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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert Spanish teachers
5,988 questions • 9,792 answers • 1,005,874 learners
Have any of you struggled to fulfil the expectations of the improvement timeline? The grey line is always at least 4 percentages above my progress. What does it look like for you? Are you managing? Are you ahead? Let me know
Hi Inma,
The test questions given at the end of this section are as follows:
1. ________ poner el despertador. He [accidentally] forgot to set the alarm clock.HINT: Use a construction with the verb "olvidar" that expresses an "unintentional action"
Correct answer given: Se me ha olvidado
2. ________ poner el despertador.He [accidentally] forgot to set the alarm clock.HINT: Use a construction with the verb "olvidar" that expresses an "unintentional action"
Correct answer given: Se le olvidó
Both examples feature an action represented by a verb that follows a form of olvidar. This is apparently an example of the accidental “se”. But the examples in this lesson use a different structure. The object forgotten is the subject of the sentence and olvidarse is conjugated with that in mind. It is explicitly stated that the verb is conjugated in the third person plural “to agree with the subject .” That is not the case on either test item. Plus the test “hints” given are not useful for two reasons: 1) They ask that you use the verb “olvidar” instead of “olvidarse” (misleading) and 2) it says that the verb expresses an “unintentional action”; which is true of all forgetting , no? However, I think I could have figured out what was wanted If the sentence structure of the test item were not different from the lesson (e.g. in the lesson the thing forgotten was the subject of the verb).
Hola Inma,
In the example: "Esta tarde ayudo a mi madre en el jardín", the point in time when the statement is occurring seems important. Can it not be "esta tarde" at the time of the statement, which would make it the continuous present (even though that tense is not being used, just as the future tense is not being used)? Or is the present tense simply not used in this way?
the same way it would be incorrect to say in English:
"The coffee changes the colour of your teeth."
The Latin Americans have a very rich history and culture.
The trouble is that both can be perfectly correct! The former example could mean "This particular type of coffee", for example, whilst the latter is valid just as we might say "The French" or "The Spanish".
Hola,
En esta frase, donde usamos el indicativo en vez del subjuntivo- ‘Te llamé porque necesitaba ayuda’, ¿No necesitamos usar el adjetivo posesivo ‘tu’? La ‘ayuda’ podría ser ‘tu ayuda’ o ‘su ayuda’ ¿no? La traducción en inglés dice ‘I called you because I needed ‘your’ help.
Gracias
hi. Im a litttle confused as to when we use "fui" to represent the past, and say "i was" vs "estuve" vs "era" .... To say, for instance, "i was en Mexico" I can say both "estuve en Mexico" and "fui en Mexico", whats the actual difference between the two...
thank you, Elaine
why is Tú vuelves del trabajo a las cinco not translated into you're returning from job at 5
Vas a/para casa de Inés
Wouldn't there be "la" before casa?Then if "a" or "para" is correct why don't we get "no banana" if we used "para"? In this case using "a" instead of "para" is more correct?
Dice aquí “When we name the person
If we are more specific and either name the person or say who it is, for example "A María" or "A mi padre", the same rule applies. You cannot omit the "short" pronoun.” Pero según el RAE dice “ Pero si el complemento tónico aparece pospuesto al verbo, las condiciones para la coaparición del pronombre átono son diferentes según que el complemento sea directo o indirecto: En el caso del complemento indirecto, la coaparición del pronombre átono es normalmente opcional y suele ser lo más frecuente, especialmente en la lengua oral: No (les) da importancia a los problemas; (Les) he contado nuestro secreto a unos amigos; (Le) han denegado la beca a Juan; (Le) he dicho la verdad a mi madre. E incluso hay verbos, como gustar, encantar y sinónimos, que exigen la presencia del pronombre átono junto con el complemento tónico: ¿Le gustan a tu hermana los bombones? (y no *¿Gustan a tu hermana los bombones?)”
Hola,
If habría is the only usage here, in what context would the other conjugated parts of the verb be used?
Gracias,
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