what is the difference between debia and deberia and how would each be used?

Question

what is the difference between debia and deberia and how would each be used?

Excellent question! Unfortunately none of the answers below directly address it - t8805jg, Jun 29, 2016

Answer 1

Personally (and I'm not fluent), I cannot think of a situation in which debía would be used.

Don't forget, Deber is also To owe. IE: Cuando era joven, siempre debía dinero a mis amigos.....When I was young, I always owed my friends money.

Answer 2

Debía is the imperfect singular indicative first or third person of the word deber while debería is the conditional singular indicative first or third person of deber. Debía would be used when one wants to describe an event in the past that is on-going or has no specific time reference while debería would be used when someone wants to describe a situation that should happen as a result of a hypothetical situation (subjunctive). Personally (and I'm not fluent), I cannot think of a situation in which debía would be used.

You could use debía to say "I should have been more appreciative while I had the chance." - MacFadden, May 2, 2010

Answer 3

"Cuando llegue en la Argentina en 1967 yo debia urgentemente aprender hablar Castellano."

I seriously needed to learn Spanish when I arrived in Argentina in 1967. Imperfect of "deber"

"Ahora, en 2010, yo deberia entender mas las diferencias entre los dos variedades de Ingles."

Now, in 2010, I ought to understand the differences between the two versions of English. Conditional of "deber"

Notes:

"la Argentina" commonly used rather than just "Argentina" is a contraction of "la Republica Argentina". Well there's actually a lot more than two versions of English but I say two to indicate the English English I was brought up with and the American English which continues to trip me up after five years here in Texas.