Breakdown of Cuando mi hermana está impaciente, nuestro padre le recuerda que fue disciplinado muchos años para terminar su carrera.
Questions & Answers about Cuando mi hermana está impaciente, nuestro padre le recuerda que fue disciplinado muchos años para terminar su carrera.
With cuando you choose between indicative and subjunctive based on meaning:
Indicative (here: está impaciente) is used for:
- Habitual situations
- Facts that are seen as real and repeated
Subjunctive (esté) is used for:
- Future or hypothetical situations
- Things that have not happened yet from the speaker’s point of view
In this sentence, Cuando mi hermana está impaciente describes a general, repeated situation in the present (whenever she is impatient), so the indicative está is correct.
If the sentence were about the future, you would use the subjunctive:
- Cuando mi hermana esté impaciente, nuestro padre le recordará…
(When my sister is impatient [in the future], our father will remind her…)
Both are possible but mean different things:
- está impaciente = she is impatient right now / in that moment or those moments. It’s a temporary state.
- es impaciente = she is an impatient person in general. It’s a character trait.
The sentence talks about what the father does in those moments when she is (temporarily) impatient, so está impaciente is more natural.
Yes, and it slightly changes the focus:
- está impaciente describes the state: she is impatient.
- se pone impaciente focuses on the change: she gets / becomes impatient.
Both are grammatically correct:
- Cuando mi hermana está impaciente, nuestro padre…
- Cuando mi hermana se pone impaciente, nuestro padre…
The first describes her mood when it is already impatient; the second highlights the moment she starts to become impatient.
Because recordar works like this:
recordar algo = to remember something
- La recuerda. = He remembers her.
recordar algo a alguien = to remind someone of something
- Nuestro padre le recuerda algo. = Our father reminds her of something.
In the sentence, the idea is our father reminds her, not our father remembers her.
So le is the indirect object pronoun (to her), not a direct object pronoun.
- Nuestro padre le recuerda que… = Our father reminds her that…
Le refers to mi hermana.
Why?
Agreement of persons:
- Subject: nuestro padre (he)
- Indirect object: someone else = mi hermana (her)
It is much more natural that the father reminds his daughter of something.
Typical pattern:
- recordar algo a alguien → recordar(le) algo
Here, a alguien is mi hermana, so the pronoun is le.
- recordar algo a alguien → recordar(le) algo
If you really wanted to make it crystal clear, you could add:
- Nuestro padre le recuerda a mi hermana que…
(keeping le and adding a mi hermana for emphasis or clarity).
That version is not idiomatic; you need recordar algo a alguien, not recordar a alguien que… in this sense of remind.
Correct patterns:
- Nuestro padre le recuerda que fue disciplinado…
- Nuestro padre recuerda que fue disciplinado… (here it means he remembers that he was disciplined, not reminds her).
If you explicitly mention the person, you still normally keep the pronoun:
- Nuestro padre le recuerda a mi hermana que fue disciplinado…
This is about preterite (fue) vs imperfect (era):
fue disciplinado muchos años:
- Sees that period of discipline as a completed block of time in the past.
- Suggests: he spent a defined stretch of years being disciplined in order to finish his degree.
era disciplinado:
- Describes a more open-ended ongoing characteristic in the past, without focus on start/end.
- Would mean: he was (by nature) a disciplined person in those days.
In this sentence, fue disciplinado muchos años para terminar su carrera treats that discipline as a specific, completed effort that led to a result: finishing his degree. That’s why fue fits better than era.
Grammatically, fue disciplinado is ser + participle, which is the standard passive form:
- fue disciplinado = he was disciplined (by someone).
However, in real usage, adjectives and participles sometimes blur:
- ser disciplinado (as an adjective) = to be disciplined / to have self-discipline.
In your sentence:
- fue disciplinado muchos años para terminar su carrera
is most naturally understood as he was (a) disciplined (person) for many years in order to finish his degree, i.e. he showed a lot of self-discipline.
A clearer, more natural “adjectival” version would often be:
- Fue muy disciplinado durante muchos años para terminar su carrera.
(adding muy or durante avoids the feeling of a true passive).
Adjectives (and participles used as adjectives) agree with the subject in gender and number.
- Subject here: nuestro padre → masculine singular.
- So the adjective/participle must be masculine singular: disciplinado.
It does not agree with carrera or hermana, because they are not the subject of fue disciplinado.
In Spain, la carrera commonly means:
- One’s university degree / course of study, e.g. su carrera de Medicina (his/her medical degree).
It usually does not mean “career” in the English sense of professional life. For that, Spanish typically uses words like:
- profesión, vida profesional, trayectoria profesional
So terminar su carrera here is best understood as:
- “to finish his degree / university studies.”
Yes. para + infinitive expresses purpose / intention:
- para terminar su carrera = in order to finish his degree.
This is very standard:
- Estudió mucho para aprobar. = He studied a lot in order to pass.
- Trabaja para pagar la matrícula. = He works to pay the tuition.
You could add more detail (e.g. para poder terminar su carrera = in order to be able to finish his degree), but the simple para terminar is already complete and natural.
Grammatically, yes:
- para terminarla → la = su carrera.
Native speakers often keep the noun (su carrera) rather than a pronoun if:
- They want to avoid any ambiguity, or
- The noun is important and not too repetitive.
Both are possible:
- …fue disciplinado muchos años para terminar su carrera.
- …fue disciplinado muchos años para terminarla.
The second sounds a bit more colloquial/compact and would normally appear if carrera had just been mentioned and was clearly understood.
Yes, both are correct:
- fue disciplinado muchos años
- fue disciplinado durante muchos años
durante makes the time-frame a bit more explicit and is very natural with plural time expressions:
- durante muchos años, durante tres meses, durante siglos…
Without durante, the meaning is essentially the same, just slightly more compact.
The subjunctive in Spanish appears after que when the embedded clause shows:
- Desire, doubt, emotion, evaluation, unreality, etc.
Here, the father is reminding her of something he presents as a fact:
- que fue disciplinado muchos años… = that he was disciplined for many years…
Since this is presented as a factual statement (from the speaker’s and the father’s point of view), Spanish uses the indicative (fue), not the subjunctive.