subjunctive/imperfect vs preterite questions
I just took a quiz today, and um i just want to check/ ask some questions.
For example if you had a sentence like Es (congugated word) Superhombre, ( he was superman) like they taught us that there are reasons for being imperfect or preterite, like if they use age or weather its in the imperfect tense. Could you explain why?
What tense would you use (imperfect or preterite) in that sentence. My next question is what if they have a sentence like he was working for 3 monthes ( tres meses), what tense would it be, or they have it written out 10 meses.
If they start a subjunctive like sentence, for example, Les recomiendas que (dormir) ocho horas diaries?
If someone could help me out a little that would be great, also if my question isn't clear, i can edit it.
I hope my questions are clear
2 Answers
I'm not sure that there's a reason for eveything that's done in Spanish. It's just the way it's done. Es superman. He is superman. Era superman. He was superman. Era is called imperfect if I'm not mistaken, I don't remember it's been so long since I've had a grammar class. Era is the indefinate past or in other words the unspecified past. Age and general description in the past are generally imperfect. Tenía 14 años. A specific event in the past is generally preterite. Tuvo un infarto. Se cayó. Hace un año que fui a Medallín. Any grammar book describes this and I don't have one.
As far as your subjunctive question, les recomiendo que duerman is definately in the subjunctive realm. I don't think that you can logically put the dormir in the past since you can't presently recommend that someone has slept in the past, but you can hope presently that they did, right? In other words Espero que durmieran. However, I would probably say yo esperaba que durmieran. Can anyone out there that knows about grammar correct me if I'm wrong?
If you fancy some practice with the subjunctive we have a game going here:
