encontrar vs. vivir o estar
ok, so i was working on my spanish homework... just basic stuff (writing sentences for vocab words)and i was writing this sentence:
~Ahora mismo los huerfanos se encuentran en las calles porque los orfanatos estan llenos.
and i was wondering if it could be, or why it COULDNT be,
~Ahora mismo los huerfanos se viven en las calles porque los orfanatos estan llenos.
and, i dont think that i would use estar because i just used ahora mismo and that it would sound a little redundant to use a temporary verb with an immediate expression (and also i use estar later in the sentence).
lol, SPANISH GRAMMAR IS FUNGUS!
4 Answers
thanks guys! i checked the rules, and i didnt know that i was breaking them... sorry about that.
i was at school when i wrote this (and i still am), so i asked the guy next to me for an adjective for "mushrooms" and he gave me "fungus", so i figured, "hey, why not."
i didnt even think... duh! it would be viven.... but thanks for your help. :D
~amanda
Simple:
"encuentran" means "they find".
"se encuentran" means "they are found" (or "they are").
"viven" means "they live".
"se viven" means "they are lived", and this doesn't make sense.
"The orphans are found in the streets" is a reasonable sentence, but "The orphans are lived in the street" makes no sense. However, you could have said "...viven en la calle" (they live in the street) too.
As you can see, if it doesn't make sense in Spanish here, it doesn't make sense in English either, so it appears that we're sharing the same "fungus", hehe.
And you are right: it is best to avoid "estar" twice in the same sentence.
Amanda, please take a look at the forum rules. (Click on "Rules / Resources" above.) You've inadvertently violated a couple of them.
You could say: Los huérfanos viven en las calles. You don't need se if the verb is vivir.
You can search on the forum for ser / estar and find a great deal of information about when to use which. Anyway, están would be the right choice here.
QUICK, NOT ALL AT ONCE!
