Quien puede explicar...

[Noelia]

...por qué estas frases tienen subjuntivo y no indicativo?


- No veía que la nieve cayera

- Me molestaba que ella siempre llegara tarde


En mi cabeza, puedo decir las dos con indicativo y siento que cambia un poco el significado pero no lo puedo precisar... una mano please!


Y otra cosa:

¿Quien sabe la diferencia en inglés de

- Durar vs. Tardar vs. Llevar ?

[johnr]

La primera pregunta, digo lo siguiente.

- No veía que la nieve cayera
Con indicativo - that it was snowing
con subj - that it might be snowing



- Me molestaba que ella siempre llegara tarde

con ind. - she always used to arrive late
con subj - that she might arrive late.

La segunda pregunta -

Durar - to last. ¿Cuánto dura la película?
Tardar - to take pero en sentido de tiempo. ¿Cuánto tarda el viaje en avión?
LLevar - to take - pero en sentido de 'take alguien o algo - ¿vas a llevar a tu hijo?

[Noelia]

Si pero mira esta frase:


- Cuando nos despertamos por la mañana, nuestro cuerpo LLEVA 10 horas sin tomar ningún alimento.


La entiendes? como la explicas?

[sendai]

- No veía que la nieve cayera

Seguro que la nieve caía, pero no la veías. No puedes afirmar con seguridad que se caía, pero da igual: lo importante es que no la veías caer. O ahora sí sabes que se caía, pero igual lo importante es que no la veías.

Con el indicativo, estás afirmando dos cosas: caía la nieve, y no la veías caer.

- Me molestaba que ella siempre llegara tarde

Me parece que está mal dicho con el indicativo, pero la respuesta sería lo mismo que con la frase de arriba: Con el indicativo, estás afirmando que ella siempre llegaba tarde y además que te molestaba.

Con el subjuntivo, lo importante es que te molestaba. Si alguien viene después y te demuestra que no es cierto que siempre llegara tarde, da lo mismo. De cualquier forma te molestaba la percepción de su tardanza, y eso es lo que quieres hacer resaltar.

[sendai]

- Cuando nos despertamos por la mañana, nuestro cuerpo LLEVA 10 horas sin tomar ningún alimento.

La entiendes? como la explicas?

Yo la entiendo como "carries" en el idioma intermedio que uso para entender el castellano. Por supuesto este uso de "carry" no es muy literal; el significado es algo como "has" o "has accumulated" 10 horas.

[johnr]

Sin mirar la respuesta de Paul, traduciría esta frase como,

When we awake in the morning , our body has been 10 hours without food

y la explicación - el verbo llevar es un super-verbo y tiene
muchas aplicaciones. Realmente no sé.

- Cuando nos despertamos por la mañana, nuestro cuerpo LLEVA 10 horas sin tomar ningún alimento.


La entiendes? como la explicas?

[Robie]

This whole thread came out of my clases with Noelia and I'm trying not to be bullheaded, but.........here's a comment I sent to her related to Paul's answer and she wanted me to post it here.


"I still don't understand it. He said with the indicative, you're confirming two things: That the snow fell and that you didn't see it fall. But if i say "I didn't see the snow fall" I could still know that it fell because how else did it get on the ground if it didn't fall. Of course, if it fell in the middle of the night and then it melted before I looked outside, I can understand this but it seems like it could be right to say it either way. In my humble opinion."

Thoughts?

[Robie]

Mi libro (Big Red Book of Spanish Vocabulary) tiene una tabla de las palabras más importantes de la lengua según la frecuencía de uso.

Según la tabla-
llevar(se) es #87 en la lista y tiene estos sentidos:

• "To carry" como: Juan lleva libros - John is carrying books
  
• "To take with" como: Ella llevó a sus nietos - She took her grandchildren (with her)
  
• "To contain (to have in)" como: Las enchiladas llevan aceitunas - The enchiladas have olives in them.
  
• "To have (as an attribute)" como: La letra lleva acento - The letter has an accent
  
• "To get along (with each other)" como: Nos llevamos muy bien - We get along very well
  
• llevar puesto "To wear" como Él llevaba puesta una corbata - He was wearing a tie
  

durar es #1165 en la lista y tiene solo un sentido:

• "To last" como La película dura dos horas - the movie lasts two hours
  

tardar(se) es #1794 en la lista y tiene estos sentidos (sin ejemplos)

• "To take a long time"
  
• "To take a certain amount of time"
  

Creo que el punto de la pregunta es identificar las diferencias cuando usamos 'to take' en ingles.

En los ejemplos de 'durar' también diría "The movie takes two hours" pero si pienso en el sentido de "to last" en vez de "to take" ahora tiene más sentido.

Ahora, la pregunta es si se puede usar "tardar" para describir cuanto tiempo dura una película? Podría decir "La película tarda dos horas"? En este sentido, es decir "La película [takes a certain amount of time = 2 hours] o [lasts = 2 hours]". Me parece que sí se puede decir las dos formas pero no estoy segura.

[sendai]

robie said:

"I still don't understand it. He said with the indicative, you're confirming two things: That the snow fell and that you didn't see it fall. But if i say "I didn't see the snow fall" I could still know that it fell because how else did it get on the ground if it didn't fall. Of course, if it fell in the middle of the night and then it melted before I looked outside, I can understand this but it seems like it could be right to say it either way. In my humble opinion."

Hi, Robie. I didn't quite understand what you are saying. But I think my explanation was confusing, so let me try again.

Neither the indicative nor the subjunctive denies that it snowed. Also, I'm not sure there is really that much difference between the two sentences. I think it's probably a pretty subtle difference that many people wouldn't even notice.

I would use the subjunctive for two situations: 1) I want to emphasize that I didn't *see* the snow fall. Everyone already knows it fell, there is no argument about that, but my point is that *I* didn't see it falling. This is probably the more common reason for using the subjunctive here, which tends to deemphasize (but not deny) the fact that it snow fell. 2) I am not sure that it actually fell. I didn't confirm it with my own eyes, and perhaps I doubt that it fell. But in any case it doesn't matter if it fell or not. The fact is that I didn't see it fall.

The indicative is more straightforward. It just means that I didn't see the snow fall. The snow fell but I didn't see it fall.

Noelia, cuando nos vas a dar la respuesta?

[Robie]

So, it's not really that it happened or it didn't but kind of what you're trying to emphasize or de-emphasize. If you use indicative it makes the two parts equal in importance and using subjunctive is a way to break that equality???

Is that the gist of all of this? I'm not sure I have it yet, but maybe this is starting to get me on the right track.

Thanks!

[Noelia]

La respuesta no la tengo! Por eso le pedí a Robie que lo escriba aqui. Supuse que ustedes, desde otro punto de vista, como tuvieron que aprenderlo lo podrían explicar. Creo que Paul está en lo correcto, y ahora que lo dicen, yo usaría esas frases en estas situaciones:

- No veía que la nieve cayera <-- I'd say it in an agressive intonation, almost as claiming that, if I didnt see it fall, it could have gotten there in some other way. Of course this reasoning is stupid, but it's the usage and the mood that I wanted to show you.

- No veía que la nieve caía <--- I'd say this in a worried intonation. Am I going blind? How come everybody could see it fall and I was there, in the middle of the street and didn't see anything??

There might be many exceptions and many others way to use it, but stick to Paul's rules which, to me, are the ones that work!

[sendai]

robie said:

So, it's not really that it happened or it didn't but kind of what you're trying to emphasize or de-emphasize. If you use indicative it makes the two parts equal in importance and using subjunctive is a way to break that equality???

Yeah, that's about right. I'm not a native speaker, but that's the way I see it.

The subjunctive in the snow phrase is sort of like that phrase we have: I can neither confirm nor deny.... You're not admitting that it snowed, but you're not denying it either. (Though if you don't believe that it fell, you would use the subjunctive).

With the other phrase (Me molestaba que ella siempre llegara tarde), you have to use the subjunctive, so you don't have this difference in feel that Noelia put in her post. My understanding of that phrase is that you are mentioning her arriving late not because you're trying to assert it as a fact but because you want to comment on it: it used to bug you. And to comment on it you have to mention it, but you do it in a way that takes the emphasis off it.

However, since you have to use the subjunctive after "me molestaba que", you can also just memorize it as a grammatical rule.