Spanish language Q&A Forum

Hi Silvia. In the example, "Tal vez yo haya estudiado mucho para el examen," the English translation says, "I might have studied a lot for the exam".  Is that "I might have studied a lot" in the sense "maybe I would have studied a lot [if I had time?"] Or "Perhaps (it possible) I studied a lot for the exam"? Both?

Oh wait, after writing this I realized that the sentence perhaps means, "I should have studied a lot for the exam.” We Americans almost never use the word “might” in this sense. I’m not sure how much you Brits (all British residents) do. Is this the sense in which it is used here?

What am I missing? The lesson says that all three options are interchangeable, but the test result says that I got it almost correct when I chose "podía haber reducido" instead of "podría haber reducido."

Why is the "quedarse + gerund" translated throughout as "stay...". I'm a native U.S. English speaker, and I don't know anyone who would say that someone "stays doing" anything. We'd say the person "keep doing...". 

Pati Ecuamiga

Why can't I use Ustedes - 'ven'

How do I enter an inverted question mark at the beginning of the question?

Why is it wrong to put.   "No  tenía una casa"?    i.e  include "una"   in the translation of :  I didn't have a house.

Leaving aside the issue of what you call this tense, I had trouble because I thought that the "perfect" tenses corresponded more closely with English in the sense of use of the auxiliary verb. It seems that most of the examples given show English translations with the auxiliary verb, but not all of them. So what is the difference between "No le dije" and "No le he dicho"? It would seem that the first translates to "I didn't tell him" and the second to "I haven't told him." But the examples seem to conflate the two.

Hello, could you make a lessn for olvidar and olvidarse please ? It's quite difficult for me to know when I must say olvidar and when I must say olvidarse.

Thank you very much !

It seems like two of the examples use the imperfect to express an intended action.

¿Ibais a Ibiza para vuestra luna de miel?

Iban de vacaciones a una isla bonita.

In English we would say this as "Were you going to go..." and "They were going to go..."  We don't know if these actions were ever completed or not, so it makes sense to use the imperfect tense.

Is this a valid interpretation and use of the imperfect tense?  Thanks.

¡Hola!

Could you tell me why it is subjuntivo that  follows the expression:

"No dudo de que..."?

The full extract is:

"Antes de dormir pásabamos un buen rato por el taller del Belga, un anciano pavoroso que apareció en Aracataca después de la primers guerra mundial, y no dudo de que fuera belga por el recuerdo que tengo de sus acento aturdido y sus nostalgias de navegante" ("VIVIR PARA CONTARLA" by Gabriel García Márquez)

Doesn't "No dudo de que..." imply certainty?

Regards,

Alexander