Hubo/Había

Question

por favor qué es la diferencia :

ayer hubo un monton de gente ayer había un monton de gente

caundo hay que usar hubo y cuando había

Marco, You must use proper capitalization and punctuation on SD! - rac1, Sep 19, 2014

¿No entiendes inglés? - ian-hill, Sep 19, 2014

If you did not understand that request mate then you are not intermediate English , so what is your mother tongue? - ray76, Sep 19, 2014

pero dejalo voy a buscar otro forum donde me pueden ayudar hasta luego - 00b815ee, Sep 19, 2014

We are trying to help you by our comments. - rac1, Sep 19, 2014

Hola marco, hay muchos otros estudiantes de idioma aquí (y esto es un foro de aprender idiomas). Por eso, las reglas dicen que es necesario usar la ortografía y puntuación corecta aquí. ¡Gracias! - Helado_eclectico, Sep 19, 2014

@rac/ray: Meaning no offence, but the condition for being an intermediate speaker here is not set in stone, and it is understandable that one mightn't know words like capitalization. - Helado_eclectico, Sep 19, 2014

The point here is this..we are trying to help you by telling you to study. When you study and look up things for yourself, you learn and retain what you have learned. - rac1, Sep 19, 2014

I´m studing every day roughly 2-3 hours, but the issue what I´m asking I need to explain from one teacher - 00b815ee, Sep 19, 2014

Helado that is exactly why we want to know the language of choice because it makes a difference. If I know someone cannor speak English as a native then I can be more understanding , but this character portrayed himself as intermedidiate , but he is not. - ray76, Sep 19, 2014

And helado with the greatest respect we have been asking him allday long to provide us with more information , i even sent a PM which he did not answer , you are not making it any easier , trty to understand from our perspective . - ray76, Sep 19, 2014

Helado , of corse a n intermediate may not know how to capitalise , tho I doubt it, it is quite basic ,but that is why we were asking him to fill out his profile and to answer us , Are you saying Helado that there should be no rules at all , let anarchy - ray76, Sep 19, 2014

You understand english very well , but all what I know is to able to understand well español, but all the day i have to write here in english instead of spain. - 00b815ee, Sep 19, 2014

Marco mate , in every language a sentence begins with a capital letter ,. - ray76, Sep 19, 2014

De acuerdo a partir de ahora escribiré correctamente, pero no quiero que me pongáis verde, muchas gracias ..... Sólo que necesito es una ayuda con algunas partes de la gramatica española. - 00b815ee, Sep 19, 2014

Understood. That is why I wanted you to do a search. There are Many answers already posted on SD from teaching members that will help you understand about the questions you ask. - rac1, Sep 19, 2014

Y también preferiría si pudieramos hablar español - 00b815ee, Sep 19, 2014

Puedes preguntar en español si prefieres Marco. - ian-hill, Sep 19, 2014

Entonces me gustaría que alquien me explicara que es la diferencia entre la frase: Ayer estuve en la biblioteca y Ayer estaba en la biblioteca. gracias - 00b815ee, Sep 19, 2014

@ray: You are misunderstanding me, tío. Rules are of course necessary, and I am merely trying to communicate them to marco. No intention to make anything harder for anyone. - Helado_eclectico, Sep 19, 2014

@marco: Creo que tienes problemas con la diferencia entre el pretérito indefinido y el pretérito imperfecto. ¿Por qué no echas un vistazo aquí? - Helado_eclectico, Sep 19, 2014

http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/106554/pretrito-indefinido-or-pretrito-imperfecto#a99044 - Helado_eclectico, Sep 19, 2014

Answer 1

Hubo / había grammatically work the same way as any verb, although it´s true as Bosquederoble says: most of the time había is used, ie: Ayer hubo / había mucha gente en the calle. Here the only difference is nuance.

What is yet to be mentioned here is the choice between preterite and imperfect being determined by one action taking place within the timeframe of another, and with this structure only one choice can be used (this is when these two words function the same as other verbs), ie: Ayer había mucha gente en la calle cuando hubo un choque de varios coches. Here there is no mention of start/finish time of people being in the street. The action of cars crashing starts/finishes inside the time period of people being in the street, so here we must use preterite.

The same is true when we use haber to indicate a passive voice form of something having to be done, ie: Ayer había que llevar los conductores al hospital después del choque (Yesterday the drivers had to be taken to the hospital after the crash). And: Ayer hubo que llevar los conductores al hospital mientras caía un aguacero (Yesterday the drivers had to be taken to the hospital while a downpour was happening).

Note that imperfect does not indicate an action still happening, it only indicates that a specific time has not been determined.

Very nicely explained. I will add that the person asking the question is not a native English speaker, nor a native Spanish speaker, has lived in Spain for the past two years, and has requested that his answers be in Spanish. :) - bosquederoble, Sep 20, 2014

But i suspect he can do as wel with the English, and it is a great review for me as well. So thanks. :) - bosquederoble, Sep 20, 2014

¡Qué maquina eres, JC! :D Your answers are always most fulfilling. - Helado_eclectico, Sep 20, 2014

Gracias por la explicación - 00b815ee, Sep 20, 2014

Answer 2

Ay solamente desde lo que recuerdo de algo que leí hace mucho tiempo, en el caso de haber cuando tiene el sentido de “hay” al contrario de cualquier otra cosa- casi siempre deberías usar había, y solo usar hubo cuando quieres enfatizar que fue durante un tiempo corto y ya no existe.

Solo es mi opinión.

gracias - 00b815ee, Sep 19, 2014

Answer 3

No estoy seguro (otra vez), pero conozco un recurso que te puede ayudar. Se llama Lazarus :DDDD Aunque esta enlace hace falta una explicación más detallada...

Bueno, a mi ver, es la misma diferencia entre el pretérito simple y el pretérito imperfecto y en muchos casos, es probable que puedas usar los dos y dependa totalmente de la manera en que quieres decir tu historia.

Buena suerte y espero que puedas encontrar tu respuesta deseada pronto.

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I am not sure (again!) but I know of a resource that can help you. It is called Lazarus :DDDD Even though this link needs a more detailed explanation.

Well, in my opinion, the difference here is the same as in case of the Preterite and the Imperfect tense. In most cases, it is probable that you can use either of them and it depends completely on you which way you want to tell your story.

Good luck and hope you find your answer soon.

Answer 4

hubo mucha gente

hubo because its done

habia is still going on