"This would be David, your new employee."

Question

Right, the title is just an example, but I want to know how one would say this. If I wanted to introduce something or someone, what kind of tense would I use? Would I use conditional as I did in English? "Sera David, tu nuevo empleado." Now, this could also be said in English as "This is David, tu nuevo empleado." Now, since my original sentence can have two meanings, depending on context, would it be acceptable as I said in Spanish? What I said in English could be taken as "This is David, your new employee," or it could be, "This is david who would be your employee should "something" happen."

So, if someone could please help me clear this up, that would be much appreciated.

Answer 1

I reckon nearabout all them uppity Northerners with them highfalutin washaterias, using conditional tenses till tarnation as all get out. .. ‘

Am I right to gather this is Japanese? May be Chinese? Hmmm, Vietnamese?

ancient dialect of a lost and forgotten world - bdclark0423, ENE 29, 2010

Answer 2

• To jeezzle, I’ll disregard your razpberries you’ve given to us Northerners (for now), because I do tend to agree with you in this situation

. If we were to actually reconstruct a dialogue where the answer is

- ‘This would be David, your new employee.’

The question would be something like:

- "Good morning, welcome to XYZ Corporation, and who would this be?" (as if an executive was conversing with the secretary).

Now I could see the original question as being Conditional, because it’s uncertain as ‘who’ is the subject and that person (in reality, the name of that person) is unknown.

• However, the answer does not leave any room for uncertainty of the subject 'David' nor the predicate nominative 'your new employee.'

  The conditional tense wouldn’t apply and the subjunctive mood wouldn’t either.

• I truly believe that this is simple a haughty expression used to reciprocate the original genial intent of the question being asked, albeit grammatically incorrect.

It’s very similar as to when people think they sound correct in saying things like ‘just between you and I’

• or ‘y’all’ or

‘I reckon nearabout all them uppity Northerners with them highfalutin washaterias, using conditional tenses till tarnation as all get out. .. ‘

Answer 3

I can't imagine anyone using this construction in English as it makes no sense. He is either your new employee or he isn't. No one in the southern states of the US would say something so ambiguous. "This would be your new employee" sounds so haughty I can't imagine anyone but a northerner saying such a thing.

Answer 4

I'm just kinda guessing, not being a native, but, even though this is a common construction in English, I think using the conditional on that part of the sentence in Spanish would seem to imply he might not be David under certain circumstances.

To indicate that he may or may not be the other person's employee (if that is what you are trying to do), I would do something like...

Aquí es David, y es posible que será tu nuevo empleado.

(Not that that is good Spanish, and I also await clarification from natives).