An urgent matter, please help. Exercise in finishing sentences.

[kabalero]

Hi. I need your help good people. It's an exercise in which they want me to finish some sentences. I really need it done today. I'm sorry for my English - I'm not a native speaker of English.

1. 1. Dejaremos de depender tanto del petroleo cuando....
2. 2. La humanidad dejo de depender tanto de la luz solar cuando...
3. 3. Debemos prohibir la explotacion incontrolada de las selvas tropicales antes de que...
4. 4. Afortunamente, el gobierno prohibio la explotacion incontrolada de las selvas tropicales cuando...
5. 5. La poblacion de osos fue disminuyendo hasta que...
6. 6. La poblacion de osos continuara disminuyendo hasta que...

And here I need to invent the beginnings:

1. 1 ...mientras las reservas de agua disminuian.
2. 2 ...mientras las reservas de agua continuen siendo bajas.
3. 3 ...en cuanto apaguen el incendio.
4. 4 ...en cuanto apagaron el incendio. Please help. I'll be very grateful.

[Rusty]

Welcome to the forums!


How would you finish these sentences? We don't do your homework for you!

Please provide your answers and then we can help by giving you hints about how to fix any errors you might have made.

There's an 'Accents' drop-down menu above where you type your response. That can be used for all the special characters you'll need in Spanish, like accented vowels.

[kabalero]

That's the problem. I don't even understand these sentences. This is a matter of life and death. If I don't do it today I'm screwed and I will have to repeat the whole year of Spanish at school. I don't want to learn this language, really. I just need to pass my Spanish lessons at school and never again use this language in my life. I know it's a bad attitude but Spanish isn't really in my field of interest. Actually, learning languages is just a must at school, that's all. I study mechanics and I'm just not interested in languages. That's why I need your help so much. You're my only hope Or at least please translate them for me and tell me which tenses should I use in order to make them logical.

[aleCcowaN]

Then, rush to another website. I suggest you to pay a professional translator. Or other professionals you may be in real need to hire.

To everybody else, I know requests like this are very common this part of the year but, what's in these forums that makes so many people think that such requests are fulfilled?

[Chris]

I did not study in Spanish class either. Now I wished I would have payed attention.

[aleCcowaN]

The exercise comes from this text book, unit 8, page 82.

That's an intermediate or upper-intermediate level. How isn't somebody at that level unable to articulate some kind of an answer in Spanish? Hmmm!

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by kabalero

If I don't do it today I'm screwed and I will have to repeat the whole year of Spanish at school. ....I study mechanics and I'm just not interested in languages. .

Allow me to be condescending and point out that perhaps school is designed to educate, not just train in one particular thing. This means learning several things which you might not like, but which you will benefit from even when you don't know it.

We are not here just so you can use us to dodge learning something. Life can be tough.

[kabalero]

It's probably all wrong but I've really tried:

Debemos prohibir la explotación incontrolada de los bosques tropicales antes de que desaparezcan totalmente.

Afortunadamente, el gobierno prohibió la explotación incontrolada de los bosques tropicales, cuando ha resultado que los árboles fueron trasladados ilegalmente a otros países.

La población de osos fue disminuyendo hasta que el gobierno reconoce a la especie como en peligro de extinción.

La poblacion de osos continuará disminuyendo hasta que el gobierno no hace nada para resolver la situación.

Dejaremos de depender tanto del petroleo cuando cuando nos encontramos con otra fuente de combustible

La humanidad dejó de depender tanto de la luz solar cuandocuando la gente había encontrado que hay maneras más eficaces de obtención de energía.

La gente bebe mucho más mientras las reservas de agua continuen siendo bajas..

Ellos se sentirían tranquilos en cuanto apaguen el incendio.

Se comprueba si todo estaba bien en cuanto apagaron el incendio.

[aleCcowaN]

Remember that there's no need to become "creative" with these exercises

Originally Posted by kabalero

It's probably all wrong but I've really tried:

Debemos prohibir la explotación incontrolada de los bosques tropicales antes de que desaparezcan totalmente.

basically you use indicative when the action is really happening (desaparecen) and subjunctive when the action is only mentioned as possible or as a reference (desparezcan). That's why it's OK your phrase.

The same happens with the following, but they are wrong

Originally Posted by kabalero

La poblacion de osos continuará disminuyendo hasta que el gobierno no hace nada para resolver la situación.

Dejaremos de depender tanto del petroleo cuando cuando nos encontramos con otra fuente de combustible

The first (#6) has also a problem of logic. Remember "no hace nada" is happening now. "Hacer algo" is what should happen. Take this and pay attention to indicative/subjunctive and that's it.

[kabalero]

So it should be like this:
La poblacion de osos continuará disminuyendo hasta que el gobierno no haga nada para resolver la situación.
Dejaremos de depender tanto del petroleo cuando cuando nos encontremos con otra fuente de combustible ?
I don't really understand much of this. Grammar is just too difficult, but thanks. At least one of them was ok . Could you tell which ones of these sentences require subjuntivo(presesnte/imperfecto) and which ones indicativo ? I have one hour left so any tips and propositions are welcome

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by kabalero

...mientras las reservas de agua disminuian.

La gente bebe mucho más mientras las reservas de agua continuen siendo bajas..

Ellos se sentirían tranquilos en cuanto apaguen el incendio.

Se comprueba si todo estaba bien en cuanto apagaron el incendio.

#1 Try to think some example. "mientras" plus past imperfect means simultaneous actions, so the same tense should be used in the first part. Think of things that may have been happening at the same time.

#2 On the contrary, this "mientras" together with subjunctive used within some specific verbal phrase, they mean a condition that lasts and govern the first part of the sentence, either keeping it or preventing it from happening. For instance:

El sol no brillará mientras continúe lloviendo. (preventing)
El suelo seguirá mojado mientras continúe lloviendo (keeping)

#3 "en cuanto" is the opposite of "mientras" in #2, and #4 "en cuanto" is the opposite of "mientras" in #1 (remember tenses are the same in both parts of these couple examples)

So

#2: there are problems both with logic and grammar
#3 #4 : logic seems to be fine, but there are tense mismatches.

Originally Posted by kabalero

La poblacion de osos continuará disminuyendo hasta que el gobierno no haga nada para resolver la situación.
Dejaremos de depender tanto del petroleo cuando cuando nos encontremos con otra fuente de combustible

About the first one: do nothing (no haga nada) or do something (haga algo)?

Sorry, but no "spoons of soup in the mouth" because of a Hitchcock clock bomb is ticking. You had many months to prevent this.