Spanish language Q&A Forum

Because I kept getting this wrong, I asked Chatgpt: Can one use deber conjugated in El Pretérito Perfecto, followed by an infinitive to express in Spanish that something must have happened, as when making an assumption or wondering what must have happened? The response was: No—not if your goal is to express an assumption ("must have happened").

The pretérito perfecto of deber (ha debido) normally means "has had to" (obligation), not "must have" (probability).

Would not invoke the subjunctive would it? The test answer to this question says that it dies.

Hello, is the Estar/Ser choice rule in the presente still apply in the past tense ?

When there is an indirect pronoun in a sentence we use: me, te, le, nos, os, les. However when the indirect pronouns le and les (meaning to him / to her / to them) are accompanied by the direct pronoun lo, la, los or las (meaning it / them) then le and les become se to avoid a clumsy sounding le lo, le la, les los etc, which is tricky to pronounce. Listen to this example.


I would say that this sort of explanation is probably utterly useless to 80% of people.  I would bet a lot of money that the majority of first language English people reading this for the firs time have no idea what a direct pronoun is nor an indirect pronoun.  It seems that all study guides, and text books assume that people are an expert in the technical language of their own language.  They are not.

If someone ever produced material where they explain the 'technical' term before they try to explain how to use that term it would be so much more useful than throwing the terms around with no explanation.

If you read a mechanics'  manual and it said "'Locate the second differential gear chain"" would that be helpful if it was the first time that you were looking at tractor's engine?


And the very next thing I read was "With an infinitive, imperative or present participle, se and the direct object pronoun can be either at the end of the verbal structure  and attached to the infinitive, imperative or the present participle forming a longer word:

Because for sure, everyone in the world knows what a present participle is.

I have now read the whole thing, and it is clearly written by an expert in the language  of an expert to someone who already understands that expert language.   There is no attempt to actually explain what is going on to a novice.

It is actually terrible teaching. 

I appreciate the inclusion of this lesson as an effort to educate us in a nuance. My particular American English formed brain just can’t seem to grasp the subtle differences. I’m wondering if in conversation with a native speaker, it would be an issue if the non-native speaker didn’t differentiate between the two forms. I think if I were speaking in Spanish and trying to explain a situation about not being able to open a door last night, I would choose words that made it clear that number one: He just couldn’t open the door or 2, at first, he couldn’t open the door, but then someone came to help him. Well, now that I’ve written out these examples, I realize how far I am from understanding the nuance. I’m hoping you will say that in conversation with a native speaker it really doesn’t make a lot of difference.  Verdad?