Spanish language Q&A Forum

I forgot to drop it the first time, so I got a "nearly correct". The second time I dropped it, and it was still "nearly correct".  - This I don't understand...

Please could you explain the following:

Los chicos estaban sentados en el borde de la piscina. correct
Los chicos estaban sentando en el borde de la piscina. not correct
The boys were sitting on the edge of the pool.

I am pretty sure that I have been taught to use the gerund rather than than the past participle in this kind of an example.

Many thanks  (Mainland Spain)

I personally find it helpful to bear in mind that all verbs ending in "-etir" follow the above-mentioned e>i pattern [like competir] - e.g. repetir and derretir.

And - because 'd' is just the voiced form of 't' - some people may like to extend this guide to include all the "-edir" verbs as well; e.g. pedir, impedir, medir.

Looking at Inma's 
Sin/sin que + infinitive/subjuntive in Spanish (subordinate manner clause)%252Fsearch%253Fs%253Dsin%252Bque - and favouring the simpler construction when it is permitted, presumably we could also say? > "... [alcancen su potencial] sin verse afectada su integridad física y moral".

[A comment rather than a question]: All  '-erir' verbs [apart from the barely used 'enjerir'] change the e to ie:, e.g. sugerir, referir, preferir, diferir, transferir, requerir and a host of others. A similar rule applies to [all !] '-vertir' verbs: convertir, divertir(se), etc. etc.... On the other hand, all '-etir', '-edir' and '-egir' verbs adopt the e>i change.... With help from a CD which enabled words to be listed in reverse-alphabetical order, I examined the contents of my CLAVE dictionary, and posted the results in http://dlmcn.com/ir_verbs.html (the accents are properly represented in http://DLMcN.com/irverbs.doc ).

In the first question of the quiz above, why is there no personal 'a' before 'este cliente'. Would it be more grammatically correct to write 'conseguir a este cliente' considering that the customer is a person?  Thank you!

The English asked for "any animals" on that last sentence. So would the better translation be ¿ tienes algunos animales en casa?

This exercise provided another example of a passive which [at first] seemed to focus on the result rather than the process, such that I got it wrong > I wrote: "El viaje onírico X está  X considerado [como] objeto de estudio". However, after thinking about it, I believe I can now see how it should be interpreted as a process and rendered: "El viaje onírico es considerado [como] objeto de estudio" - because the English original is equivalent to: "The dream trip is treated as a subject of study by scientists"... (Even so, a possible alternative is to think of it in these terms: "... is regarded as a subject of study", which is more like a result). 

Hola Inma,

I would have thought that estar would be used here rather than ser. On reflection I imagine that ser was used because the emphasis is on the first marriage, rather than the emotional state of the person talking.

Is that the case or ....?

Saludos

John