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Questions answered by our learning community with help from expert Spanish teachers
5,819 questions • 9,535 answers • 952,905 learners
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.
Hola,
Would the sentence above still make sense in Spanish if it were reordered thus:
El otro día mi abuela me llamó tres veces.
Saludos,
Colin
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?! 🙃
You say "Ustedes" which is plural but you translate it as "you" in the singular in the answer, so the learner does not know which answer to choose.
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?
¿select ...CómoQuiénDóndeQué vas a trabajar? Does not it (also) mean How are you going to work? In what manner?
In view of the explanation of "ir" vs. "irse" in this lesson, how would one contrast "irse" vs. "salir"
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.
For anyone struggling with how and when to use Sentir and Sentirse, just read both Silvia's and Inma's replies to Garry's question. It took me a good while to use the correct verb too.
The explanations given here by Silvia and Inma are invaluable and so comprehensive.
We are so lucky to have such a great team of teachers!
I know this keeps coming up, but in the examples we see: “las llaves de la casa”, and “la reserva de hotel”. Both these expressions follow the structure of NOUN + DE + NOUN. Why do we only use “la” for the first one?
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