Let's see when you find a good job!

Question

Let's see when you find a good job! -- I think that this could be answered with either form of cuando/cuándo depending on context:

Let's see (at what point in time - cuádo) you find a good job.

Let's see (when (if) you find a good job - cuando)

I chose the latter and was marked wrong.

Answer

Hola Jim,Your second option (if) would not accept cuando or cuándo. It would need "si":Let's see if you find a good job = A ver si encuentras un buen trabajoThe meaning would change from using cuándo to using si in that sentence.Saludos,Inma

Answer

Hi, I’m struggling with this in the same way Jim was.

It seems that cuando without an accent is used when ‘when’ is used as a logical term rather than a temporal one. Is this correct?

X will occur (when) Y condition is met.

So to slightly restate Jim’s examples without the if:

Let’s see (at what point in time) you can find a good job - cuándo

Let’s see (when the condition occurs that) you find a good job - cuando

Both are correct, aren’t they? Or am I off-track here?

Answer

Hola Inma,

I got this wrong too.

I don't think it makes sense if the sentence is adapted to "Let's see [at what moment in time] you find a good job." So is the point here that this sentence is an exclamatory sentence, and as such it takes "cuándo?"

Saludos. John

Answer

Hola John, Gromit and Jim,
This sentence is an indirect interrogative sentence. Even though it is an indirect one it is still needs the accent as an interrogative adverb. You can still make the sentence with "in what location" and although it doesn't sound as well as using "when" it'd be grammatically correct.

A ver cuándo (en qué momento) encuentras un buen trabajo.
Let´s see when ( in what moment/at what point in time) you find a good job.

You can still see that it has the form of a question (indirectly)
However here is another example with cuando with no accent, as a relative adverb (not interrogative):

Ella estaba en casa cuando (en el momento en que) agredieron a su novio.
She was at home when (the moment in which) her boyfriend was attacked.

Here, I can't use "in what moment/at what point in time" because it wouldn't make sense:
She was at home in what moment in time ??? her boyfriend was attacked.
It wouldn't be grammatically correct. 
I hope this helped.
Inma

Answer

I also went back and forth before getting this wrong It seems to me either could be correct depending on the context. For example, newly graduated students having a friendly competition in the Covid economy, "let's see when you find a new job" the thing being seen is "when" and so it would be "cuándo". On the other hand, if I say "I want to buy a new car" and you say "let's see when you have a new job" the exact moment in time is not what is being interrogated but (implicitly) the state of my finances at the moment in time, assuming it comes, that I find a new job. In this case "cuando" without an accent seems appropriate, if I understood the lesson. (Entirely possible I did not.)

I am proposing, in plain English, two possible reads of the sentence "let's see (at what moment in time) you find a new job" vs. "let's see (something) at the moment in time you do find a new job"

Does this distinction make sense?