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- Topic: Spanish >
- "Por favor escribe tu libro."
19 Comments This discussion is locked.
Isn't the subject in this sentence an implied "you"? And wouldn't that make this "escribes" instead of "escribe"?
Or are commands handled differently?
It's a command. Positive commands are the él/ella/Ud. form of the verb, and negative commands are the yo form of the verb minus the o and plus "as" (i.e. va ahora and no vengas). But there are irregulars, too...
!!!! LINK provided by Christian especially helpful !!!!
To 'soften' a command, Spanish speakers will use the familiar 'tu' with the imperative conjugation of a verb. The imperative conjugation of 'escribir' (to write) is 'escribe.' Looks identical to the formal 'usted' (also third person 'it, she, he') conjugation of this verb.
Are we dizzy yet?
Actually, the choice of familiar (tú) or formal (usted) depends on the speaker's relationship to the hearer. The choice of all verb forms including the imperative, as this case, depends on the subject of the sentence (escribe for tú and escriba for usted).
@Shutterbug - soften a command
I right on the verge of understanding this. I think I'll be able to get it after a couple more tines around.
Thanks to you snd christian for taking the tine to explain this topic.
Why is there no accent over the u in tu in this sentence, and other times tu has an accent over the u?
What christian said. The term to look it up is "orthographic accents": http://spanish.about.com/cs/writing/g/orthoaccgl.htm
Guys, my answer was "please write your book" But they marked at is incorrect and said that the correct answer is "please YOU write your book"
Their answer doesnt make sense in English.. but could someone help me understand where I went wrong? Gracias :)
You are right, it doesn't make sense in English, at least, not to those of us who are native speakers. It may be that writing 'YOU write' is Duolingo's way of attempting to show that this is a command, but it didn't work. Your answer was a good translation.
Is it just me (I do have a high-frequency hearing loss), but does anybody else hear a "le" before escribe?
In a nutshell, the reason it sounds like that is due to the shape of the tongue when forming an "R" in Spanish and an "L" in English. In Spanish pronunciation, the tongue touches the soft palette giving it a "trill" (this is also known as "rolling the R"). In the English "R", the tongue comes close to the soft palette, but does not touch it. However, in English, the "L" touches the soft palette, very similar to a Spanish "R". The upshot of all this is that although you are hearing Spanish words, you are hearing them in English, (The language your brain is used to hearing. The brain can understand that the words are foreign, that you have comprehended the meaning, but can be a bit overtaxed when asked to hear it properly. If you were to spend a significant amount of time in a Spanish speaking country, you would no longer hear the "L" sound as your brain would be practiced in listening in Spanish.
I don't quite understand this sentence. Is this like a mother telling her kid to do their homework? Or is it more like a suggestion, or is it something entirely different?
