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- "He recibido tu carta."
24 Comments
892
Yes, carta means "letter", among other things. Here a brief:
- letter (piece of paper in an envelope) - carta
- letter (part of the alphabet) - letra
- playing card - carta
- postcard - (tarjeta) postal
- credit card - tarjeta de crédito
- greeting card - tarjeta de felicitación
1765
Because "got" is a terrible catch all word that should be replaced with something better wherever possible. "Got" is used in place of received/was/obtained/fetched/contracted/arrived/became and so many others. In this instance, the word is "recibido" which directly translates as "received", so that's what you should be learning.
892
I'm up for being convinced otherwise, but "have got" always seemed to me like it was the very British way to express ownership, à la "I have got a small family of three." Not that you have received something. (Even though "get" is literally about receiving or fetching something. But it's not like English makes terribly much sense.)
892
"Receives" is the 3rd-person singular simple present conjugation of "to receive". So it's exclusively used with "he", "she", or "it", or any singular noun, describing something that is currently happening. "The doctor receives an invitation."
"Received" is the simple past conjugation or the past participle. That means it only appears in tenses that cover the past, and they work for any person. "I received your letter." "He has received the highest honours."
892
Oh, um... Spanish verbs have a lot of conjugational forms, while English has just a handful, so there are a lot of Spanish words translating to "receive", one that translates to "receives", and many more that translate to "received". It all depends on which tense you want to go for and which person is doing the receiving.
Present tense:
- recibo - I receive
- recibes - you receive
- recibe - he/she/it receives
- recibimos - we receive
- recibís - you (plur.) receive
- reciben - they receive
Preterite and imperfect tense:
- recibí, recibía - I received
- recibiste, recibías - you received
- recibió, recibía - he/she/it received
- recibimos, recibíamos - we received
- recibisteis, recibíais - you (plur.) received
- recibieron, recibían - they received
Perfect tenses:
- conjugated form of haber + the participle form recibido.
Not doing the subjunctive forms now. Or conditional. >.>;
So better forget word-for-word translations when talking about verbs and rather learn conjugation tables. :)
892
Yea. For most European languages you don't get around learning lots of conjugation. I've been speaking English for over 15 years now and I'm still occasionally freaking out. |D
892
The Spanish he (and the other present-tense conjugations of haber) are super-small words that can easily be mistaken. But at least in the normal-speed sentence, the lady clearly doesn't put an 'l' sound in there. You should also use your Spanish knowledge and realise that "el recibido" doesn't make a lot of sense.