121 Comments
Its like a parent saying “Oh yeah, I used to let my son eat, but that was before he died. Oh, if you wanted to know, he died of hunger. I wonder how that happened. I mean, he seemed fine to me.”
I agree, it doesn't make sense as a sentence by itself, but if it is only part of a sentence it works. "My friend used to let his dog eat table scraps." Implying he no longer lets him eat scraps, but he still lets him eat other things.
Well, perhaps he let the dog eat freely, the dog got fat, and now the dog can only eat as much as it needs to eat. Would have been better if it had been explicitly stated.
Yeah that's how I translated it too, but it is ambiguous! Did he leave his dog alone to eat or did he leave his dog because he was going to a restaurant to get something to eat for himself??
Pedantic is what teaches me, Devin. Gracias. I rather make mistakes on an anonymous crowd-source web program than sound like an idiot gringo overseas. BTW, did everyone notice the personal a in the sentence?
The first person said “Then, your poor dog is hungry?” but there must have been a misspelling or something, so you came after it was already corrected.
Well that would explain it. Her dog used to come to his house and eat with his dog. He used to let her dog eat. Now he sends her dog home and only feeds his own dog.
"My friend left his dog to eat." is what I put and was accepted (no objections from me). This sentence could technically mean that the friend left his dog and let the dog eat, but could also mean that the friend left his dog in order to get something to eat for himself. My question is, could you use the Spanish sentence in the same two ways as the English one?
It could perhaps also mean that he had leftovers from eating his dogs, so he left one for someone else. Although I would prefer "to be eaten" in that case, or to extend the sentence: "... for someone else to eat"
Most native speakers will just say dejaba. It can mean used to let or was letting
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The given translation might be setting the scene for a story. "My friend was letting his dog eat. Suddenly,..."
Look, one just has to accept that these are exercises not meant to reflect reality, but only to test the student's knowledge.
'My friend was letting his dog eat' is an accepted and less controversial answer
"My friend was allowing her dog to eat." Why is this wrong? Is "his" always the default assumption for "su?"
I don't know if you got the same question as I did but in mine it said "amigo" not "amiga" which would need "his" not "her".
But the "su" isn't necessarily referring to the subject, is it? It could refer to some other woman's dog, not just el de mi amigo.
Howard, I'm curious, how do I get passed level 11 in Spanish? I see that you are in level 18, but I have no more choices after achieving a nicely dressed plump graduated owl. Thanks in advance.
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After you finish all the courses in a language, most days (maybe every day) one or more of them will be marked for "strengthening". Just keep checking back.
Thank you Howard, that just happened with another language. I appreciate your help. Good day.
It is kind of a funny sentence when you think about the implication that the dog is no longer allowed to eat. Perhaps a better sentence to translate would be "my friend used to let his dog eat popcorn..." or something equally unusual.
Yeah maybe it's a British English thing, but for me that makes no sense.
I just don't get it why the "perro" has an "a" since a dog is not a person. Anybody got an explanation for this?
Generally, the personal 'a' is used when referring to a pet like a cat or a dog. We all know people who treat their dogs as kids.....me included:)
When a person or a pet is the direct object of a sentence add an 'a' (called the personal a) before it.
Eg. Yo veo mi casa (no a because casa house is not a person or pet )
Yo veo a mi madre
So I haven't seen anyone ask this yet, and I didn't make this mistake, I'm just wondering. Could you conceivable say "Mi amigo dejaba comer a su perro."? Could any native speakers tell me if that's grammatically incorrect or if it just sounds stilted?
"...used to..."?
Anyway, shouldn't this be "Mi amigo solía dejaba su perro comer."?
No, because: 1. The dejar -> dejaba conjugation covers the 'used to' part. Unlike English, Spanish doesn't need a separate verb to express this. Same way we don't need a separate verb to put something into the simple past, as we have the conjugation e.g. dejar -> dejé = I left. 2. You have two conjugated verbs together, so if anything it would be "solía dejar".
Ahh... I get the first part of what you said, I didn't realize "debaja" was the verb form of Past Imperfect (yet I should have because of the topic of this lesson). I thought "debaja" was the present form of "let/letting" but I don't know why I thought that too. Yet, why would I say "solía dejar" instead of "solía debaja"? Is that simply not allowed?
This site is good for the conjugations: http://www.spanishdict.com/conjugate/dejar
I don't know the grammar well enough to explain why, but it's kind of like .. 'bebo'='I drink' and 'puedo'='I can' but 'I can drink' isn't 'Puedo bebo' if that makes sense?
p.s. I noticed Duolingo wrecked the formatting in my post, so sorry if this one is hard to read :-)
So this is one of the correct answers? "My friend left your dog to eat". As natural a sentence as you can find!
Interestingly, Duo accepted «My friend left his dog to eat» as a translation -- meaning, I presume, that my friend departed from his dog in order to eat, or else possibly meaning that my friend left his dog alone to eat (in peace). Now that I think about it, probably the latter.
So the object can come between the helping verb and the infinitive? That's surprising given how most verb phrases like this have been formed in other exercises.
No the object cannot come between the auxiliary verb and the infinitive. Neither dejaba nor comer are helping verbs. Dejaba = used to let, comer = to eat.
I get confused, "used to" and "was" are both possible translations but in English they seem to mean something different(to me at least). "Used to" sounds like he did but now he has stopped definitely, but "was" sounds more like he just finished feeding him because the dog is now full, but he will probably continue in the future. Am i the only one that thinks this? Used to=definite and was=indefinite. ?. how would it be conveyed in Spanish if I said it?
Howcheng - the reason that dejaba isn't translated as "left" is because the correct tense to mean "left" is in the preterite dejó. Perhaps your answer belongs to another question.:)
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But there are plenty of instances where I would want to use an imperative form. I used to leave food out for a stray cat, but raccoons ate it instead, so I stopped. Preterite would not be appropriate there.
This is not imperative form.
"used to leave" or "was leaving" would work for this verb, but not really for this sentence where the animal is the direct object instead of the food.
Robert -dejar in the preterite can mean "left" but not in the imperfect tense. According to my dictionary "dejó" in the preterite means "left".
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No, that's a completely different meaning. Mi amigo dejaba la comida para su perro.
Shouldn't there be a type of food here to make this sentence sound complete?
Or really sad. He used to let his dog eat before it was hit by a truck and died. It does still seem strange though "He was letting his dog eat..." sounds better.
Comer wasn't showing on the screen so it made no sense at all: didn't let his dog WHAT?
Scroll down next time, some phone apps can't fit the whole sentence on the screen but just scroll down to see it.
We would use the bare infinitive here, without "to" after the verb "let" as well as after "can".
"my friend was feeding his dog" should be allowed as a natural-sounding translation. Ok, in Spanish "feed" would more be like "dar de comer" than "dejar comer", but as a translation, "feed" sounds much better unless you specify WHAT the friend let his dog eat (eg. "let his dog eat pineapple").
Were these sentences made by a human or was it an algorithm taking ❤❤❤❤ at random from the web? Either way...
Precisely what I wrote. But still, DL claims that I have used a wrong word, and suggests that it should be 'to leave' ... ???
It depends what form you wrote it in. "was letting" or "used to let" is allowed.
When did that change?
Also, when will he let the dog eat again? My dog can't go 12 hours without freaking out.
I wasn't sure how to answer this, so I said, "My friend left your dog to eat" and it was correct... Not sure about that.
the translations for dejar in SpanishDict might suggest that he left the dog alone to eat?
I'm so glad that they used this sentence in a lesson. It helps us learn about the culture of people in Spanish speaking communities. Bravo Duo!
Past tense of the verb to let is LET. It is OK to translate the sentence without "used to".
This is the imperfect past rather than the simple past, so other alternatives would be “was letting” or “would let” (past form, rather than conditional) to retain the imperfect. The simple past doesn’t let Duolingo know that you know what form this is, though simple past can be used to replace almost any past form in English, if you don’t mind being less clear about when in the past. This is especially less clear with a verb that is the same in the present and the simple past, so I don’t know if Duolingo will accept it.
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My friend had cats and the dog ate the cat poop. My friend used to let his dog eat but the dog had such bad breath that he no longer allows it.
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I answered right, because i knew what duolingo wants to hear. But in Argentina one would say; Mi amigo solia dejar a su perro comer
