Preguntas sobre condicional perfecto
Hola:
Mis deberes esta semana es sobre el condicional perfecto. Tengo que traducir a español estas frases en ingles:
It must have been one o'clock in the morning when the telephone rang.
Habría sido la uno de la mañana cuando sonó el teléfono.
Can I also say, "Habría sido la uno de la mañana cuando el teléfono sonó", and if so, does it mean the same thing?
It must have been a Tuesday when we met because that day everybody was voting.
Habría sido un martes cuando nos conocimos porque ese día todo el mundo votaban.
Can I also say, "...todo el mundo estaba votando.", and if so, does it mean the same thing?
I don't suppose they had studied very much.
No habrían estudiado mucho.
The workbook says the "I suppose" element is understood when using this tense. However, the 'do not' in this one seems to be confusing "I do not suppose they studied" with "I suppose they did not study". I'd appreciate some clarifcation.
Gracias,
Martyn.
6 Answers
Hi everyone from Spain!
You are dealing with a quite confusing topic, "condicional perfecto"! I have my grammar a little bit forgotten ´cause I last studied it more than 10 years ago. But definetely no native speaker would say "habría sido la unA de la mañana cuando sonó el teléfono". In my opinion, the best translation into natural Spanish of `It must have been one o´clock in the morning when the phone rang´ could be "Debe haber sido la una de la madrugada cuando sonó el teléfono". And in this kind of sentences, "deber" like must has a meaning of supposition, conjecture. It is not an obligation.
A short one: definetely "todo el mundo votaba". El mundo is a collective name applying to a group of people, but grammaticaly it is singular.
Finally, my choice for "I don´t suppose the had studied very much" would be "No creo que hayan/hubieran estudiado mucho". That "do not suppose" gives the sentence a sense of conjecture, you are not sure enough. And that meaning must be in the translation. El condicional perfecto no se usa mucho en el lenguaje natural hoy día, hay alternativas mucho más naturales. Then "pudo haber sido un martes", "pudo ser un martes", "debe haber sido un martes" or "debió ser un martes" are definitely more appropriate than "habría sido un martes" which sounds really strange and I would also say that not fully correct.
I hope to have been useful, espero haber sido útil (that is another good one!!)
Cheers
As for the last one all that is written is:
They would not have studied much.
I can accept the I suppose being uderstood with this construction, but the no would have to apply to what is written not with the I suppose to make I do not suppose.
Just to reiterate, "ese día" is correct. Also, I think technically "todo el mundo" is singular so it would be "votaba." As far as the interchanging of the first sentence, it doesn't alter the meaning to me.
Martyn said:
Gracias por tu ayuda. The workbook says that conditional perfect can be used for conjecture in the remote past, something that you suppose happened, rather than the usual sense of compulsion of "must". "la una" - I wrote that in my homework, but mistyped it when I wrote this post... Ooops. "día" is masculine, so surely it is "ese" - if not, I'm confused!
I did say that grammar is not my strongest subject and yes, you should wait for other answers. Also regarding ese, oops.
Gracias por tu ayuda.
The workbook says that conditional perfect can be used for conjecture in the remote past, something that you suppose happened, rather than the usual sense of compulsion of "must".
"la una" - I wrote that in my homework, but mistyped it when I wrote this post... Ooops.
"día" is masculine, so surely it is "ese" - if not, I'm confused!
I think your first two constructions are saying "it would have been". It must have been may be "debe haber sido". Also it is "es lA una and esA dia". However, you may well be correct as grammEr is not my strongest subject, hehe
