What tense should these be in?

Question

My spanish professor says that I have the wrong tenses for the verbs in this sentence: Pero creo que mi madre era feliz porque yo jugaba afuera en vez de quedaba en el casa y miraba televisión todo el día.

What tense should they be in?

Answer 1

Pero creo que mi madre fue feliz porque yo jugaba afuera en vez de quedarme en casa, para mirar a la televisión todo el día.

This may not be totally correct so wait for more answers.

Eddy

Answer 2

I think imperfecto is also ok for the mother.. I would say "Pero creo que mi madre era feliz porque yo jugaba afueras en vez de quedar en casa para mirar la tele(visión) todo el día.", or "...quedar en casa mirando la tele...."

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• LA casa. If you want to say you stayed at home then don't use anything in front of it (....quedar en casa); but if you mean in the house as the opposite of outdoors, you need the la. (....quedar en la casa)
• quedar doesn't have to be reflexive, in that case it's a verbo de cambio. Simply, without the 'se' form it means to stay, remain.

I'm no professional and know better the spoken Spanish than the taught one. take it into account

Answer 3

I am never too sure about mirar followed by the preposition "a". If I am standing by the window looking at the garden I know for a fact that it is "mirando al (a+el) jardín"

Answer 4

Quedarse absolutely definitely needs a reflexive element to mean "remain" - otherwise it means "to arrange a date". I would render it like this: Pero creo que mi madre estaba feliz porque yo jugaba afuera en vez de quedarme en casa, y ver la televisión todo el día.

NB: "Estaba" because it is a temporary emotion, not an intrinsic characteristic, "afuera" is the adverb meaning outside ("las afueras" is "the outskirts"), "quedarme" - infinitive instead of gerund, definitely with the reflexive pronoun, and "ver" - infinitive as above - the Spanish prefer "ver" to "mirar" when meaning "watching the television". Hope this helps