Some questions on Spanish... (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

Some questions on Spanish...
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9 messages over 2 pages: 1 2

dbh2ppa
Diglot
Groupie
Costa Rica
Joined 5696 days ago
44 posts - 74 votes

Speaks: Spanish*, English
Studies: Italian, Japanese, Sign Language

Message 9 of 9

05 September 2009 at 12:00am | IP Logged

Crush wrote:

1.
Se lo llevaron.
Me tomé el café.

As explained above, think of the verb as "llevar-se", which is something like "to take with", or "to take away".
"Se llevaron mi comida." -> They took away my food
"¿Se llevó el almuerzo?" -> Did he take his lunch with him?

Crush wrote:

2.
Se empleó a 3 muchachas.

When using the passive tense in reference to multiple people, is the verb always conjugated in the singular? Se trajo (sg) a los especialistas vs. Se cantaron (pl) canciones.

Se trajo a los especialistas./Se trajeron a los especialistas.
First one is either impersonal "The specialists were brought", or singular "He brought the specialists". The second one implies that a group of people performed the action "They brought the specialists". (In both cases, excepting the impersonal, the "se" implies that they were with the specialists and brought them along with them, instead of having them shipped... you should really look for exaples of this in context.)

"Se empleó a 3 muchachas"/"Se emplearon 3 muchachas"
They sound the same to me... Be careful though, because in some places "emplear", though it can be understood to mean "hire", usually means "use" so, you'd end up with "3 young women were used" instead of "3 young women were hired", which would be said "Se contrató a 3 muchachas"/"Se contrataron 3 muchachas" (at least in colloquial Costa Rican Spanish, can't say about other places).
/of course, given the context, people will understand it to mean "hire" instead of "use", but without enough context it can be ambiguous./

Crush wrote:

3.
El tráfico ha sido interrumpido, que pasará?
Será un choque.
Estaría borracho y habrá querido pasar entre dos árboles cuando había sólo uno.
"Traffic has been stopped, I wonder what's going on?"
"It's probably a car accident."
"He was probably drunk and wanted to go between two trees when there was only one."

You're right "I wonder" would be nearly correct. Be sure to use ¿ and ?, without them (or proper intonation) you're just speaking in future tense.
¿Qué pasará? -> I wonder what's going on.
¿Será un choque? -> Could it be a car crash?/I wonder if it's a car crash.
Estaría borracho y habría querido pasar entre dos árboles cuando había sólo uno. -> This one is tricky. It's not the same as the two above. Either it sounds a little like a chronicle "He was drunk, and wanted/tried to..." or, depending on context, could be translated as "(Had I drunk that much) I would be drunk, and would have wanted to drive....".

Crush wrote:

4.
Probablemente lo sepan/saben también.

I assume using the indicative here means you are more certain, but to what degree? The only example I can think of where it might make sense to use the indicative would be as a sort of sarcastic remark (where the answer is obvious): "Which leg did he break?" "He probably broke the one with the cast on it."

Probablemente lo saben también. -> This sounds ok.
Probablemente lo sepan también. -> I can't explain why, but this sounds weird. I'd understand it to mean the same as the above.
Es probable que lo sepan también. -> This sounds better.
They all mean the same. Don't sweat the details like that. After being around Spanish for a while you'll get a feel for when to use which to sound more natural, but they all serve the same communicative purpose.

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