How do I know what they mean?

Question

Often when I'm reading in spanish I run across verbs that have many different meanings and several of them make sense in the context. So how do I know for sure what the author is trying to say?

Answer 1

I remember it was someone telling someone else to "esperar" and I didn't know whether they meant "to hope" or "to wait".

You might find the Diccionario panhispánico de dudas entry for esperar helpful. In this particular case, it is pretty clear on the particular syntactic arrangements that one is likely to encounter with regards to the various meanings that this verb can convey.

Answer 2

Sometimes the meaning of a verb doesn't come in that sentences in particular, it may come in the next two or three sentences that follows. Or have the synonyms at hand of the word that you don't understand.

Hope this helps.

Thanks I'll look for that now - Isaac98H, Aug 2, 2014

Answer 3

The same thing happens me with English, the key is to put attention to all the sentence so, you know what they're talking about

Answer 4

I had a really good one but I forgot it. Here's another one I somewhat remember. I remember it was someone telling someone else to "esperar" and I didn't know whether they meant "to hope" or "to wait". Sorry I don't have more for you to go on. Do you have any tips for me should I run into something like this again?

Answer 5

Welcome to SpanishDict. Perhaps providing the context will help.