Spanish language Q&A Forum

I found the sentence, ¿por qué habría de asustar un sombrero?— me respondieron. I tried looking it up and apparently haber de can be used conditionally to express confusion of a topic. i think this is important as well as haber que, i saw it in a book although i can't remember the sentence haber que is apparently also another form of obligation like tener que

 I just wanted to add that it seems like a similar thing IS actually done in colloquial English in certain rare cases and the form and nuance is very similar--eg "they say it's tricky to learn" where the "they" is someone unspecified or people in general and not particularly relevant. (In more formal English, other ways of expressing the idea would sound less "colloquial", but it would  sound very normal in conversation.) But what I'm seeing is that in Spanish this has much broader use, and is quite natural in many cases where in english you'd have to use a passive construction (or another pronoun instead to keep the impersonal sense)--eg, "He was robbed," or maybe "someone robbed him", but not "they robbed him" because in English that implies subjects already mentioned or known and wouldn't sound impersonal (at least, not in any dialect I've encountered). Yet helpfully, the Spanish form isn't TOTALLY alien to an English speaker, just a lot more freely used. Gee, isn't language fun?! 🙃 

I don’t understand why the 2nd sentence (starting “Fue”) uses the indefinido but the 3rd sentence (starting “La lengua” uses the imperfecto. I can’t really see any difference between them and I thought they should both be the imperfecto tense since they refer to something that happened over a long period. Likewise tense choices in the later sentences. Thanks for your help, Tony

Hi,

For the sections "Eran aún mejores que..." and then after this "...en mis sueños.", I believe it might be a bit confusing to separate these parts of the same sentence as the use of the imperfect or preterite tense for the 'Ser' in this sentence relies on the context of to when this action refers. Just seeing the prompt "They were even better than...", I assumed that it was referring to the actual concert, which you would use the preterite of 'Ser' (Fueron) as it is a single and defined event, however when you see "...in my dreams." you then see it was referring to multiple, repeated instances so you would hence use the imperfect tense (Eran).

Perhaps I am mistaken?

Regardless, these quizzes are very good for practical and realistic Spanish usage.

Thanks,

Angus.

Do you want me to pick you up at five?"? (HINT: you=vosotros)

I think the English translations could be modified to be a bit more natural sounding. since you=vosotros is plural English speakers would say "Do you all/yall (local to southern US)/you guys" want me to pick you up.

would people agree with this?

When do we know it its te or tu gusta is it just dependent on if it is a reflextive verb or not

I think the conjugation of servir in this lesson seems to be incorrect, it leaves off the s in all forms, except in the nosotros form i where it leaves off the root ser.  

When would be appropriate to use formal and informal second person?

For context, I'm planning to speak mostly with my Mexican family members, many that I'll be meeting for the first time or for the first time in many years. Most of them are older than me (I have one younger brother who speaks mostly Spanish). Would it be better to speak formally to the older family members, or informally because they're family?

Would you start formally with strangers (esp. those who are older) and then at some point be able to drop formality as you become closer to people, or as they express to you that it's okay (similar to Korean and Japanese)?