Hace mucho tiempo en una galaxia muy, muy, lejana

I run a Spanish Meet Up group in Atlanta and every week the same question comes up, "How long have you been studying Spanish?"  And my answer is always the same:

Llevo casi 10 años aprendiendo español
I've been learning Spanish for almost 10 years

Some of you may be surprised to see that you can answer that question with the verb llevar, but that's a lesson for another day.

There's nothing wrong with that response.  In fact, you will probably impress your Spanish speaking friends with it.  So what are we here to talk about you ask?  The fact that you can say the same thing with the verb hacer.

Enough chit-chat, let's get on with it.

Before I get to how to answer the question, let me explain to you how to ask the question.  For that you'll need the phrase "hace cuánto tiempo".  

¿Hace cuánto tiempo que estudias español?
How long have you been studying Spanish?

That isn't a literal translation, so don't get caught up by that.  Now that we've got that out of the way, let's find out how to answer the question.  It's actually pretty simple.  The same verb you used to ask the question is the same verb you use to answer it.

Hace 10 años que estudio español
I've been studying for 10 years

That wasn't hard was it?  Let's look at another example:

¿Hace cuánto tiempo que no fumas?
How long has it been since you stopped smoking?

You see, hace (from the verb hacer) is your verb of choice for talking about how long ago you've been doing something or how long ago something happened.  Here are a few more examples:

¿Hace cuánto tiempo te mudaste a los Estados Unidos?
How long ago did you move to the United States?

Me mudé a los Estados Unidos hace 5 años
I moved to the United States 5 years ago

Hace mucho que no sé nada del él
I haven't heard from him in a long time

Hace mucho tiempo que no voy al cine
I haven't gone to the movies in a long time

Here are a few other ways you could have answered that last question.  You may not find these in your Spanish book, but trust me they're very common responses.

Hace mucho tiempo
A long time ago

uuuy, hace mucho
hmmm, a long time ago

Notice in that last example I omitted the word "tiempo", but it's understood.

Here's one more example:

We've known for a long time that women bring us happiness.

Lastly let's translate the title of this post:

Hace mucho tiempo en una galaxia muy, muy, lejana
A long time ago in a galaxy very, very far away

If you don't know what movie this line belongs to, well, I just don't know what to say.

Ya esta!  Así de facíl.  Any questions?  I know, I didn't translate that.  Consider it your tarea (homework).

Be sure to subscribe to this blog via email (at the very top of the right hand side of the page) and follow me on FaceBook to get additional tips on the Spanish language and even more free resources!

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Oh!  I mentioned I run a Spanish Meet Up group in Atlanta.  Feel free to pay us a visit if you find yourself in our neck of the woods.  Just ask for the Spanish group, everybody there knows us.

Marlees Spanish Class

¡Hasta la próxima!

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How to say would have in Spanish

My previous two post covered how to say could have and should have in Spanish.  Here are the links for those posts:

How to say Should Have in Spanish

How to say Could Have in Spanish

Today we'll finish off this series by looking at how to say Would Have in Spanish.

HOW TO SAY WOULD HAVE IN SPANISH

To say would have in Spanish, you need the verb haber.  Haber is an auxilary or helping verb, but don't worry about that for now.  All you need to do for the moment is learn the patterns I'm going to give you.  Eventually you'll have to know how to conjugate the verb haber in the conditional perfect tense, but today I'm going to do that for you, just like in the previous posts.

You also need to be able to form past participles.  If you read my other posts, you've already seen how to do that.  But for those of you who missed those posts, creating a past participle is easy.  All that means is you need the "-ido" or "-ado" version of the verb.  With the exception of a few irregular verbs, "-ido" and "-ado" are the only things you need to form the past participle of a verb.  Here's a very nice page that's explains how to do that in plain English.

Forming Past Participles

Just like before, I'm going to give you the basic pattern:

Haber + verb (past participle)

Let's go ahead and expand this pattern to include all the conjugations of haber in the conditional perfect tense.

I would have
Habría + verb (-ido, -ado)

You would have
Habrías + verb  (-ido, -ado)

He/she would have
Habría + verb  (-ido, -ado)

They would have
Habrían + verb  (-ido, -ado)

We should have
Habríamos + verb  (-ido, -ado)

If you read my previous posts on how to say could have and should have in Spanish, you already know we're going to work with the same examples as before.

Habría dormido más tiempo
I would have slept longer

She/He would have danced all night
 Ella Habría bailado toda la noche

We would have gone to the beach
Nos habríamos haber ido a la playa

They would have called
Habrían llamado

This is the part where I mention a few other resources where you can find help.  If you read the other posts you've already seen these.  If not, read on.  I think you'll find these suggestions to be quite useful.

Most likely you're going to need a little more help and practice to truly master how to say would have in Spanish.  One great source of practice is the book Spanish Verb Tenses.

Chapter 23 offers a great explanation of the conditional perfect tense and plenty of exercises for you to sharpen your skills with.

Click here or on the image to take a look at the book on Amazon.  You can get a peek inside the book as well.  I actually own this book and it's really helpful for learning how to conjugate any verb  tense, not just the conditional perfect.

There's also a Kindle version.

Another option to help you with those pesky verb conjugations that I wish had been around when I started is the Verbarrator.

It's an amazing tool that teaches you verb conjugations with practical examples that you can see and hear spoken by native speakers.  It will also add new vocabulary to your Spanish toolkit at the same time. I bought a copy and I'm not going to lie to you, if you take your Spanish seriously it's money well spent.  Anyway, click here or on the image to check it out.


So now you have a couple of options to help you with nailing down those conditional perfect verb tense conjugations, but mastering how to say would have in Spanish to the point where you can say it on demand with zero effort is another thing, and for that you'll need Learning Spanish Like Crazy Level 3.  Among other things it devotes two full lessons to saying would have in Spanish.  You can click here to check it out.

I hope you found today's topic useful.

¡Hasta la próxima!
Until next time!

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Google Finance adds exchanges from Brazil, Turkey, Thailand, Austria, and Switzerland

We want you to have the world’s financial data at your fingertips. We’ve launched five new exchanges on Google Finance -- try these examples to see them in action:

BM&F Bovespa (Brazil): AmBev, Petrobras, Índice Bovespa
Borsa Istanbul (Turkey): Turkcell, İş Bankası
The Stock Exchange of Thailand: PTT, Siam Bank
SIX Swiss Exchange: Nestlé, Novartis, Swiss Market Index
Wiener Borse (Austria): OMV, Voestalpine

As always, you can see the full list of stock exchanges we make available.

Posted by Greg Pennington, Product Manager, Google Finance

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How to say should have in Spanish

In my last post I talked about how to say could have in Spanish.  Today we're going to talk about how to say should have in Spanish.

If you didn't read my post on How to say could have in Spanish, just click here.

Now let's get to the task at hand.

HOW TO SAY SHOULD HAVE IN SPANISH

To say should have in Spanish, you need the verb deber.  Deber means should or ought to.  You will have to know how to conjugate the verb deber in the conditional tense, but don't worry, I'm going to help you with that too.  And just like saying could have in Spanish, you'll also need the helping verb haber.  It doesn't need to be conjugated, you just use it as is.

The last thing you need to know is how to form past participles.  All that means is you need to the "-ido" or "-ado" version of the verb.  With the exception of a few irregular verbs, "-ido" and "-ado" are the only things you need to form the past participle of a verb.  Here's a very nice page that's explains how to do that in plain English.

Forming Past Participles

Just like I did when I explained how to say could have in Spanish, I'm going to give you the basic pattern:

Deber + haber + verb (past participle)

Let's go ahead and expand this pattern to include all the conjugations of deber in the conditional tense.

I should have
Debería haber + verb (-ido, -ado)

You should have
Deberías haber  + verb  (-ido, -ado)

He/she should have
Debería haber  + verb  (-ido, -ado)

They should have
Deberían haber  + verb  (-ido, -ado)

We should have
Deberíamos haber  + verb  (-ido, -ado)

While those are helpful, nothing beats a few good examples. And just to keep things simple, I'm going to work with the same examples I used in the How to say could have in Spanish post.

Debería haber dormido más tiempo
I should have slept longer

She/He could have danced all night
 Ella debería haber bailado toda la noche

We should have gone to the beach
Nos debreríamos haber ido a la playa

They should have called
Deberían haber llamado

There you go.  Simple right?

Even though this really isn't that hard, you may find yourself needing a little extra help to really nail down those conditional verb tenses for deber, or any verb for that matter.  Here are a couple of suggestions.

If you're the old fashioned type and you like the traditional reading and writing exercises, a pretty good book to use is this one:

Click here or on the image to take a look at the book on Amazon.  You can get a peek inside the book as well.  I actually own this book and it's really helpful for learning how to conjugate any verb  tense, not just the conditional.

Another option to help you with those pesky verb conjugations that I wish had been around when I started is the Verbarrator.

It's an amazing tool that teaches you verb conjugations with practical examples that you can see and hear spoken by native speakers.  It will also add new vocabulary to your Spanish toolkit at the same time. I bought a copy and I'm not going to lie to you, if you take your Spanish seriously it's money well spent.  Anyway, click here or on the image to check it out.



While I do think the Verbarrator is probably the best and most effective tool on the market for learning verb conjugations, you can still find plenty of free Spanish verb conjugation trainers on the internet with a simple Google search.  One that I used quite a bit in the past is the Spaleon Verb Conjugation Trainer.

So now you have a couple of options to help you with nailing down those conditional verb tense conjugations, but mastering how to say should have in Spanish to the point where you can say it on demand with zero effort is another thing, and for that you'll need Learning Spanish LikeCrazy Level 3.  Among other things it devotes two full lessons to saying should have in Spanish.  You can click here to check it out.

Well, enough is enough.  I hope you found today's topic useful.

¡Hasta la próxima!
Until next time!

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