Passive 'se' vs Impersonal 3rd person pluralI always equate 'impersonal' with 'passive', as they seem to express the same thing. And, I've always used 'se' to express passive. So using third person is new to me, and I'm confused by this lesson and a question Kwiziq asked me to translate:
'They took ages to build the hospital'
among the choices were:
Han tardado mucho en construir el hospital (correct)
Se han tardado mucho en construir el hospital (incorrect)
Can someone explain why the second one is wrong.
Here are two other similar examples I found on Kwiziq that relate to this:
Tardaron mucho en construír los apartamentos = It took a long time to build the apartments.
Se tardó mucho en construir este hospital = It took (them, whoever built it) a long time to build this hospital.
[A comment, not a question]: "Guión" is interesting because the Academia in Madrid recently ruled that it had to be spelled "guion". They added that they were not prescribing how it was supposed to be pronounced. A lot of people (in Spain; I'm not sure about América?) still pronounce it with two syllables, as if the 'o' carried an accent: 'ó'. It does become a bit problematic when you expand it to "guionista" - where there is no obvious indicator telling you to make it four syllables (i.e., separating the 'ui' from the 'o') > gui_on'ista.
I always equate 'impersonal' with 'passive', as they seem to express the same thing. And, I've always used 'se' to express passive. So using third person is new to me, and I'm confused by this lesson and a question Kwiziq asked me to translate:
'They took ages to build the hospital'
among the choices were:
Han tardado mucho en construir el hospital (correct)
Se han tardado mucho en construir el hospital (incorrect)
Can someone explain why the second one is wrong.
Here are two other similar examples I found on Kwiziq that relate to this:
Tardaron mucho en construír los apartamentos = It took a long time to build the apartments.
Se tardó mucho en construir este hospital = It took (them, whoever built it) a long time to build this hospital.
I understand the notion of using estar rather than ser when the job is temporary, but there is absolutely nothing in the question to indicate that the job is a temporary or permanent position in most of the examples If a job is to be permanent would you use ser rather than estar when referring to an appointment that someone is going to take up? In the test questions and examples, it would seem not but the lesson notes don't explakin why.
how do we know how to choose between ser and estar? i thought ser was used for permanent things but estar is for not permanent things?is that thought true?if not how do we know which to choose?
I’ve been getting the quantifiers mixed up with how to remember they do agree with the gender and plural when it’s applied.
Especially for demasiado and poco. When is it that it does match the thing it’s describing; and when does it not?
Kind regards,
Fran
Hi, can I say una bolsa is a handbag as well as un bolso?
First of all, how to decide when to use despertar and when despertarse?
Second question, why can't we use levantarse in place of despertarse?
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