Some Clarification, The Past Subjunctive
For the following sentences, am i correct in writing the clauses in bold in the past subjunctive:
___|\___|\___|\___|
Cuando acababamos de hablar, me dijo que hubiera cambiado de opinion de mi, y que no quisiera ser amigos
Tenia que acertar lo que estuviera pensando
8 Answers
Maybe this will help you.
http://home.mctc.mnscu.edu/~witwerda/grammar/subjunctive_vs_indicative.htm
Thanks.
To sum up in terms of grammar, if you are relating a story from the past and are paraphrasing what somebody told you , you would use the preterite (or imperfect) to describe what they told you?
Even though what they told you was in fact told by them to you in the present tense at the time'..(.this is why i assumed it would go into the subjunctive).
i.e. 'he told me he had changed his opinion of me' - at the time he told me, he wouldn't have said 'i had changed my opinion of you' he would have said ' i have..' - so it's not a preterite in the true sense of the word, should it not be the subjunctive'
as robert says acertar is definite. if you use acertar then you are certain, precise, that the friendship is over. by using adivinar you think it is over but probably hope that it isn't.
Acertar is to guess correctly.
Adivinar is to guess as in to fortell or predict.
I think that "acertar" is "to figure out", "to hit it just right", while "adivinar" is to guess--there's a slight difference, as if you HAD to come up with the answer to the question of what he was thinking, and with just the right, correct answer, rather than, just, ...guess at it!
Your hunch could be the right one--"Mi corazonada era acertada. Dio en el blanco."
I reckon, ...anybody else got some ideas'
Thanks
adivinar..? is acertar no good for 'to guess' '
I would write,
Cuando acabamos de hablar [preterite], me dijo que habia cambiado su opinion sobre mi, y que no queria ser mas mi amigo. Tenia que adivinar lo que estaba pensando [cuando dijo eso].
...I could be wrong, but this makes it sounds better to me. I don't think the past subjunctive should be used here.
I didn't like "acababamos", either--"When we were finishing speaking", hmmmm, ...
Just my two cents.
Also, what would i use for the word 'anymore' after the word amigos in that first example'