct:
Using the Spanish gerund as a command %252Fsearch%253Fs%253Dusing%252Bthe%252Bgerund%252Bas%252Ba%252Bcommand

Maybe I'm missing some reason why it doesn't work in this case? Thanks!

Hola

Why is the imperfect subjunctive used, as it is not a repeated or continued action?  

Many thanks

The mini kwiz had this possible answer which I did not select, but which was apparently correct: "Nuestros padres compraron helados a nosotros." Isn't "a nosotros" the same kind of pronoun as "a ti" or "a ella"? Why would this not require a "nos" before compraron the way "a ti" or "a ella" would require "te" or "le"? 

In the question "En el viaje ________ un niño atrás", the answer was 'se nos quedó'. Could you give a literal translation of this sentence because otherwise it seems like the verb agrees with the object of the sentence rather than the subject. I guess I'm asking for a way of translating quedar in my head so that even if it makes the English awkward, I can also keep straight subject and object (much like I can substitute "is pleasing" for gustar). 

Thanks! 

I know that it's not the topic of this lesson, but in the sample sentence "Luis y Marta se han vuelto una pareja aburrida," the translation given is "Luis and Marta have become a boring couple." Why not "Luis and Marta have become a bored couple"?