Past tense of "deber" Spanish speakers seem to habitually use the imperfect tense for "deber" where English speakers would use the past tense, e.g.,
"Paul owed her his life" => "Pablo le debía la vida" instead of "Pablo le debió la vida"
"You guys must've figured something out" => "Debíais haber descubierto algo" instead of "Debisteis haber haber descubierto algo"
... and sometimes where English speakers would use the present tense, e.g., "But the Lord said he must go to Ninevah" => "Pero el Señor insistió en que debía ir a Nínive" instead of "Pero el Señor insistió en que debe ir a Nínive."
They also use the imperfect in situations that seem to call for a past-tense conditional ("should have"):
Si querías baile, debías haber recurrido a mí => If you wanted dancing, you should have come to me
I would have expected "Si querías baile, deberías haber recurrido a mí" (should have). Sometimes I do see "deberías haber" for "should have", and I can't see any pattern to why one is chosen instead of the other.
In some cases, the imperfect is used where the present-tense conditional seems clearly called for, e.g., "debias esperar hasta que llamara" for "you should wait until he calls." There's nothing past-tense-ish about that sentence.
"deberían" ('they should") in particular is used interchangeably with "debían" (literally "in the past they must"), and neither is used for past-tense "they should have".
Can someone explain how Spanish speakers conceptualize these tenses of "deber"? Does the choice of tense work the same way for "deber" as "owe" and "deber" as "must", or are they treated differently?
Hello, is there some connotation needed for this to trigger the Preterite? Like "These two centuries out of the 5000 years we're talking about"? Or at least "These two very specific centuries"? As opposed to "For two full centuries, which is pretty much forever", where I would have expected the Imperfect.
Yo creo que la palabra ella es una combinación de las palabras el y la. Similarmente, la palabra ellos es una combinación de las palabras el y los y también la palabra nosotros es una combinación de las palabras nos y otros y también la palabra vosotros es una combinación de las palabras vos y otros. Me parece que son similares con el tipo de palabras en inglés llamada contracciones. Yo espero que yo tengo razón pero no estoy seguro de este. Por favor me explique.
"-¿A ________ vamos a ver esta noche? -A Luis y Gerardo."
I wrote 'quién' because I thought the questioner wouldn't necessarily know that they would be seeing more than one person. That answer was marked wrong. Would we normally use the plural when asking about an unknown number of persons?
EDIT: I just looked at the question again and see that there was a hint (which I managed to miss) about which PLURAL to use, but my question about which we would normally use still stands.
I chose the correct answer and the quiz changed my after...
Spanish speakers seem to habitually use the imperfect tense for "deber" where English speakers would use the past tense, e.g.,
"Paul owed her his life" => "Pablo le debía la vida" instead of "Pablo le debió la vida"
"You guys must've figured something out" => "Debíais haber descubierto algo" instead of "Debisteis haber haber descubierto algo"
... and sometimes where English speakers would use the present tense, e.g., "But the Lord said he must go to Ninevah" => "Pero el Señor insistió en que debía ir a Nínive" instead of "Pero el Señor insistió en que debe ir a Nínive."
They also use the imperfect in situations that seem to call for a past-tense conditional ("should have"):
Si querías baile, debías haber recurrido a mí => If you wanted dancing, you should have come to me
I would have expected "Si querías baile, deberías haber recurrido a mí" (should have). Sometimes I do see "deberías haber" for "should have", and I can't see any pattern to why one is chosen instead of the other.
In some cases, the imperfect is used where the present-tense conditional seems clearly called for, e.g., "debias esperar hasta que llamara" for "you should wait until he calls." There's nothing past-tense-ish about that sentence.
"deberían" ('they should") in particular is used interchangeably with "debían" (literally "in the past they must"), and neither is used for past-tense "they should have".
Can someone explain how Spanish speakers conceptualize these tenses of "deber"? Does the choice of tense work the same way for "deber" as "owe" and "deber" as "must", or are they treated differently?
Hi,
What is the gender rule for adjectives when describing two nouns of different gender? See sample phrase:
' con inversores y empresas muy poderosas...'
Does the adjective match the gender (and number) of the last noun?
Can we also use the perfect future in both situations instead of either condicional simple or condicional perfecto?
Why use estaba when saying “I was very calm and happy”? It didn’t seem like an ongoing action in the past but one defined by “after my swim”. Why not estuve?
For the phrase 'and he even gave his opinion', would 'y incluso dio su opinion' be an acceptable answer?
How could we get to know that this exact word is a stem changing verb? Isn’t there any recognition for them?
Find your Spanish level for FREE
And get your personalised Study Plan to improve it
Find your Spanish level