Can use of "fue" or "era" depend on the point of reference?Hi Inma, I had a thought about V's question below and wanted to check it with you. This applies to statements which don't give any time indicators.
If the speaker is thinking of themselves in the present time, then they will see the past event as complete. "Mi prima fue Miss Universe." In other words, "We're here in the present, and that is a past event which is complete."
However if the speaker is mentally placing themselves in the past, they would say "Mi prima era Miss Universe," as a way of placing you inside the narrative in the past time frame. Kind of like saying, "Let's mentally travel to the past, when my cousin was Miss Univetse."
Hope this is makes senss. If it's correct, it will be a useful concept for me. Thanks.
Why do some of the verbs get tildas?
se lo quiero comprar becomes comprárselo
and
se lo estamos decorando becomes estamos decorándoselo
From the quiz:
Ben ________ la alarma.
Write ''Ben had been woken up by the alarm.
había sido despertado por
Could I also say, "A Ben le había despertado la alarma."?
Thank you.
Hi Inma, I had a thought about V's question below and wanted to check it with you. This applies to statements which don't give any time indicators.
If the speaker is thinking of themselves in the present time, then they will see the past event as complete. "Mi prima fue Miss Universe." In other words, "We're here in the present, and that is a past event which is complete."
However if the speaker is mentally placing themselves in the past, they would say "Mi prima era Miss Universe," as a way of placing you inside the narrative in the past time frame. Kind of like saying, "Let's mentally travel to the past, when my cousin was Miss Univetse."
Hope this is makes senss. If it's correct, it will be a useful concept for me. Thanks.
My CLAVE dictionary implies that the phrase "consist of ..." [in today's translation exercise "Thriving ecosystems in Costa Rica"] may be translated by "constar de ..." as well as by "consistir en ..." - but it implies that there is a subtle difference between them. If so, this might be worth mentioning?
In this text, 'those who' is translated in two different ways.. are they sinónimos?
quienes osaban visitarlo podían susurrar sus anhelos
Aquellos que se adentraban en la oscuridad del bosque
I used 'los que'. Is that always wrong?
Gracias
The difference between an "event still to happen" and one that "will happen" can be determined only by the ability to predict the future. It is not a grammatical issue. So neither the indicative nor subjunctive choice is grammatically incorrect. It's a semantic difference, not a grammatical one. I've seen you make very different choices -- different from what I thought was meant.
When using "a tan solo de que", is the verb in the subordinate clause in the subjunctive?
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