"since" with causal meaning

Janusz P.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

"since" with causal meaning

One of the test questions is:

"________ al colegio ha habido problemas.

Since this girl arrived at school there have been problems."

which I answered as:

"Ya que esta niña llegó",

which was marked as wrong.

Why can't I think that "Since" here has causal value, which would render my answer correct?

Asked 1 week ago
InmaKwiziq Head of Spanish, Native Spanish TeacherCorrect answer

Hola Janusz and David

Yes, David is right. 

This use of "since" is  not causal, it's a time adverb meaning "From the moment this girl started school, there've been problems".

Sometimes, depending on the sentence it could be interpreted both ways. 

I'm deleting the option using "ya que.." to avoid confusion. 

I hope this helps.

Saludos cordiales

Inma

David L.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

That's a very interesting question but I don't think that there is definite causality.

Since the girl has an attitude problem, there have been problems. Causality and I think ya que would be OK.

Since I moved to my new flat there have been problems. No clear causality, maybe a coincidence, and it's just a time adverbial.

I wait for the tutors to pronounce.

Janusz P. asked:

"since" with causal meaning

One of the test questions is:

"________ al colegio ha habido problemas.

Since this girl arrived at school there have been problems."

which I answered as:

"Ya que esta niña llegó",

which was marked as wrong.

Why can't I think that "Since" here has causal value, which would render my answer correct?

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