Spanish language Q&A Forum

In terms of usage, can había considered to be the the past tense of hay? Había  =There was' vs. Hay = 'there is'?

For example ¿Comó se llama usted?

wouldn't that translate to "What do you call yourself you?" How come you can't just say ¿Comó se llama?

In this lesson, peninsular Spanish is specified (however I am in the US and speak Spanish with Cubans, Mexicans, etc., so not only is this sort of new to me, it's not clear how useful it is). From what I've heard & read, there are many differences in the Americas in how the simple and compound past tenses are used (e.g., https://www.scribd.com/document/148697440/El-sistema-verbal-del-espanol-de-America-De-la-temporalidad-a-la-aspectualidad-Quesada-Pacheco-Espanol-actual-75-2001). If we include both peninsular and American (and other world) Spanish speakers, this is quite a range of variants. English speakers have a parallel set of past tenses in went/has gone. Obviously this is a false friend when compared to a specific dialect of Spanish such as the peninsular dialect (although I wonder how perfectly consistent this is across the peninsula). But is the English parallel any more “false” than the Ecuadorian, Peruvian, or Mexican one, relative to the peninsular one? How would a Spaniard respond if an American Spanish speaker consistently used the false English parallel to these tenses, compared to their response to an Ecuadorian, Peruvian, or Mexican speaker who consistently used their own native variant?

Thanks,

Greg Shenaut

I want you to help me with simple way of understanding Spanish preterite please

So the difference between cuál/cuáles and el cual/la cual/los cuales/las cuales is that cuál and cuáles are not preceded by articles and will only be used in questions, whereas el cual/la cual/los cuales/las cuales are preceded by articles and will not be used in questions?

Am I correct in understanding that the use of Unos/as is for countable nouns (pears, sunglasses, cellphones... etc)? For non countable nouns such as money, salt, or sugar, you would use a different word to say some?

Is it possible to bold the accent marks or make them in red?  I can't really tell if it is a dot over a letter or an accent mark.