Breakdown of El camino es difícil, pero debes seguir intentando.
ser
to be
pero
but
difícil
difficult
deber
must / should
Questions & Answers about El camino es difícil, pero debes seguir intentando.
Why is seguir used here to mean keep instead of a word like mantener?
In Spanish, to express that an action continues over time (like keep doing or continue doing something), you use the verb seguir followed by a gerund (the -ando or -iendo form). So, seguir intentando means to continue trying or to keep trying. You wouldn't use mantener for this kind of ongoing action.
Why is seguir in the infinitive form, but intentando ends in -ando?
There are three verbs working together here! Debes is conjugated to match you (tú). When you have a conjugated verb like debes (you must), the next verb usually stays in its base form, which gives us seguir. Then, the special rule for using seguir to mean keep doing requires the next verb to be a gerund, giving us intentando (trying).
Why do we use es (from ser) instead of está (from estar) for is difficult?
Is it okay to say tú debes seguir instead of just debes seguir?