More forming questions help

Question

I was told to leave out “tú” in the following statement. ¿Tienes que poner el carro en el garaje?

instead of: ¿Tienes que tú poner el carro en el garaje?

Are we supposed to leave it out because of “tener que?” Because other times that I have made statements into questions, I have just flipped the verb and the subject.

Tú prefieres pan con mantequilla. ¿Prefieres tú pan con mantequilla?

If your homework exercises say to leave in the "tú," then you have it in the right place. - --Mariana--, May 4, 2010

Answer 1

¿Prefieres tú pan con mantequilla?

You can say this, however, it's adding emphasis on "tú." Here's a situation where you'd want the pronoun included in this sentence:

Maria, ¿prefieres pan con mantequilla? (Maria, do you prefer...)

¡No! No me gusta mantequilla? (No! I don't like butter.)

Y Juan, prefieres tú pan con mantequilla? (and Juan, do YOU prefer...)

In the example, you are comparing Maria to Juan and contrasting the two. Maria doesn't like it, but do YOU like it?

Thanks! Marianne, for the tener que deal, if I really wanted to stick tu in there, could I do it like this? ¿Tienes que tú poner el carro en el garaje? I just need to know how it would look if I were to do it that way! - thaibean06, May 4, 2010

I just saw your comment above, thanks! - thaibean06, May 4, 2010

Answer 2

The correct if you talk one a one is: tienes tu que meter el carro en el garaje? Or, tu tienes que meter el carro en el garaje? Poner= on the garaje. You can not put a car on the garaje,in garaje La expresion correcta es meter o guardar por que poner estas queriendo decir Que lo vas aponer encima del garaje y la idea es meterlo dentro del garaje A unque para efecto coloquial es valido decir poner pero no es lo correcto

Answer 3

I was the person who recommended that you leave out the "tú" because it was not necessary unless you wanted to make some sort of special emphasis on the subject. Generally, you don't include subject pronouns unless there is the danger of confusing who or what is doing/receiving the action.

In your sentence, the conjugated form of "tener" (tienes) tells us that it is "tú" that you speak of.

As for your other question. Yes, "tener que" (have to) is a phrase that must be kept together to function properly. For example, in the sentence "Tengo que comprar una blusa" (I have to buy a blouse) you can't insert anything between the word "Tengo" and "que" or you will change the meaning of the sentence. Tener + que go together to say "have to."

Answer 4

No, I don't think that the "tú" omission has anything to do with "tener que". It isn't necessary in any case because of the verb conjugation; there is no other possible subject.

Many times textbooks or teachers at the entry level ask students to conserve the subject pronoun for the purpose of reinforcing the concept of verb conjugations. There is some disagreement regarding this approach to teaching language, but if your teacher wants you to keep the subject in, be sure to keep the subject in!