John asks us to go with him

Question

I'm sorry for the sudden overload of questions, but I have a Spanish final tomorrow and I'm desperate. How would you say, John asks us to go with him. And in general, for sentences like these where someone tells or requests you to do something and the infinitive is used in English, do you simply use que and conjugate the verb in the subjunctive.

Answer 1

The literal translation would be: Juan nos pregunta (pide) que vayamos con el.

But this is a very unnatural way to speak, even for your English version.

In English it would sound better to say: John asked us to go with him or John is asking us to go with him.

Now, to translate these sentences literally in Spanish would also sound very awkward.

To properly say this in Spanish you would have to change the verb (to ask) preguntar, for (to ask for) pedir. Thus, "Juan nos pidió que fuéramos con él" or "Juan nos está pidiendo que vayamos con él."