Spanish language Q&A Forum

Que Onda

I've been studying Spanish for a while and this concept has still eluded me. I was taught that the structure "creo que..." triggers indicative because the speaker believes it to be true while "no creo que..." is subjunctive because it is not a belief asserted by the speaker. However, in English, we might say "I think..." in two different scenarios with different meanings. 

"I think..." could signify me asserting my belief about something such as, "I think the best designer is Gucci," where one could replace, "I think" with "In my opinion" to create a sentence with the same meaning. This example more or less aligns with what I believe the function of the indicative is. 

However, we often use "I think..." to indicate our speculation or doubt about a situation. For example, if someone asks "Hey, did Joe leave already" I might respond "I'm not sure, I think so." In this case, I'm expressing doubt by using "I think" in this context. I'm not trying to say "I [definitely] think Joe left" because I'm not sure if he actually did, and I'm not necessarily sure if I'm giving the right information so I want to imbue this statement with doubt, wait...

While writing this I'm realizing that all the examples I've written could be written in another way that is conducive to the formula for using the subjunctive. Rather than translating "I think that..." as in my second example with Joe, it would be better for me to use a structure that starts with "dudo que..." or "es posible que..." to better convey the meaning of uncertainty or doubt that I'm intending to. I suppose the issue I had was that "creo que" always meant to me "I think" or "I believe" when really a better translation would be just "to believe" since "to think" has some ambiguity in its meaning when translated to English. 

I know this is post was pretty drawn out and I've already answered my question, but I'll still post it anyway just in case someone more knowledgeable wants to add on or correct something I've said. Or, maybe someone else will find it useful.

Saludos

Nathan

There was a question in one of the quizzes I took and it led me to this grammar topic (questions with qué):

Which flowers do you prefer?  

¿ _____ flores prefieres ? 

I put cuales in the blank, but was marked wrong, it said the answer was qué. 

I went to the lesson on cual/cuales (interrogative pronouns) and there was a sample sentence referring to flowers, using cuales prefieres.  

In the English translation to the quiz it uses which and I assumed that a select few flowers were being referred to, thus the answer should be cuales. It is a bit ambiguous. 

"Mathematics" can be taken as a singular noun. Therefore it seems that a correct format in Spanish would be 

"te gusta mathematics".

HELP:  Translation of "He goes to his friend's house" 

1 Va a la casa de su amigo

2 Va a casa de su amigo

Is the definite article "la" casa necessary or does it make no difference?

Are both correct with no subtle difference in meaning?

I have searched the internet and KWIZIQ and can find no answer.

Many thanks,

Ian

Ian

Is it interchangeable to say something like

Just as 'tal vez' and "quizás" are interchangeable, with no fast rules on them, is it the same for using quizá and quizás or is there some guide for when they can/can't be used?

also, is it impossible to use quizá/quizás/tal vez using future tenses? 
examples:

"Quizá iré a la biblioteca pasado mañana"
"Tal vez conocerás aquel varón cuando venga"
"Quizás recibiré una mejor evaluación cuando mejore mis debilidades en mi trabajo"