Two verbs in one sentence

Question

Hola! I am still learning the grammatical rules of Spanish, and most forums say that the conjugation of two verbs in one sentence depends on the context. For the movie review I am writing, I would like to know: In the sentence "The did not want to see Shrek and Fiona" would "quieren" and "ven" both be conjugated, or just the first verb? "Ellos no quieren ver(ven?) Shrek y Fiona"? And is there a broad grammatical rule that applies to multiple verbs in a sentence I can use next time? Sorry for being such a beginner. Muchas Gracias!

Answer 1

Generally in a clause you will have only one conjugated verb. All other verbs will be in some other form- usually an infinitive, but possibly a participle or gerundio.

Quiero leer libros- Quiero conjugated verb, leer is infinitive

He leído libros- he conjugated verb (haber), leído participle (leer)

Sigo leyendo libros- sigo conjugated verb (seguir), leyendo- gerundio.

If you have subclauses you can have a conjugated verb for each clause:

Él es el hombre que lee libros. “es” and “lee” are both conjugated because “él es el hombre” and “lee libros” are separate clauses.

You can see from my first example it needs to be “ver”. You wrote don’t want to see with “no quieren ver”, did not want is past, “no querían ver”

Thank you this is very helpful! - kirstendo, Feb 2, 2017

De nada. :) - bosquederoble, Feb 2, 2017

Are personal "a"s necessary in Kristendo's sentence Bosque?: "Ellos no querían ver *a* Shrek y *a* Fiona"? - jellonz, Feb 2, 2017

Probably, for some reason I was thinking of the them as being movies, not characters- but this reminds me Fiona was not a movie. :) - bosquederoble, Feb 3, 2017

It was the verb phrase I wasn't sure about. I know you'd use personal "a"s for personal direct objects after "ver" but wasn't sure if the same applied after a verb phrase such as "querer ver" although I suspected it would. - jellonz, Feb 3, 2017

Yes, that would not change it. They each should have an a. :) - bosquederoble, Feb 3, 2017

Thanks Bosque. BTW I looked up "Fiona" on IMDb and it has in fact been two movies, although you wouldn't expect either of them to share an audience with Shrek fans :) - jellonz, Feb 3, 2017