"Thought to be..."

Question

Is there a way to start a sentence with "thought to be..." or "thought to have been..." in Spanish? For example, "Thought to have been used as a shrine, the cave contains hundreds of individual paintings..."

Answer 1

OK I looked into this a little more. El ingles: “Thought to have been a shrine, the cave contains hundreds of individual paintings.”

Karamisister made a good suggestion, which would look like this...

Se cree que era un templo; la cueva contiene … un templo..., my bad

Or to refine my suggestions:

Se considera que pudo haber sido usado como templo, la cueva...

Or

Aunque es considerado como un templo, la cueva...

I didn't finish these sentences because there is a specific Spanish word for cave paintings that just now I can' remember! But in any case, yes, I promise these are correct.

Answer 2

I think you can use 'ser considerado

Would that be at the beginning of a sentence, though? "Ser considerado haber sido usado..."? - Soninmyeyes, Nov 19, 2011

Answer 3

The common construction "se cree (que)" can be used. Note the following examples.

Ex 1) The last crossing of these iceboats is thought to have been on April 28, 1917.

Se cree que el 28 de abril de 1917 fue la última vez que navegaron aquellas embarcaciones.

Ex 2) Those are thought to have been composed during the ninth or the eighth century B.C.E.

Se cree que se escribieron durante el siglo IX o el VIII antes de nuestra era.

Ex 3) It was known as Brezalauspurc, meaning “Castle of Braslav”—thought to have been named after a high-ranking army officer.

Se le conocía como Brezalauspurc, que significa “Castillo de Braslav”, nombre que, según se cree, correspondía a un oficial de alto rango del ejército.

TIP: This is a good site for practice: www.jw.org. They offer free pdf downloads... What I do is download the same magazine (pdf) in English and Spanish and compare how the same idea is being conveyed in both languages. The examples above are excerpts from three of such articles.

How would I use that in the sample sentence? "Se cree que haber sido usado como un templo, la cueva contiene..."? - Soninmyeyes, Nov 19, 2011

And thanks for the tip! - Soninmyeyes, Nov 20, 2011

This is correct. You can also use "La creencia común, aceptada, popular" with slightly different wording - 005faa61, Nov 20, 2011

nice :) - Kiwi-Girl, Nov 20, 2011

Good answer...I would check out http://www.miapic.com/testigos-de-jehova, as well. - ziebs, Aug 1, 2012

Answer 4

I would have said "se pensaba que" or "se pensaba haber usado..."***. This is not to say that **se cree is not valid; a particular way of saying something in English doesn't translate the same way in Spanish.

Answer 5

¿pinturas cavernícolas?

I can't add anything to the other suggestions ,

puede ser que son pinturas cavernícolas pre-historicas?

Jeremias solves all the rest. - annierats, Nov 20, 2011

Hey Annie, thanks to you it just came to me - pinturas rupestres - Jeremias, Nov 20, 2011

Oh thank you, I made my suggestion up. Brilliant to know if it crops up. It might. - annierats, Nov 20, 2011

You sorted the rest very well, I thought, Jeremias. - annierats, Nov 20, 2011

Answer 6

I would suggest the following:

Somehow I think you want to say...

(Aunque fue) considerado haber sido usado como una templa, la cueva contiene ...

I am just putting this out there without having checked it out, or even remembering if I have seen that specific construction, but.... vamos a ver.

This sounds like what I want to say in terms of sentence structure. Can anyone say whether it's correct? - Soninmyeyes, Nov 20, 2011

Answer 7

thought to have and thought to be is cree que.