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Thinking...
Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert Spanish teachers
5,957 questions • 9,740 answers • 992,876 learners
Many years ago in a Mexican Spanish school I was taught that in a sentence like. No creo que Susana venga/haya venido hoy only those 2 options are correct. The imperfect and pluperfect subjunctive are only used if the verb in the main clause is in a past tense. There seems to be disagreement on this topic. What does RAE say? Is there regional variation on this topic?
Hello Lawless Spanish,
I JUST found your excellent web site. I've been using various means to learn Spanish over the last 1.5 years, but your site seems to be the best resource so far. I'm still at A1 however.
Here's a thought that I'd be interested to know your opinion on. Often while reading an English interpretation of a Spanish phrase or sentence, I think I would like to have the more literal translation rather than the Spanish being re-worded in order to be a grammatical English sentence. Because I don't care about English grammar or want my English reinforced when I'm trying to understand how a Spanish speaker constructs their thoughts linguistically. Do you know what I mean?
Take the example from the first exercise I happened to land on, Corro para estar en forma. It would be helpful to see a more literal translation, then I get a better idea of the words and structure a Spanish speaker uses. In the example, "estar en forma" is re-interpreted as "to keep fit." That is quite a departure from the literal. I think an English speaker is quite capable of recognizing a more literal translation "to be in form" because it is identical to the common English phrase "to be in shape." So while I know authors are trying to be helpful with English re-interpretations, I often feel cheated out of knowing a more literal construction and wording, and in the process authors may even be making less-accurate interpretations (such as "to keep fit" instead of the better "to be in shape."). What do you think?
Is this expression used only in Spain? I cannot find more information about the usage of this idiom. My teacher has not heard of this either.
Why does the word "llamáis" (or a lot of other verb forms for vosotros) have an accent on the penultimate syllable even though it ends with the letter s?
Hello, I'm trying to get a better understanding of when to use different constructions.
Specifically:
Si Amalia va al mercado, comprará pescado fresco.
Si Amalia fuera al mercado, compraría pescado fresco.
These two constructions express the same idea. How do we know which one to choose? Is our choice solely based on the probability of the action in the "si" clause?
Thanks.
Sorry, re my previous question i meant Pongamonos, not pongonos.
Shirley.
The sentence porque juega para el Inter de Milan. Why put el before Inter de Milan.
Hola
" de todos aquellos que han tenido el placer de..."Is the "que" that precedes "han tenido" interchangeable with quienes or los cuales here ?
Saludos
Kevin
Hello! Thank you for this wonderfully clear explanation of the accidental se. I noticed that in several examples that are translated with a possessive adjective in English, a definite article is used in Spanish. For example, "Se me rompió EL reloj ayer" is translated as "MY watch broke (accidentally) yesterday. I have several questions about this. First, would it be presumed in this sentence that it is MY watch? Second, would it ever be correct to say "Se me rompió MI reloj ayer"? What if I wanted to say that I broke my favorite watch (e.g., modifying reloj): Would it still be "Se me rompió el reloj favorito"? Finally, if I wanted to specify that it was someone else's watch: "Se me rompió el reloj de mi mejor amiga"? Thank you in advance for clarifying. This is a challenging topic for me!
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