Answers
May 11, 2010 - 06:41 PM
You are right about the they Ellos not needing parentheses, and also that correct/right would be much better than a Spanglish ’no?’. Also about the two options for ’quedarse’ that should be accepted I also agree with you, as both as correct, so Fluenz should accept them both. Also "I don’t know him a lot" again sounds a little Spanglish, so that also will need to be changed.
For "Fui al banco a abrir una cuenta", I was told that they were sure that at some point it was explained that sometimes with the verb ’ir’ or ’ir a’ that a/para are sometimes used interchangeably. My colleague couldn’t remember off the top of her head exactly when this is taught, so I do apologize if this is still yet to come later or in level 5 and if it hasn’t been explained yet.
I’ll give you an example in the meantime anyway. I believe you should have seen the ’para + infintive verb’ structure to show the reason of doing something is before, in this case they are using a ’a + infinitive verb’ construction for similar meaning.
If I were to say "voy/fui al banco para abrir una cuenta" or "voy/fui al banco a abrir una cuenta" both would be understood as more or less the same thing (though I’m sure a linguist could point out a slightly different grammatical concept at work, but the end result would be the same).
Again I do apologize for the confusion. I’d also like to mention that although at least when it comes to the article-noun combination, they try to avoid the double a-a sound, but in other times, it will happen such as in verb constructions. Soy you could very likely hear ’voy a atacar.../ vas a abrir.../ vamos a asustar... and many other examples. Please keep in mind that when you hear something like those examples on the street, they’ll more than likely pronounce both ’a’ sounds as the one.
Having said that, I think at least in the above example, we should change it to para, because, the para + infinitive verb construction we have seen already, and also, it might be hard to hear the a + a sounds for the write the phrase you hear exercise.
For "Para que fecha debe nacer su hija" sentence, the Spanish speakers here had no problem with it, but you’re right in that this construction hasn’t been seen yet. In this context, the debe is being in a way similar to how we would use ’supposed to’ in English, so it would be "around/for which date is your daughter supposed to be born?"
Also for "Vivieron...y despues se mudaron", I think then makes sense, but afterwards would be more appropriate. I think perhaps afterwards wouldn’t fit in that example, so perhaps that’s why they used the then.
Again sorry for any confusion, as that is not our intention. While learning a language is certainly a long and windy round, we aim at trying to give as straightforward examples as we can. Thanks again and your input will help us to make the improvements.
For "Fui al banco a abrir una cuenta", I was told that they were sure that at some point it was explained that sometimes with the verb ’ir’ or ’ir a’ that a/para are sometimes used interchangeably. My colleague couldn’t remember off the top of her head exactly when this is taught, so I do apologize if this is still yet to come later or in level 5 and if it hasn’t been explained yet.
I’ll give you an example in the meantime anyway. I believe you should have seen the ’para + infintive verb’ structure to show the reason of doing something is before, in this case they are using a ’a + infinitive verb’ construction for similar meaning.
If I were to say "voy/fui al banco para abrir una cuenta" or "voy/fui al banco a abrir una cuenta" both would be understood as more or less the same thing (though I’m sure a linguist could point out a slightly different grammatical concept at work, but the end result would be the same).
Again I do apologize for the confusion. I’d also like to mention that although at least when it comes to the article-noun combination, they try to avoid the double a-a sound, but in other times, it will happen such as in verb constructions. Soy you could very likely hear ’voy a atacar.../ vas a abrir.../ vamos a asustar... and many other examples. Please keep in mind that when you hear something like those examples on the street, they’ll more than likely pronounce both ’a’ sounds as the one.
Having said that, I think at least in the above example, we should change it to para, because, the para + infinitive verb construction we have seen already, and also, it might be hard to hear the a + a sounds for the write the phrase you hear exercise.
For "Para que fecha debe nacer su hija" sentence, the Spanish speakers here had no problem with it, but you’re right in that this construction hasn’t been seen yet. In this context, the debe is being in a way similar to how we would use ’supposed to’ in English, so it would be "around/for which date is your daughter supposed to be born?"
Also for "Vivieron...y despues se mudaron", I think then makes sense, but afterwards would be more appropriate. I think perhaps afterwards wouldn’t fit in that example, so perhaps that’s why they used the then.
Again sorry for any confusion, as that is not our intention. While learning a language is certainly a long and windy round, we aim at trying to give as straightforward examples as we can. Thanks again and your input will help us to make the improvements.