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Jerald W.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor
Overcomplicating Using the Spanish simple future to express probabilities ...

This lesson overcomplicates what should be a pretty straightforward use of the simple future tense. Just look at all the questions on this topic! While all of us know that the future is not fixed or 100% predictable, we still make predictions that sound pretty guaranteed even if they are technically probabilities.

 

The quiz questions complicate this further by giving us examples that are, frankly, poor translations. For example, one quiz question asks us to translate: "With this crisis, the currency could lose value." I would bet serious money that if you gave this sentence to 100 native Spanish professors, at least in Mexico, not a single one of them would ever give the supposedly correct answer: "Con esta crisis la moneda perderá valor." Not a single one of my three Mexican professors, including a DELE examiner, translated "could lose" as "perderá."

 

They all used "podría" for "could," with either "podría perder valor" or "podría depreciarse." Conversely, in reverse translation of the Spanish answer to English, they all 100% translated "perderá valor" as "will lose value", with certainty—not as "could lose value."

 

Maybe Spanish from Spain is different, but that quiz question and translation are not correct in Mexican Spanish. I suggest editing the lesson and quiz questions to remove the "could, might" possibility from translations using the simple future tense—at least in the Latin American Spanish lessons. At best, it's confusing, but more likely, it's just not a good translation.

Asked 9 months ago
George K.C1Kwiziq community member
por que vs para que

The use of por instead of para in the sentence: "Puse todo de mi parte por que no termináramos separados." (with the given English translation "I did my best so that we wouldn't end up being apart.") is confusing and appears inaccurate to me. 

This question was asked 5 years ago with a response from Inma from Kwiziq that both por and para are correct here. However, por que + subjunctive appears highly idiosyncratic and I cannot find support for this construction anywhere. I checked this with two native Spanish speaking friends and a native Spanish speaking tutor and all agreed they would never say this sentence and that it was not grammatically correct. "Por no terminar" seems defensible and also sounds natural again to me and native speaking friends.

Consulting with Butt et al. 2019 ( p. 509) supports the use of por with an infinitive interchangeably with para but not in the way used in the Kwiziq example sentence and definitely not with a subjunctive following. Some verbs take por and could be followed by a subjunctive (e.g., luchar por) but this does not seem generalizable across verbs.

Can you please clarify and/or correct this in the lesson to avoid further confusion?

 

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38.17.16 He venido por hablarle or para hablarle?

Both prepositions may translate ‘to’ or ‘in order to’ in sentences like ‘I’ve come to talk to you’. Insome cases, they are virtually interchangeable:

 

¿Para qué has venido? What have you come for?

 

¿Por qué has venido? Why have you come?

 

Estoy aquí para/por verlo/le I’ve come to see him

 

...

 

(1) Important: if an English sentence can be rewritten using a phrase like ‘out of a desire to’ or ‘from an urge to’, then por can be used. If not, para is indicated.

 

References:

1.  Butt J, Benjamin C, Rodríguez AM. A New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish 6ed. London ; New York: Routledge; 2019.  215-955-6627 1 3 

Asked 2 months ago

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