Sobre "have been" y el presente perfecto, etc.
Cual es más correcto?
(I've been bitten ...)
Me ha picado ...
He sido picado ...
Gracias amigos ... (Feel free to answer in English if you have a sweet answer. :-D)
6 Answers
The bee senario can be said in various ways, it depends on nuance:
"Me ha picado una avispa" (sometime in the near past but not immediate past, focus on the bee).
"He sido picado por una avispa" (same as above but focus on you and a more formal statement).
"Me picó una avispa" (just now happened).
"Me acaba de picar una avispa" (same as above but emphasizing "at this very moment").
Both of your translations are gramatically correct. However, there is a semantic difference between the two of them; let me explain.
Your question is actually is more about the voice of the verb in the sentence rather than the verb's tense. I mean to say, the first phrase you wrote, "me ha picado" is active voice and the second, "He sido picado", is passive voice. As someone said earlier, while both are grammatically fine, the one you would end up using would solely depend on if you want the attention to be on you or the bee/wasp.
If you're like "What the crap is grammatical voice and why does this grammar geek think I care", let me explain it, 'cause I know I used to be confused by that as well and it opened a TON of doors for me when I understood it.
In English and Spanish there are two types of "Voice" for any given (transitive*) verb, the two being "Passive" and "Active". Let me explain the latter first, as it is more common. *Transitive verbs are those verbs which take grammatical objects (e.g. sleep is NOT a transitive verb, you do not say "I slept the bed", you simply say "I slept in the bed").
Active voice is when the subject of the sentence is also the 'doer' of the verb. For example, in your first phrase, "(La avispa) me ha picado", the wasp is the subject of the sentence and it also the thing which is doing the stinging. You, therefore, are the object of the verb (in this case, the thing which received the sting). Therefore, this verb is in the "active" voice. Active voice sentences put the emphasis on the 'doer' of the action, in this case, the wasp.
Other examples of active voice in English and Spanish could be: "I hit the boy/Yo pegué al niño", "The mom kissed her son/La mamá besó a su hijo", "The man sang a hymn/El hombre cantó un cantico", etc. In all of these sentences, the subject is also the thing which did the action.
Passive voice is when the object of an active voice sentence becomes the subject and the subject in the active voice sentence becomes what is known as the "agent". In the case of your second sentence, "(Yo) he sido picado (por la avispa)", you did not do the stinging, you received the sting, but you have become the subject of the phrase. The wasp is what did the action, but is not the subject, it is now the agent. Passive voice sentences put the emphasis on the object of the sentence, in this case, you.
Some common ways to tell if you're reading passive voice versus active voices: 1.) Passive voice sentences often involve some form of the verb "Be", 2.) there is usually an agent noted by the word "By" in English or "Por" in Spanish, 3.) in Spanish, a "se" at the front of a verb that makes no sense as a reflexive pronoun can sometimes indicate a passive construction**.
** Here are some exmaples of this construction in Spanish and the translations into English: "Se lee el periodico (por el hombre)" = "The newspaper is read (by the man)", "Se hierve el arroz (por el cocinero)" = "The rice is boiled (by the cook)", etc.
Other example passive constructions in Spanish and English are: "El niño fue pegado por mi/The boy was hit by me", "El hijo fue besado por su madre/The son was kissed by his mother", "El cantico fue cantado por el hombre/The hymn was sung by the man".
I hope this helps you some! Please feel free to let me know if you want me to re-explain or explain anything in greater detail!
This is just my opinion, but I would only tend to use option 2 if I was not going to add anything else, and would use option1 if I was.
Me ha picado una avispa
Me ha picado algo en la cara
He sido picado
I think you could say:
He sido picado por una avispa
But it just isn’t how I would say it, I would use the other way if I were going to elaborate at all.
Again this is a non-native intermediate level opinion.
Rocoso, can you check out my thinking on the following?
La avispa me ha picado.
If this is active voice then I would translate to "The wasp bit me" but then I wonder why use the "ha" form of haber at all? Let's assume that the wasp bite was recent and that I could also use pretérito to describe it. In that case is the use of presente perfecto a grammatical violation, or is it simply the speaker's choice?
For some reason I associate all complex verb forms using haber in the past tense to be passive voice, but now I have to review that belief. I think the world is more complicated for me at the moment, but I expect it to get simpler later. Remember when walking without holding onto chairs and table legs made life more difficult? :-D
The second one works (:
Since you did not ask me this additional question, I will give a somewhat indirect reply, in trying to explain the thinking behind my original answer.
I always prefer to focus on expressing a concept as a concept, in the way that would be most natural to a Spanish speaker. Some people prefer to focus on direct translation instead. I suppose that has its place in learning and understanding grammar, but I have heard enough comments to the effect of: “that sounds like an English speaker trying to speak Spanish”- ie grammatically correct, but not the most natural way a Spanish speaker would express the concept; instead a direct translation of the way an English speaker would most naturally express the concept.
In my experience, Spanish speakers avoid true passive constructions wherever possible and prefer either the active construction or the passive se (when not wanting to ascribe the action to a particular subject). So in my answer I chose the active construction when an agent was available, and stated I would only use the passive where I had to because I had no subject and I don’t think the passive se lends itself to this verb in this case, so I had no other choice.
I then tried to note that you could use the passive with a subject- it’s just not how I would do it normally.
Now that being said, I agree with Julian, and think his answer was better than mine.
Please do not confuse perfect tense with passive- have/haber is used for perfect tenses and perfect tenses are used to sort of bring the past into the present (or, in the case of the past perfect, into that specific point of reference that you are relating to).
I wasn’t bitten (there was some unspecified duration of time during which I wasn’t bitten: for example I wasn’t bitten yesterday, but maybe I was several weeks ago or maybe today).
I haven’t been bitten (this brings it to the present- you cannot say I haven’t been bitten yesterday, but you can say I haven’t been bitten since yesterday (up to this current time).
Perfect does not require passive:
It has bitten me three times this week. An active present perfect sentence, as opposed to the passive I have been bitten by it three times this week. The active simple past would be It bit me three times this week, and the passive simple past would be I was bitten by it three times this week.
