"It might..." "You could..." "He did..."

Question

In English, we often shorten our responses by cutting off the main verb and leaving the helping verb. For example:

• Q: Will it work? A: It might.
• Q: Should I buy the tickets tonight? A: You could.
• Q: Did you take the garbage out? A: Yes, I did.

Is there something similar to that in Spanish? Is there an easy way to shorten a response so that you don't have to repeat the entire verb phrase?

Answer 1

Of course, in Spanish we have a lot, like these:

• Q: ¿Funcionará? R: Es posible/ Puede/ Tal vez/ A ver...
• Q: ¿Debo comprar los boletos de esta noche? R:Sí, debes/ Debes / Deberías/ Debieras/ Quizás.
• Q: ¿Sacaste la basura? R: Sí, eso hice/ Sí, la saqué/ Sí, lo hice/ Claro/ Pues claro/ Por supuesto.

Agreed, we also have short replies for this kind of questions, but some of those are far less common than in English. The usual reply for "¿Sacaste/has sacado la basura?" would be a simple "sí" or "no", or "sí, la he sacado". - bill1111, Sep 16, 2010

Answer 2

Hi, Joel.

My short responses to these questions would be:

Q: Will it work? A: It might. Quizás

Q: Should I buy the tickets tonight? A: You could. Podrías

Q: Did you take the garbage out? A: Yes, I did. Lo hice