Creer que

Question

Ya llevo siete meses traduciendo este libro y creo que no ____ (terminar) en tres años. The answer given is terminaré, but is termine not right here? Thanks a lot.

Answer 1

No. It's terminaré because you don't believe you "will finish" in three years. If you said terminé it would mean "finished". Or you believe you "will not finish". If you said "terminé" you would be talking about a past action that already had happened.

Now I did not know until right now that llevar could be used to measure time, however our dictionary confirms this and I wonder if a native can tell me...does it work exactly the same way as hace? thanks.

Edit: Sentence says...I've already spent 7 months translating this book and I believe I will not finish it in three years.

Answer 2

Since llevo in the first clause is in present tense, then one would expect either present, future or present perfect in the 2nd clause.

This sentence is a little different from the norm because the llevo in the time expression actually translates to the present perfect. (similar to the present tense of hacer in time expressions...desde hace tres meses.. it has been 3 months since)

I have been translating this book for seven months (now or already...) As Spanish's name for that tense points out (pretérito perfecto compuesto) that tense refers to the past.

So the flow of time in the sentence goes from past (llevo 7 meses) to present (creo) to future (terminaré).

I think the future tense works best. From the point in time where you are stating your belief finishing the translation occurs in the future. Or restating it more simply when you stated your belief the end of the translation had not occurred yet.

An alternate viewpoint:

The future tense is used for conjecture. When you state your opinion you are only conjecturing about finishing the translation in 3 years. It may never be finished in reality.