¿Tuve o Recibí? ¿Debo o Debería?
So, a question. I was studying the preterite conjugation for "tener" and I have a book called "501 Spanish Verbs", and while I was reading, one of the sentence examples for 'tuve' and it said somewhere near the example that you could use this to say something like "Tuve una carta de Juan" which would be equal to "I received a letter from Juan", but I always thought you would use "recibí" if you were to ever say something like that??
I don't know if there's a solid difference between those two, but if there are, can someone tell me how and when to use it? I am also confused with "debo" and "debería" in this case as well, if someone can explain that to me as well, I'd appreciate it.
1 Answer
In Spain we used to say Recibí una carta or He recibido una carta. We also used the verb "tener" but it is a little bit common: Tengo carta de mi primo. Maybe in some countries in South America the used of the verb "tener" for letters is more common than "recibir", but not in Spain:
A example with both verbs in the same sentence:
Ayer recibí (una) carta de mi primo or Ayer tuve carta de mi primo -> Yesterday, I received a letter from my cousin (NOTE: The article UNA is optional in the first sentence, not in the second one)
In this case the meaning is the same (the first one sounds better for me)
About debo and debería, it is similar than in English: must and should.
