Breakdown of No hay que perder la paciencia en una emergencia.
no
no, not
una
a, an (feminine)
en
in / on / at
haber
to be (there is / there are)
perder
to lose
que
that / than
la paciencia
patience
la emergencia
emergency
Questions & Answers about No hay que perder la paciencia en una emergencia.
Why does the sentence use hay que instead of tener que?
Hay que is used for impersonal obligations, meaning rules or advice that apply to everyone in general. It translates nicely to "one must" or "people must". If you used a form of tener que instead (like No tienes que perder...), it would be directed at a specific person and mean "You don't have to lose...".
Does no hay que mean "one must not" or "one doesn't have to"?
In this context, it translates to "one must not" or "one shouldn't". It acts as a strong recommendation against doing something. This is a bit tricky because with personal verbs, adding no usually removes the obligation (for example, no tienes que means "you don't have to").
Why is it la paciencia? The English translation just says "patience" without "the".
In Spanish, when you talk about abstract concepts or general ideas like patience, peace, or love, you almost always need to include the definite article (el, la, los, or las). Because patience is a general concept here, it requires la to become la paciencia.
Why is perder in its infinitive (unchanged) form here?
The phrase hay que (and its negative form, no hay que) must always be followed directly by an infinitive verb, which is the base dictionary form of a verb ending in -ar, -er, or -ir. Since the action you must not do is "lose", we use the unconjugated form perder.
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