Perro is a direct object, and the lost dog is your dog, a pet, so it takes the personal "a." If you had lost five dollars, there would not be an "a."

Spanish is my mother tongue and I would NEVER use an "a" in that sentence. "Usted perdió su perro" is perfectly fine. I would use the "a", maybe, when the loss has an emotional meaning: "perdió a su madre en un accidente" (meaning she died). In the same way, if a person "perdió a su perro" I would totally understand that the dog is dead.

The drop-down list says "perdió" means "lost", and since "Did you lost your dog?" is incorrect English, I put "Have you lost your dog?". I am sure there are multiple ways of saying this sentence in both Spanish and English. I'm with you on wondering why Duo won't accept this sentence, and what other ways it could be said in Spanish.

Your "present perfect" tense is correct paul -t but that is the point: it is a different tense from the one given and it is NOT equivalent in English or Spanish. We don't say "lost you your dog?" In English these days! Form the question thus: "did you lose your dog?" Also use did for negation : " I did not lose..."

de acuerdo

In context I think that is correct. Duolingo makes it confusing. Sometimes they accept all grammatically possible answers, sometimes they won't accept a gramatically correct answer because it does not have sufficient context.

Why does it take you more than the shown Duolingo answer to understand what the Spanish statement MEANS?

Umm....the context was "usted", which is "you", so while "su" can mean their, it's not the correct answer.

Lubita, "Did you lose their dog" is a perfectly correct answer. "Your (formal)/his/her/your (plural)/their dog", they are all correct translations.

Hi Wei-Da, in that case we would say "perdió contra" su perro. We can say "ganarle a alguien" (less common but correct depending on context: "ganar contra alguien"), but we always say "perder contra alguien". Cheers.

Both are correct. I don't think I use the formal "you" any more than once every year or two (I'm from Uruguay)... in other regions like Colombia you can see the use of "usted" even between family members, say son and mother for example. So, it would depend on regionalisms, as a rule if you visit a Spanish speaking country you should just imitate the use of locals.

Yap (y)

"¿Usted perdió a su perro?" is preterirte or simple past tense which would be "Did you lose your dog?" in English. "Have you lost your dog?" is perfect past, which would be "¿Han perdido a su perro?" in Spanish. While they mean essentially the same thing, Duo marked you wrong because it is trying to teach preterirte tense in this lesson, not perfect past.

We need to learn all the usages of "su." I recommend you switch between them, using a different one each time you see the sentence. None are the "right one" to use here. None are wrong.

I agree sjrb! There is an obvious translation that requires no clarification and the one to assume but there are deranged people who try to put the least likely translation for some peculiar reason of their own and then tell the thread about it.

I take it you are not a native English speaker vr8? You are correct "lose" is present tense on its own but you ignore the auxiliary verb "did". This is the past tense of " do" and plays same role in the past as 'do' in the present. It is correct to say for example "I did lose my dog" as well as "I lost my dog" in some circumstances, eg for emphasis. But see my post above for how it is used for questions.

he/she/it and you when it is ''usted'' which takes the third person ending. ''Perdiste'' is for tú. You knew all along, didn't you ?

Or you could say in full, “Did you loose your dog with Ex-lax?"

Best to have a goose. They are already loose.

Because it does not have to be “tu.” If you were talking to a stranger it would never be "tu."

If you get the english sentence "you lost your dog", you can perfectly translate it for "tú". The only things to keep in mind is that "tú" (pers pron) has an accent and of course you have to use a different conjugation than with "su".

"TÚ perdiste TU perro" is correct. Then in Uruguay and Argentina (among others) we would actually say "Vos perdiste tu perro". In common use though, we would simply omit the personal pronoun and say "perdiste tu perro" which makes it a lot easier I think.

Yes, but it also can be used for your in formal situations. Usted takes the same conjugation and possessive pronoun as el/ella.

Unfortunately, that's not accurate English. The difference between 'lose' and 'lost' is quite tricky. 'Lost' is a past participle and also an adjective. Clearly, in this sentence it isn't being used as an adjective.

So, if it is used as past participle, it has to be used with an auxiliary verb - so we could say ""Have you lost your dog?". And 'lost' tells us that it is an action in the past.

Another form could be " Did you lose your dog" where the auxiliary verb moves to the past tense to tell us that the action happened in the past, since 'lose' on its own does not carry that meaning.

You can't say that because it is the wrong tense.

Have you lost your dog? - ¿Has perdido a tu perro?

Have you lost your dog? - ¿Has perdido a tu perro?

The correct simple past form in English is "Did you lose your dog?" Which Duo accepts. I don't consider it petty myself, because this is the preterit tense lesson. The perfect past is taught in another lesson.

It's just "You lost your dog?" In this case, it's using the personal "a" The personal "a" essentially tells you that the object has a personal connection with the subject. Since we really don't do that in English, it can be dropped in translation.

It makes sense, but it isn't what the Spanish sentence says.