Spanish language Q&A Forum

I have noticed that all of the verbs that have a stem change in the future (querer -> querr-  and tener -> tendr-) have the same stem in the future and the conditional tenses.  Is this a general rule, or are there exceptions.  

I was doing a writing exercise, and I put "estar por" instead of "estar a punto de" and I was corrected and "estar por" wasn't shown as an option. I'm wondering why since I have heard and used this expression frequently. 

The phrase that has to be translated was, "He was about to go out the door when..."

Hello, 

I am reading a fairly reputable bilingual version of Sherlock Holmes. On one sentence it says 'Iba vestido discretamente con un traje de mezclilla de lana....'

The translation (and my own reading of the context) suggests that this means 'He was discretely dressed....'

But if that's the case why have they used 'iba'? Is that incorrect? The man was not 'going to do' anything. He just 'was'. My searching online and using Google translate suggests that only estar (or possibly ser) in the past tense are valid here, not ir.

Thanks!

In the question:

They will be very cold when they go to Scotland next December.

It seems to me that this is a quite certain plan, like one of the examples here: ‘ Cuando voy de vacaciones a Tenerife me hospedo en el hotel Olimpia.’

So I thought the answer should be in the indicative:

Tendrán mucho frío cuando irán a Escocia el próximo diciembre.

But the correct answer was in the subjunctive:

Tendrán mucho frío cuando vayan a Escocia el próximo diciembre.

Why is that? Is it a mistake?

Hello, I am not clear why “estaba” is used (imperfecto) but all the other verbs are in the pretérito tense. I have read all the lessons on this subject but still nearly always get the tense wrong. I think the guidance is that the pretérito is used when there is a specific beginning and end - but is that not the case with “mucha gente no estaba de acuerdo”?  Many thanks, Tony

Am very confused by this lesson. I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be turning into feminine, and whether there is a masculine and feminine form in the first place. Why is it cómodamente and not cómodomente?