15
votes
Accepted
Why does Spanish have three different command forms (positive/negative tú, usted)
Depending on how one counts, Spanish has a great deal more than three forms for commands.
There are only three true imperative forms of each verb (I'll use the verbs hablar, comer, and vivir for my ...
- 30k
14
votes
Accepted
"No se hable más" - Why the "se"?
That's an interesting usage of se. The verb hablar (as many others) can be used in an impersonal way if you don't want to specify who is talking about something or you just simply don't know who is ...
- 77.4k
13
votes
Accepted
What type of construction is verb+"se", like in the word "veíase"?
En el español literario, es algo más frecuente encontrar enclisis, o el posicionamiento de un pronombre átono después del verbo (y en tal caso, se escribe junto al verbo, tildando si es necesario). ...
- 30k
12
votes
Grammar in a Juanes song
I think you may be confusing nunca (Eng = never) with nadie (Eng = nobody).Juanes sings that "You never know what you have until you lose it".
- 5,773
10
votes
How do you say in Spanish, "I am waiting for my boyfriend to open the door"?
That's almost right. You need the subjunctive mood for abrir (i.e. abra) because you're describing an irrealis situation. The correct sentence would be:
Estoy esperando (a) que mi novio abra la ...
- 6,248
10
votes
Are any verbs conjugated the same in preterit and present tenses?
In the indicative mood hablamos is both present and past and is the rest of the sentence that tells you the time.
Nosotros hablamos del partido = We talk about the game.
Ayer hablamos del partido = ...
- 10.6k
9
votes
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"Let's go" in Spanish: vayamos vs vamos vs vámonos
I'm a native speaker, and I have never realized this strange anomaly.
I've found a possible explanation for this difference in the conjugation of the Spanish verb ir, given by the Diccionario ...
- 6,211
9
votes
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How can you distinguish "viste" from "you saw" vs "you dress" or "he/she dresses"?
Like most ambiguities of this kind, we know what is really meant by looking at the context. That means not only the rest of the sentence but possibly the rest of the paragraph (if written) or the ...
- 39.4k
8
votes
Accepted
¿Por qué el verbo "tener" introduce una "i" en ciertas conjugaciones, como "tú tienes" o "ellos tienen"?
Muy resumido, /e/ breve latina en posición tónica diptonga en español a /ie/. Ocurre de forma regular: feram > "fiera", herbam > "hierba", etc. Es una cuestión fonética.
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8
votes
Accepted
Why is the "í" accented in conditional mood conjugations?
Because without the accent, the ia forms a diphthong resulting in the syllabification mos-tra-ria or e-cha-ria, and then the default stress would be on the tra or cha syllable instead of on the i.
...
- 30k
8
votes
Accepted
Segunda persona de singular de imperativo de 'salir', en forma pronominal
La pregunta Are there other words in Spanish that can't be written? (like sal-le) contiene a su vez un enlace en el que comentan que la RAE ya reconoció que sal·le es una palabra del español que se ...
- 77.4k
8
votes
Accepted
Why is "yo me quedo en casa" instead of "yo quedo en casa"?
"Quedar" is an intransitive verb, which can also be use as pronominal (quedar(se)).
This pronominal use means roughly that their subjects are acting upon themselves (I do this action upon myself).
...
- 48k
8
votes
¿Cómo conjugo verbos con el pronombre indefinido "One"?
A pesar de que se puede usar uno tal y como en inglés (y así usando la 3.ª singular del verbo), como debe de ser obvio por el primer verbo en esta oración, el español te permite usar el verbo en forma ...
- 30k
8
votes
Accepted
Conjugation rule for "enclitic pronouns"?
A full answer would require the equivalent of a few Spanish course classes, so I'll just clear the basics up.
What you found are combinations between verbs and pronouns. These are not different ...
- 39.4k
8
votes
Accepted
Can someone explain why 2nd person plural is used when speaking to a single person?
In the Middle Ages it was quite common to use vos as courtesy pronoun for the second person, and it uses the verb in the 2nd person plural. This also happened in English, where the 2nd person plural (...
- 10.2k
8
votes
Ambiguous -amos ending in all regular -ar verbs in presente and pretérito
There really isn't any confusion. Consider that in English there are many verbs that have identical past and present forms (hit, for instance), but that doesn't cause much if any issue (most English ...
- 30k
8
votes
Accepted
Is "jugar" the only 'u'-to-'ue' stem-changing verb?
Yes.
All stem changing verbs fall into one of three categories (e→ie(→i), e→i(→i), o→ue(→u), where -ir verbs do the second change). There are exactly nine exceptions in three special categories:
...
- 30k
7
votes
Is there Spanish verb equivalent of the phrase "was like" in place of "said"?
In peninsular it's not uncommon to hear «en plan», but it's very informal (even slang-ish) and regarded as a lack of vocabulary.
Pasábamos con el coche y ella en plan «¿Habéis visto eso?». Y ellos ...
- 2,407
7
votes
Accepted
How is the conjugation for the "vos" pronoun in forms beyond the present indicative?
In Argentina, the pronoun is normally conjugated identically to the tú form in all forms except for the present indicative (-ás, -és, -ís) and the imperative (-á, -é, -í), although it may popularly ...
- 30k
7
votes
Why isn't "cómo se dice" "cómo dices"?
To express how do you say __?? in Spanish you can use either of your alternatives but in different contexts.
If you want to ask in general how something is pronounced the you will use the se sentence....
- 10.6k
7
votes
Diferencias regionales en las conjugaciones de los verbos
Se me acaba de ocurrir que un caso claro, aunque particualr, sería el voseo.
Debido al voseo se admiten las formas
tú cantas (estándar singular)
vos cantáis (Voseo tipo I singular)
vos cantás (...
- 48k
7
votes
Diferencias regionales en las conjugaciones de los verbos
En la zona de Logroño y en las provincias vascongadas no es raro el uso del condicional simple en vez del pretérito imperfecto: «si yo te contaría» en vez de «si yo te contara»
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7
votes
Why is the verb in plural form in "El número de figuras que entran"?
Entre las muchas funciones de la partícula "que" está el introducir oraciones subordinadas explicativas. Por eso el entran de que entran no concuerda con número. Pertenecen a dos oraciones distintas.
...
- 48k
7
votes
"Puesto" as an adjective
The correct answer is
Cuando tengo puesta ropa elegante...
(the rest is up to you; if you go as you did, note it should be trato de no ensuciarla).
In dictionaries or lists of expressions you ...
- 39.4k
7
votes
Accepted
¿Es correcto escribir "querría" en vez de "quería" para el condicional del verbo "querer"?
El verbo querer es un verbo irregular y efectivamente querría se corresponde con la primera y la tercera personas del singular del condicional simple
yo querría él/ella querría
Siguiendo este ...
- 7,749
7
votes
Accepted
"Date de baja aquí" para cancelar una suscripción: significado de "date"
No es "datar". "Datar" no tiene ese significado, y en todo caso su imperativo sería "data [tú]", "date [usted]", "datemos [nosotros]", "datad [vosotros]", "daten [ustedes]". Teniendo en cuenta que en ...
7
votes
Accepted
First person plural and third Person plural
The conjunction of your friend is correct, the tenses imply the pronoun. What you propose is another different thing:
Creemos que esta distribución se debe a que los alumnos/as tendemos generalmente ...
- 4,808
6
votes
Past "may be" verbs?
The best thing to do in this case is to start with the positive statement in the indicative mood and then transform it to a wish in the subjunctive mood. A key concept is that the subjunctive mood is ...
- 6,248
6
votes
Accepted
Is there Spanish verb equivalent of the phrase "was like" in place of "said"?
In colloquial Puerto Rican Spanish, there are some forms that seem to adhere very closely to the above-mentioned model:
“She was like, ‘Who the heck are you?’”
Ella se puso con “¿Quién carajo eres ...
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