Preterit forms

Question

1) How do we say "the weather was good/bad" in Spanish?

2) Fill in the blank with the correct preterit form of the verb

 Me lo _______ (decir) mis amigos.

 Which one is the correct answer?  Dijeron or dije?  Why?

Welcome to the forum :) - Kiwi-Girl, Dec 14, 2011

Answer 1

can you give me some examples about when do we use mal and buen please

You use buen before a singular masculine noun.

¡Que tengas buen viaje! - have a good journey!

the same with 'mal' but be careful because mal is also an adverb which means 'poorly'

Es un mal ejemplo. It's a bad example

Comporta muy mal. He behaves very badly

Answer 2

The preterite endings for regualr verbs are as follows

AR = é, aste, ó, amos, asteis, aron (hablé, hablaste, habló, hablamos, hablasteis, hablaron)

ER/IR - í, iste, ió, isteis, ieron(aprendí, aprendiste, aprendió, aprendimos, aprendisteis, aprendieron)

You'll never learn if we keep doing it for you........ Teaching you how to fish now..

Answer 3

El clima era bueno/malo Me lo dijeron mis amigos Because it's plural Some friends told me
Me lo dijo un amigo Singular A friend told me

if it's an exercise in the preterite it'd probably be - el tiempo fue malo/bueno :) - Kiwi-Girl, Dec 14, 2011

isn't that "estuve"? can i use buen/bien/mal? - william1033, Dec 14, 2011

mal and buen are only used when put in front of the noun, not after :) - Kiwi-Girl, Dec 14, 2011

can you give me some examples about when do we use mal and buen please? - william1033, Dec 14, 2011

I think hacía mal tiempo would be more colloquial but as you said this exercise was in the preterite you could use hizo. Fue, era, estuvo and estaba can all be used with weather but the meaning changes - you might find this useful :) http://www.espanol-i - Kiwi-Girl, Dec 14, 2011

ooops missed a bit http://www.espanol-ingles.com.mx/phrase_book/spanish/weather.html - Kiwi-Girl, Dec 14, 2011

Answer 4

Welcome to the forum William

• firstly you need to decide if you want to say

dije - I said

dijo - she, he, it, you (sing/formal) said

dijiste - you (sing/informal) said

dijimos - we said

or

dijeron - they said or you (pl) said

• now if you're talking about 'your friends' plural only one of those pronouns will fit - a good way to test is to

try replacing 'my friends' with each of the pronouns

• it soon becomes obvious that only one will work:

I, he, you (sing), we, they etc

Me lo ____________ mis amigos

___________ told me (it).

Let us know how you go

if it is my friends told me, why do we put "mis amigos" at the back of the sentence? - william1033, Dec 14, 2011

Spanish is more flexible that way than English, you could put it at the beginning or at the end depending on what you want to stress - the thing you were told (leave it as is) or that it was your friends who did the telling - put them first :) - Kiwi-Girl, Dec 14, 2011