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Spanish Could Have, Should Have | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| sab15 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5213 days ago 39 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Dutch, Portuguese | Message 1 of 4 23 October 2011 at 6:39pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Hi,
I'm a bit unsure of how to express these concepts. Here's an example: I should have written - Yo deberia haber escrito But, what then do the following exactly translate into in English: (1) Yo debia haber escrito (2) Yo debia escribir What about "Could have..." Is "I could have written" Yo podria haber escrito? And, following similar logic with "should" what does "Yo podia haber escrito" translate to? Thanks a lot!! Steven 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Kartof Bilingual Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 5066 days ago 391 posts - 550 votes  Speaks: English*, Bulgarian*, Spanish Studies: Danish | Message 2 of 4 23 October 2011 at 6:47pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
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Debía is the imperfect conjugation of deber. If deber means to have to do, debía would mean "used to have to do".
Yo debía haber escrito = I used to have to have written Yo debía escribir = I used to have to write The same thing with podía. It would mean "was able". Yo podía haber escrito = I was able to have written Any native speakers should feel free to correct me if I'm wrong :P. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5981 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 3 of 4 23 October 2011 at 7:45pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
Debería haber escrito (Spain) Debí haber escrito (many people in LA would prefer that form)
1) I wouldn't use that sentence 2) I was supposed/meant/expected to write
podría/pude haber escrito With pude it sounds like the chance was more real so to speak, although the meaning is more o less the same.
Same as podría 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||||||||
| ellasevia Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2011 Senior Member Germany Joined 6142 days ago 2150 posts - 3229 votes Speaks: English*, German, Croatian, Greek, French, Spanish, Russian, Swedish, Portuguese, Turkish, Italian Studies: Catalan, Persian, Mandarin, Japanese, Romanian, Ukrainian | Message 4 of 4 23 October 2011 at 7:58pm | IP Logged | |||||||||||
I agree. To put the subtle difference into more concrete terms, pude makes it sound like the chance was definite and real and existed at one point but you didn't take advantage of it, whereas podría makes it sound like more of a hypothetical chance that could have existed given other conditions. 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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