deberias
what does "deberias" with an accent over the "i" mean'
44 Answers
If you can find anything authoritative saying that the conditional used to be, or is currently, called a tense, I'd love to see it. It wouldn't make sense, though, because the conditional isn't a time-related form, and tense/tiempo is all about when something happens.
I was thinking that should was more appropriate also, but tried to avoid saying so because it seemed that the present tense also translates as should or ought [sometimes must]. I should do it.
Yes, "Debo hacerlo" could be translated that way, depending on the intended meaning, but it can also be translated as "I must do it," "I ought to do it" (that one is very close to "should"), "I need to do it," etc. In most cases, I think it is stronger than "should," though. When we say "I should do it," it means "I realize that it would be better, for some reason or another, for me to do it," and that is often followed by an excuse for not doing it, or an explanation. Therefore, I suggest that "debo" not be used for "should." The better translation is deberías (conditional) or debieras (past subjunctive), which are pretty much the same in this meaning.
Noralia helpfully wrote:
Deberías haberlo sabido. You should have known it.
To which Bonnie replied:
sorry, im only a 9th grader.
That's a pretty funny misunderstanding! Bonnie, "You should have known it" is just a translation of the Spanish here, not a comment aimed at you.
And I don't think we need to apologize when thread topics drift, as long as the topic remains related to Spanish and/or English. That's the whole point of a site such as this, to allow discussion and debate. That's why it's called a forum.
Bonnie,
I'm sorry that we got involved in grammatical details that you probably weren't the least bit interested in. I'm sure that all you wished to hear was that it is tranlated as . If you need an more help just re-post another question. Please, however, provide a sample sentence using the verb as it helps immensely in choosing the correct English words to use in the translation. You see how far astray we roam when you don't rein us in.
Bonnie said:
Noralia said:
"Deberías" can be translated into English as "you should"Deberías estudiar más. You should study more.Deberías haberlo sabido. You should have known it.
sorry, im only a 9th grader.
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thanks everybody.
Noralia said:
"Deberías" can be translated into English as "you should" Deberías estudiar más. You should study more.
Deberías haberlo sabido. You should have known it.
sorry, im only a 9th grader.
I totally agree. I wasn't trying to say that I was right. I just wanted to confirm that I understood why I was wrong.
I couldn't care less whether they call it a tense or mood. I just want to make sure that I'm conveying what I'm thinking when I write that verb form. Though I'd seen both the time sense and the mood sense that you and Lazurus have presented I'd never truly grasped the distinction since I thought that the spanish conditional provided methods for conveying both meanings.
James Santiago said:
Not so intelligent, because I need to clarify the problem. You were objecting to my describing Spanish's conditional (time) tense with English words that actually refer to English's mood based on conditional (if) circumstances; and not to the future of the past time 'I'm about to bail on this thread, but I don't see how you are getting "future of the past" out of what you originally said.Quote:Deberías is the 2nd person, singular (tú) form of the verb deber in the conditional tense, indicative mood.I agree with everything you wrote, except that in English it is the conditional mood. In Spanish, apparently, it is called a tiempo, or tense. So if you had been writing in Spanish, you could have used the word tiempo, but in English, the word mood is preferred. The original poster gave us zero context, so there is no way you could have known that a "future of the past" was involved here, and the word deberías is used much, much more often to mean "should" than to indicate a future action in the past.So, to summarize, I, for one, have not concluded that you were right, but at this point it doesn't much matter to me what anybody else concludes, as I've said my piece. Feel free to call it the conditional tense.
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Oops, I fixed it.
James Santiago said:
I will only comment that "tenso" means tense as in taut, a tense muscle. Tense in the grammatical meaning is tiempo, because, well, it relates to time. As I've been saying.
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No entiendo. ¿Dices que si hablamos en español, debemos decir "tiempo condicional," pero si hablamos de español en inglés, entonces debemos decir "conditional mood"? Esto me desconcierta.
Todos nosotros deberíamos concluir que fuera mejor discutir la gramática de español en español, si podemos.
James Santiago said:
So after three pages we conclude that Quentin was right. Er, how did we conclude that? My position hasn't changed one bit.
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Not so intelligent, because I need to clarify the problem. You were objecting to my describing Spanish's conditional (time) tense with English words that actually refer to English's mood based on conditional (if) circumstances; and not to the future of the past time '
I'm about to bail on this thread, but I don't see how you are getting "future of the past" out of what you originally said.
Quote:
Deberías is the 2nd person, singular (tú) form of the verb deber in the conditional tense, indicative mood.
I agree with everything you wrote, except that in English it is the conditional mood. In Spanish, apparently, it is called a tiempo, or tense. So if you had been writing in Spanish, you could have used the word tiempo, but in English, the word mood is preferred. The original poster gave us zero context, so there is no way you could have known that a "future of the past" was involved here, and the word deberías is used much, much more often to mean "should" than to indicate a future action in the past.
So, to summarize, I, for one, have not concluded that you were right, but at this point it doesn't much matter to me what anybody else concludes, as I've said my piece. Feel free to call it the conditional tense.
So after three pages we conclude that Quentin was right.
Er, how did we conclude that? My position hasn't changed one bit.
Not so intelligent, because I need to clarify the problem. You were objecting to my describing Spanish's conditional (time) tense with English words that actually refer to English's mood based on conditional (if) circumstances; and not to the future of the past time ?
James Santiago said:
Ah, understanding at last.And people, even intelligent, well-educated people like Quentin, do sometimes call it the conditional tense in English, but I believe that is mistaken. And that's all I was pointing out.Now, will somebody please help me start digging on this mountain so we can get it back down to a molehill?
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Some student walked into our tutoring center about an hour ago and wanted me to teach him the entire chapter on polynomials, in preparation for the test he is making up this afternoon. I thought that was bad, until I got back here and tried to follow this thread. 
So after three pages we conclude that Quentin was right.
:-D
Ah, understanding at last.
And people, even intelligent, well-educated people like Quentin, do sometimes call it the conditional tense in English, but I believe that is mistaken. And that's all I was pointing out.
Now, will somebody please help me start digging on this mountain so we can get it back down to a molehill'
Well, you said "To me, it makes no sense to call the conditional a tense or tiempo, since it has nothing to do with time in its most basic usage", which is probably fine if you are referring to English, but in English no one calls it "conditional tense", so I obviously assumed you were referring to the Spanish one, where people do call it "tiempo condicional" all the time. This tense, mood, or whatever you want to call it, is different in both languages, so we can not use each others' grammar to make sense of the other language's idiosyncrasies. Your tenses and ours work differently, and we use subjunctive where you use conditional, and we use conditional when you use past tense, so each one makes sense for their native speakers, I guess.
{sigh}
I'm not talking about Spanish verb conjugations. If I wanted to know what they were called, I would look it up or ask you! (Note classic conditional mood here.)
Although the conditional is not a tense per se, it can be used in different temporal situations. That is, the conditional is modified to fit into the tense of the if clause.
Present conditional:
If I had a hammer, I'd hammer in the morning.
Past conditional (conditional perfect):
If I had had a hammer, I would have hammered in the morning.
Future conditional:
If I have a hammer tomorrow, I might hammer in the morning.
OR
. . . I will hammer in the morning.
OR
If I were to have a hammer tomorrow, I would hammer in the morning.
Habitual present conditional:
If/when/whenever I have a hammer, I hammer in the morning.
And then there is another whole set involving factual and hypothetical conditionals ("If he was rich" vs. "If he were rich").
