DaraghM Diglot Senior Member Ireland Joined 6151 days ago 1947 posts - 2923 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French, Russian, Hungarian
| Message 1 of 6 19 June 2009 at 11:43am | IP Logged |
I'm a little confused about which past tenses are used with the gerund, and how to pick the correct usage.
E.g.
1. Yo estaba leyendo
2. Yo estuve leyendo
3. He estado leyendo(?).
Is the third option possible, and does it mean the same as Llevar + gerundio ?
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Breogan Bilingual Tetraglot Groupie Spain Joined 5916 days ago 42 posts - 48 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Galician*, French, English Studies: German, Russian, Arabic (classical)
| Message 2 of 6 19 June 2009 at 5:16pm | IP Logged |
DaraghM wrote:
I'm a little confused about which past tenses are used with the gerund, and how to pick the correct usage.
E.g.
1. Yo estaba leyendo
2. Yo estuve leyendo
3. He estado leyendo(?).
Is the third option possible, and does it mean the same as Llevar + gerundio ?
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Yes, that's right, like in the following examples:
"He estado leyendo desde las seis" = "Llevo leyendo desde las seis", both sentences mean "I've been reading since six o'clock"
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kerateo Triglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5646 days ago 112 posts - 180 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English, French Studies: Italian
| Message 3 of 6 10 July 2009 at 11:04am | IP Logged |
1. Yo estaba leyendo
I was reading
2. Yo estuve leyendo
I was reading
3. He estado leyendo(?).
I have been reading
the diference between the first and the second is that the first is used when something else happened
Estaba leyendo cuando llegaste
Estaba leyendo antes del huracan
Estaba leyendo cuando me mori :)
the second is used when nothing happened you are just saying something that you did, usually as an answer to a question like ¿que hiciste durante mi ausencia?
Estuve leyendo durante dos años
Estuve leyendo a Freud
Estuve leyendo hasta que se me cansaron los ojos
ohh.. and i left the "Yo" out intentionaly is just plain wrong :)
Edited by kerateo on 10 July 2009 at 11:05am
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Akipenda Lugha Diglot Groupie Canada Joined 5738 days ago 78 posts - 82 votes Speaks: English*, French Studies: Swahili, Sign Language, Spanish
| Message 4 of 6 18 July 2009 at 8:18am | IP Logged |
In my (mexican) Spanish class I was told that 'hube' is no longer commonly used and to
just use había for both the imperfect and preterite perfect progressive senses.
So for instance, I wouldn't say 'Ayer, hube estado leyendo...' even if it refers to a
particular complete instance. Is this true?
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TheBiscuit Tetraglot Senior Member Mexico Joined 5923 days ago 532 posts - 619 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish, Italian Studies: German, Croatian
| Message 5 of 6 20 July 2009 at 6:44pm | IP Logged |
Akipenda Lugha wrote:
In my (mexican) Spanish class I was told that 'hube' is no longer commonly used and to
just use había for both the imperfect and preterite perfect progressive senses.
So for instance, I wouldn't say 'Ayer, hube estado leyendo...' even if it refers to a
particular complete instance. Is this true? |
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Yes, it's not used here.
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Javi Senior Member Spain Joined 5981 days ago 419 posts - 548 votes Speaks: Spanish*
| Message 6 of 6 20 July 2009 at 7:23pm | IP Logged |
Akipenda Lugha wrote:
In my (mexican) Spanish class I was told that 'hube' is no longer commonly used and to
just use había for both the imperfect and preterite perfect progressive senses.
So for instance, I wouldn't say 'Ayer, hube estado leyendo...' even if it refers to a
particular complete instance. Is this true? |
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Hi, your sentence is just wrong, and I suspect that always has been, so it's not a question of not being commonly used. The pretérito anterior (hube terminado) is not used in speech any longer, but you can see it in literature. In your progressive sentence is weird though.
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