tense of Spanish verb

Thea R.C1Kwiziq Q&A regular contributor

tense of Spanish verb

You give:- Ha venido quejandose hasta hoy = He's been complaining until today.    Then:- Sospecho que desde aquel dia viene ocultamdome...- he's been hiding...

Same tense in English but different in Spanish.  Why, please?

Asked 3 years ago
Clara M.C1 Kwiziq Q&A super contributor

Hi Thea,

Underneath these 2 examples that are given in the lesson you'll find the following tip:

Although this structure admits different tenses, it's mainly used in El Presente and El Pretérito Imperfecto

So the first example sentence that you've written here 'Ha venido....  the Pretérito Imperfecto is used and the second example, '...viene ocultandome...' the Present is used.

Hope this helps. 

Clara :)

InmaKwiziq team member

Hola Thea

The reason why the same tense is used in the English is because with this idiomatic expression there is no literal translation in English and the most appropriate tense in this case would be the perfect. 

If we used the same tense in English and Spanish in this one:

Sospecho que desde aquel dia viene ocultándome...

I suspect that from that day he is hiding... (¿¿¿???)

The present in "is hiding" wouldn't be grammatically correct in English.

It's also to do with the use of "desde". We use the present tense with "desde + [time]" to express that "something has happened since..." (not something happens since...). 

If we have a look at the sentence again, you can see that this is precisely that structure:

desde aquel día viene ocultándome (verb in the present)

Here is a lesson that explains this. Have a look here.

Saludos

Inma

 

tense of Spanish verb

You give:- Ha venido quejandose hasta hoy = He's been complaining until today.    Then:- Sospecho que desde aquel dia viene ocultamdome...- he's been hiding...

Same tense in English but different in Spanish.  Why, please?

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