Spanish language Q&A Forum

I would just like to request more examples for practice before this particular lesson gets to the Kwiz Questions. And thanks for adding the Latin America option!

Re my question below is les incorrect because ver is intransitive? 

 I just wanted to add that it seems like a similar thing IS actually done in colloquial English in certain rare cases and the form and nuance is very similar--eg "they say it's tricky to learn" where the "they" is someone unspecified or people in general and not particularly relevant. (In more formal English, other ways of expressing the idea would sound less "colloquial", but it would  sound very normal in conversation.) But what I'm seeing is that in Spanish this has much broader use, and is quite natural in many cases where in english you'd have to use a passive construction (or another pronoun instead to keep the impersonal sense)--eg, "He was robbed," or maybe "someone robbed him", but not "they robbed him" because in English that implies subjects already mentioned or known and wouldn't sound impersonal (at least, not in any dialect I've encountered). Yet helpfully, the Spanish form isn't TOTALLY alien to an English speaker, just a lot more freely used. Gee, isn't language fun?! 🙃 

When would you use this vs. the regular imperative? Are they exchangeable or is one preferred over the other under certain circumstances? 

Hi. I'm a big fan of this site, for many reasons, so I am pointing this out in a spirit of collaboration, not criticism: I think this page should refer to "present continuous" and "present participles", not gerunds. 

The gerund is a form, derived from a verb, which ends in --ing, but it is the noun from the verb. This page is all about an alternative verb form. 

For example: "Smoking is bad for you."

"Smoking" is a gerund, as it has become a noun.

"That man is smoking" is the present continuous form of the verb. "Smoking" in this sentence is the present participle, i.e. not a gerund.

I am prepared to accept that this might be a US/UK English thing; I'd be very interested to hear if this were the case.

Best wishes

Andrew Wenger

Parecen que ser y estar aqui estan de intercambio.

Puedo usar el futuro simples en esta oracione? "En la reunión, vamos a hablar de nuevas tecnologías y vamos a intercambiar ideas." Podria decir: "hablaremos de nuevas tecnologias y intercambiaremos ideas"?