a ver con qué excusa viene esta vez

Question

Is this a set phrase? By which I mean does it work in context to mean "let's see what his/her/their/your/etc. excuse is this time" or does viene need to be conjugated to match whose excuse you're talking about?

Answer 1

Ah to clarify my question, is viene in this phrase conjugated in respect to la excusa or to the "owner" of the excuse?

It belongs to the person making the excuse. "Pretexto" is also very common.

Answer 2

OK, let me clarify by way of examples...

"let's see what his/her/their/your/etc. excuse is this time"

a ver/veamos cual es su excusa esta vez.

a ver con qué excusa viene esta vez

Let's see what excuse he/she/it comes up with this time.

a ver con qué excusa vienen esta vez

Let's see what excuse you(plural)/they come up with this time.

I hope this helps you too.

That does help ¡Gracias! - Jellybean1996, Dec 26, 2011

Answer 3

"a ver con qué excusa viene esta vez": Ah to clarify my question, is viene in this phrase conjugated in respect to la excusa or to the "owner" of the excuse?

Well, the point of answering your question is to help you so you can easily differentiate in the future.

"Con qué" is saying that something or somebody is bringing the excuse. Don't be intimidated. Just look and see. You are the expert. Be cool, Julián. (Just watch YouTube "Ascent of Alex Honnold", FANTASTIC world-class cool.)

So anyhow, the excuse is not doing the action. It is not the subject of the verb. Maybe they are bringing the excuse. Then "con qué excusa vienen". Respectfully, you might prefer «pretexto», a more piercingly distinct definition.

Good wishes. One of your questions called my attention before. Must be your vibes.

I wasn't sure because venir can mean "to com"e so I saw it as possibly meaning "what excuse is coming" or that someone is bringing the excuse. Can you clarify further how I could tell in this case that excusa wasn't the subject of the verb venir? - Jellybean1996, Dec 26, 2011

¿Con qué cosa viene Rosa? ¿Con quiénes viene Roberto? Con tantos excusas viene Augustino. Just try specifying the subject, ella for example. Your problem is this: in English the subject is always specified, but Spanish includes it in the verb. - 0000000, Dec 26, 2011

Continuing Comment: You only saw one entity in the sentence, "excusa", but that was the object of "con qué viene". ¿Con qué viene Solón? "Con excusa viene él, como siempre." . - 0000000, Dec 26, 2011

Got it, thankyou! You're right it's hard for me to tell sometimes because Spanish includes the subject in the verb but other times it does state the subject for emphasis and I have yet to tackle understanding word order as well. - Jellybean1996, Dec 26, 2011

Answer 4

¡Vamos a ver qué excusa tiene esta vez!

Answer 5

That's perfect!

Of course, like in English, it can be conjugated.

Ah to clarify my question, is viene in this phrase conjugated in respect to la excusa or to the "owner" of the excuse? - Jellybean1996, Dec 24, 2011