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.
Thank you for adding this topic. I'd like to make 2 suggestions.
First, is there a regional preference for using the two pairs of interchangeable words? My understanding is that in Latin America, people tend to use aca' and alla' whereas in Spain, people tend to use aqui' and alli'. Is this correct?
Second, I am not sure whether the pronunciation of ahi' and alli' are the same. Since "h" is silent and "ll" has the "y" sound, I suppose they sound differently, but the sounds /i/ and /yi/ really do not have much noticeable difference. Is there a way to practice distinguishing the two or we can more or less treat them as sounding the same? Thank you!
Si alguien tiene recomendaciones para libros buenos e interesantes en nivel A2 y B1 por favor 🙏🌈🌴 compártanlos aquí — fiction/ novels but not something not so focused on kid themes :-).
Hola Inma,
I am much more “comfortable” with the alternative “se debe haber retrasado.” Is it not counterintuitive to add the reflexive pronoun to the verb haber?
Invariably we never put anything between the two verbs when using the pretérito perfecto but in this case we do. Is there a particular explanation / logic? I must be missing something!
Saludos. John
Gracias Shui por compartir un poema tan hermoso y romántico. ¡Qué triste también! Nada es más emotivo que el amor perdido entre una pareja. ¡Es increíble que Pablo solo tenía 19 años cuando escribió este poema!
Somos muy afortunados de tener tantos maravillosos poetas y novelistas hispanohablantes. Para mí este poema muestra cuan rica y expresiva es la lengua española.
Saludos 😊
> My boyfriend is always asking me to be patient with him.
Translating this into the English subjunctive would be “My boyfriend is always asking that I be patient with him.” And that keeps the “que=that” part of things too!
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.
"dentro del seno de una familia catolica, (etc)" = within the bosom of a catholic family. Why pare down the literary parts to just the basic meaning of "to a catholic family (etc)"? The "dentro del seno" seems to indicate that he was born into a loving, caring family (O.K. plus wealthy and traditional!). But when we read Cervantes and Shakespeare aren't those literary embellishments what made them classics?
Why is "unas técnicas básicas" wrong?
This example is wrong, no? Quizá Miguel no aprobara.
This is in the imperfect subjunctive. Shouldn't it be apruebe?
In the first and the last but one example, could it instead be "no más de unas monedas", "no más de unos minutos", and if so, would it have a different meaning/connotation?
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