Alfredo ________ un mes en recuperarse de la neumonía. It took Alfredo a month to recover from pneumonia.
Choices: le demoró, le tardó, se demoró, or tardaron
I don’t understand why the correct answer is se demoró. Alfredo is the subject of the sentence and it is in the past tense so tardó or demoró should be fine. The lesson does not say not to use the indirect pronoun “le” and it also only talks about using “se” for transportation and for general things. Can you explain this to me? Thanks.
Hola Linda G.
The correct answer is "se demoró" because we're using the reflexive verb "demorarse", which means to take time oneself or to delay.
In this sentence, Alfredo is the subject — he is the one taking time to recover — so we need the reflexive form: Alfredo se demoró un mes en recuperarse.
The options "le demoró" or "le tardó" are not correct here because they suggest an indirect object (someone being affected by the delay), which doesn't fit this context. While "tardó un mes" (without "le") could be grammatically acceptable in general Spanish, it wasn’t one of the correct options in this quiz, and "se demoró" is both grammatically correct and more idiomatic.
I hope that clears it up!
Hasta pronto
Silvia
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