Duolingo Users Help Me!

I need some help from Duolingo users with my Spanish. I have two questions to start with:

1. What's the difference in endings between an -ar verb in the present tense and its preterit for nosotros?

2. What's the difference between hubiese and hubiera? Which ending is more common?

No, this is for Duolingo users.

Go ahead and answer if you want to.

I have a lot more questions. Maybe I should try something easier.

Complete the following sentence:

Yo te habría comprado un regalo, si ________ sabido que estabas aquí.

Yes that's one point for Snowy. Should be ten points because that one was hard. Did you learn that on Duolingo?

@BoardMonkey

1. -AR verbs: “nosotros” present vs. preterit

Present: ends in -amos → hablamos (“we speak”).Preterit: also ends in -amos → hablamos (“we spoke”).The forms look identical, so you tell them apart by context and time markers.

2. Hubiese vs. hubiera

They’re just two versions of the imperfect subjunctive. Their meaning and use are the same.In everyday speech and writing, -ara forms (like hubiera) tend to be more common, and sound a bit more natural to most speakers, but you can use either without changing meaning.

I think hubiese is weird. I like hubiera. The Spanish preterit perfect compound tense is the hardest tense for me. That tense uses hubiera or hubiese in the dependent clause and habría in the independent clause. It's weird to me but natural to a native speaker.

Your first point is interesting because -ar verbs are the most common verbs. The present and preterit have the same nosotros -amos ending. It's as if there's no distinction being made between the past and present but everybody gets what you mean.

Uh...A) que. No wait it's D) por que.

I'm not on Duolingo. So I don’t know.

You use the pretérito perfecto all the time?

Sorry it's the potencial compuesto not the pretérito perfecto.