Help with specific sentence! Ayudar!
The book I am using tells me the answer to this;
No podríamos hacerlo sin que tú nos________. ...is ayudaras.
It does not make sense with ayudaras.
Am I correct in being tounge-tied or am I reading it completely wrong?
When I try to translate it my head, it comes out as.
We would not be able to do it without you was helping/you helped us.
I am not even sure. It would be great to grab some help! Gracias.
3 Answers
I completely sympathize with your confusion; the reason you are confused when trying to translate this sentence is that we don't have anything like this in English. This is the imperfect subjunctive which only exists in one form in our language, in the word "were". You know how you say "If I were a millionaire, I would buy a sports car" or "If I were young again, I would learn how to waterski"? This is one of the last remaining vestiges of the subjunctive in English, and it has many of the same uses as the imperfect subjunctive in Spanish.
So, in the particular sentence in your case, using the imperfect subjunctive ayudaras is, in fact, correct. The phrase "sin que" (without) is the "trigger" that "sets off" the subjunctive. One way of translating this that makes sense is:
"We could not do this without your helping us."
Or, alternatively, you could think of it as:
"We could not do it if it weren't for your helping us."
Although this second translation is quite loose, it might help to think about the "were" used in the subjunctive sense. If you wanted to try translating this literally, you would come up with something like:
"We could not do it without that you helped us."
Where "that you helped us" = "nos ayudaras"
As Pumkin says, imperfect subjunctive and it's a correct sentence.
Think of the sentence as: We would not be able to do it unless you were able to help us. Or, as Pumkin says.
If it can be re-writtenin the format of ' were to do somethin g' were looking like something, then it nearly always works with the imperfect subjunctive. Don't worry too much, it takes a while, like years, to get the hang of it, but, keep reading and gradually you will see how it's used.
"grab some help"--interesting elocution--as in French farce?
