Questions & Answers about Pedimos ayuda y nos echaron una mano.
Why is it pedimos and echaron, and what tense are they?
Both are in the pretérito (the simple past), which is the tense Spanish usually uses for completed actions in the past.
- pedimos = we asked
- echaron = they gave / they lent in this idiomatic expression
In this sentence, the speaker is talking about two finished events:
- We asked for help
- They gave us a hand
So the preterite is the natural choice.
Why does pedimos mean we asked here and not we ask?
Spanish forms can sometimes look the same in different tenses. Pedimos can be:
You know which one it is from the context. Since the second verb is clearly past (echaron = they gave), pedimos is also understood as past here.
So in this sentence, pedimos ayuda means we asked for help, not we ask for help.
Why is there no subject pronoun like nosotros or ellos?