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- "Yo sería más fuerte si hicie…
"Yo sería más fuerte si hiciera más ejercicio."
Translation:I would be stronger if I were to exercise more.
76 Comments
I realize some of you may be tempted to ignore the subjunctive. I tried to avoid it for awhile, but it is quite important in Spanish. I am told that without grasping it fully it is impossible to ever become a fluent Spanish speaker. So now I am grabbing the subjunctive bull by the horns, to borrow an apt metaphor.
Hola Amigo Fluent 2B: Right! You cannot possibly speak proper Spanish without subjunctive. I sometimes think they should teach subjunctive at the beginning. Qué le vaya bien.
Why would you? At the beginning all you want to do is ask for things, know where things are etc. If it were taught at the beginning it would just complicate things.
not to mention scaring people off of Spanish early on so they would't want to learn anymore.. it is tricky to learn at the end, but everything is tricky in it's own time, you just don't want to throw it all at someone at once.
391
Not really. In Spanish, it is quite natural. The most common examples could be taught at an early stage, without too much explanation.
certainly they could be. But why¨? As I said in the beginning you just want to get by a bit. Understand a bit. it is just not necessary.
I would be better at Spanish if I were to learn the subjunctive..... argh!!!!!!!!!!!
"I would be stronger if i would do more exercize" is there a reason that is not correct?
Just a note: There isn't really a normal verb for exercise in Spanish. Instead it seems they use the phrase "hacer ejercicio" to mean the verb "to exercise."
So..
Hago ejercicio: I exercise
Hacemos ejercicio: We exercise.
Etc...My point was it isn't necessary to translate "hacer ejercicio" as "do exercise" or "make exercise" Just exercise is fine. :)
Jev, my guess is the "would do" is some conditional form not found in the given sentence.
- 391
Yes, that is wrong. Look at the conditionals in the English language. You are trying to use the second conditional. "I would be stronger if I exercised more". Find "conditionals" in Google, there are very good explanations.
- 391
I answered I would be stronger if I would do more exercise
It is not proper English, because it is not a correct form of a conditional, but I gambled that DuoLingo would accept it in this way.
In Spanish, conditional + conditional in an if, then clause is not allowed. The form in this sentence if if + subjunctive, then conditional.
If you are in the habit of using two conditionals in if, then statements in English and then try to translate it literally back the other way to Spanish, you will have problems because it doesn't work.
"If I were to do/take more exercise" is correct but may sound overly formal and not natural to many people because the subjunctive is being used less and less especially in spoken English.
The alternative is to use the simple past tense in the if clause for a hypothetical situation. "If I did more exercise" (US) or "If I took more exercise." (UK)
i would be stronger if i do more more exercise - wrong??? english natives {i'm not}.. am i the only one who thinks that this sentence { and the other correct one } has unnatural and incorrect english?
It's the subjunctive. As in "If I were rich, I would buy a big house." You used that when you are speaking theoretically. It's not likey you will become rich, and in this case it's not likely the speaker will exercise more. This is fairly advanced grammar in English, and probably in Spanish as well.
Sorry about the typos. Should be likely not likey. And it should be "You use that" not "You used that" but I'm glad I helped.
Is it right to say "I would have been stronger if i were to do more exercise"
You're sort of mixing tenses, SyamkumarR. "I would have been stronger" refers to a time in the past (I don't know the technical names for the various past tenses, but maybe someone else can tell us.) "If I were to do more exercise" is the subjunctive, which is a special case; it doesn't refer to a real situation but more something that you wish could happen or probably could happen. For example, "If I were rich, I would buy you a house." So, to make sense, you can either say, "I would be stronger if I were to do more exercise." or "I would have been stronger if I had done more exercise."
I don't have any problems with the English subjunctive and conditionals, in fact, I love and respect them. But it's really nice when someone explains it really well to someone who needs an explanation. Please, have a lingot, bonnie!
The recommended translation sounds like good English to me: "I would be stronger if I were to exercise more."
Blackbirdfly, you would have to use the past tense, "if I did more exercise". This is actually the much more common form. The subjunctive "if I were to" is practically extinct in the UK and Australia and is dying out in the US. However, the subjunctive "hiciera" is absolutely required in Spanish.
muchas gracias arturohiero! i'm still thinking whether to upgrade my language skills above the street level. for example- in Israel, the street language is not that respectful or correct either. iv'e been to Spain , and i have noticed that the formal way and more correct language is much more appreciated than colloquial. how about the U.S?
Good riddance. Subjunctive sentences basically always include words and phrases that indicate that status; no need to conjugate the verb oddly as a redundant indicator.
A recent Frank and Ernest cartoon in a North American newspaper: One caveman to the other: "Hey, I hear you invented the subjunctive." "No, but I sure wish I had!"
- 887
Hi blackbirdfly,
The correct answer would be "I would be stronger if I DID more exercise." If you think about it in these simple terms:
I would be stronger (now) if I did more exercise (in the past). I will be stronger (in the future) if I do more exercise (now).
If you do more exercise now, you will be stronger in the future, but it would have no effect on you in the present. Therefore, conditional English phrases like this require the past tense.
Of course, the speaker is talking in a more general continuous term, 'if I had done, do, and will do', but it's a temporal concept.
I hope this helps!!
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Second time I used the verb "to take" exercise in this and a previous lesson and both times marked wrong. " I would be stronger if I took more exercise" seems to be a much more natural way of speaking than "did more exercise".
I have never heard "to take exercise". I live in the States, and have lived in 10 of them to be exact, including the southeast, pacific northwest, southwest, intermountain west, and midwest regions. I can't say that I've ever heard that phrase. You either exercise (verb) or you do exercise (usually used as noun, as in "I did my morning exercises today"). Hope this helps!
You can take exercise or do exercise depending on where you are on the planet. I think of "taking exercise" as more British and "doing exercise" as more American, but I am sure both are correct.
- 887
Must be a regional thing - completely the opposite for me, "to do exercise" sounds right and "to take exercise" sounds completely wrong. So I think they chose one so as to not confuse learners of English.
"Take exercise" is not wrong. It's British. "I would be stronger if I took more exercise" should be accepted.
My guess is because the noun in spanish is singular "ejercicio" rather than plural "ejercicios"...
I'm guessing that the first verb (sería) is conditional and the second verb (hiciera) is subjunctive.
The past tense "exercised" is supposed to be how it is. Remove the had and you'd do fine.
If the first clause were "I would have been stronger", then the "if I had exercised more" second clause would be right.
- 1546
"were to exercise more"? wtf? could someone explain it to me? i am not a native speaker.
Heeh heeh... don't we all?
Edit: The English Subjunctive and Conditionals require that we use the past verb for hypothetical situations, specifically the "if"-clauses. We're supposed' to use "were" regardless of the Person aand Number of the subject, so it's "*If I were ..., If he were..., If you were..., If it were..., and so on. Please, also note that subjunctive isn't as important in English nowadays as it is in other languages like Spanish, unless you're writing business/formal letters or doing school papers. Nowadays, esp in everyday speech, many people don't observe the subjunctive anymore so they just say, "If I was you, ..."
- 1546
Normally I'd say my English is not that bad. But that could be owed to the fact that I hear much worse English at work or in my private environment.
i translates exercise with "workout". Isn't that the same? And if not, what would be the correct translation for "workout"?
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One of their corrections eouates 'hiciera' with 'got', as in 'if I got more exercise' (?)
That would be correct in some dialects. In any case, you have to use either the subjunctive or simple past tense in the if statement describing a hypothetical situation. There are a few verbs that are correct if you conjugate them correctly.
Subjunctive:
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If I were to take more exercise
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If I were to do more exercise
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If I were to take more exercise
Past tense:
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If I got more exercise
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If I did more exercise
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If I took more exercise
Duo likes us to be as specific with our translation as we can, and the phrase "hacer ejercicio" is "to do exercise" or "to exercise". "Had" would need the verb "tener", which is not in Duo's sentence. Plus, I don't know that a native speaker would use "tener más ejercicio" - I've always heard "hacer" used in this context.
So how the subject for hiciera known? How would I say "I would be stronger if she/he exercised more"?
- 887
Well, you honestly wouldn't. That makes no sense - which is how Spanish works so largely on context. But hypothetically, you would just add the pronoun - "Yo seriá más fuerte si él/ella hiciera más ejercicio."
My incorrect response mirrored DL's acceptable answers, with the exception of the word "much" I wrote "I would be much stronger ..." couldn't mas fierce translate to much stronger?
I think a more correct translation for "yo seria mas fuerte si hiciera mas ejercico "would be "I would be stronger if I had exercised more" or even better, "I would be stronger if I would have exercised more." The reason being that the imperfect subjunctive is used here, not the present subjunctive. "Yo seria mas fuerte si haga mas ejercicio" would be more correct for the "...if I were to exercise more" translation.
Perhaps someone can tell me why I am wrong.
Surely you do not ever 'do' exercise, you 'take' exercise. I put ' I would be stronger if I took more exercise', please tell me whats's wrong with that.
That sounds like a regionalism; which doesn't make it wrong, merely less common (and therefore not yet in Duo's database). I would suggest reporting it the next time it comes up.
There is nothing wrong with either "do exercise" US or "take exercise" UK.
' I would be stronger if I took/did more exercise' (simple past) and ' I would be stronger if I were to take/do more exercise' (subjunctive) should all be accepted.
- 1181
You can combine the words given into "i would be stronger if i were to have more exercise", which is a correct (and common) way of saying the same thing, but it is not accepted.
Subjunctive exists in English too, though most people are not aware of this. Examples: It is necessary that you 'be' on time tomorrow. It's essential that she 'do' it now. If I 'were' a rich man... 'Be' quiet.
