Spanish language Q&A Forum

I am just wondering why some -ir and -erverbs use -iendo and the other take -yendo.  Does it have to do with the double vowel?  Like -uir -aer -eer? 

¡ Guau! He leído las preguntas y respuestas sobre la voz pasiva y la pasiva refleja, y me ayudó muchisimo.

Muchas gracias a los estudiantes por tus preguntas especificas y claras. Y muchas gracias a Inma por tus descripciones claras y simples. 

I have a question about the placement of the subject when using la pasiva refleja.

First, the examples ...

Se buscan secretarias con experiencia.

Aquí se vende el periódico barato.

Se venden apartamentos de lujo en la playa.

Mis cortinas nuevas se han hecho en dos días.

Las negociaciones se harán pronto.

In the top 3 examples the subjects are:

secretarias con experiencia, el periódico barato y apartamentos de lujo.

In the last 2 examples, the subjects are:

Mis cortinas nuevas y las negociaciones.

Obviously, the position of the subjects is different. Is there any reason or do they have the same meaning?

Could, for example, the first 3 sentences be written as..

Secretarias con experiencia se buscan.

 El periódico barato se vende aquí.

Apartamentos de lujo se venden en la playa.

?

Por fin...

Could the last two sentences be written as ..

Se han hecho mis cortinas nuevas en dos días.

 Se harán las negociaciones pronto.

??

Muchas gracias de antemano!

I'm assuming that before using this form the paragraph would start out using a tense that would ground the event in the past.  Thus I'm assuming you would not start out saying "Martina se llevará una gran sorpresa al ver de nuevo a su madre".  You'd instead start out with saying ""Martina pensaba que su madre había fallecido" or something else that signals we're talking about the past.  Is this right?

I still don't understand why "usted no asistió a la fiesta" is wrong. 

Hi, there are two questions on the quiz that I don't understand: (1) "Esos chicles son mentolados pero  ____  no tienen sabor" and (2) "Esos estudiantes van a viajar a Asia pero ________ no tienen dinero." Kwiziq is saying that the correct demonstrative pronoun in both cases is "estos." However, my understanding was that demonstrative pronouns should vary in gender with the noun they refer to, unless it isn't known or we are referring to statement, idea, or situation. In 1, the noun being referred to is "chicles," which is a masculine plural noun, so the demonstrative pronoun should be "estes," not estos, correct? With 2, I understand that we may not know the gender of the group, so we use esto. Can you explain?

I have noticed that the word “video” is pronounced differently in Spain and Latin America.  In Latin America, the word is pronounced as 3 syllables and the accent is on the “e” (2nd or middle syllable).  In contrast, in Spain the word seems to be pronounced with the accent on the “i” (1st syllable) and it seems like the word may only have 2 syllables in the peninsular pronunciation (with the “eo” pronounced as a one syllable diphthong).  Is this correct, and if not, what is going on here?

Could someone please tell me why I was told it's wrong here in this quiz?

Kqiziq (B1): El año pasado visité todas las ciudades de Cataluña ___________ Tarragona (Last year I visited all the cities in Catalonia except for Tarragona). 

The options given: menos/sino/pero/aunque/incluso. 

I chose «sino», and I was marked wrong. The correct answer was «menos». I, of course, accept «menos», but why is «sino» wrong here??

I need to have my eyes tested.  The correct answer is "Me necesitan hacer una revisión de ojos."  But for some reason that just sounds odd to me.  I could understand "Me revisáron los ojos" as meaning "I got my eyes checked" -- something that got done to me by some un-named third party.  But it just sounds weird to say "me necesitan" something.  I guess because the other examples deal with having something done to me, and this example relates to the third party have a state of mind or need.  Is this format with necesitar common?

I was doing one of the writing exercises and the sentence given was, "I decided to wait and see if a car passed by to call for help." I figured the translation of "passed by" would be "pasera" (past subjunctive), but the answer given was "pasaba." Why wouldn't we need to use subjunctive here since it's uncertain whether a car will actually pass by?