Question 1

Why is caminará in the future tense if the English translation says "might be walking" right now?

Accepted Answer

This is a great example of the future of probability. In Spanish, you can use the future tense to express a guess, wonder, or conjecture about something happening right now in the present. Even though caminará literally translates to "he will walk," in this context it means "he might be walking" or "I wonder why he is walking."

Question 2

Why does the sentence use the adjective apresurado instead of an adverb like apresuradamente for "hurriedly"?

Accepted Answer

Spanish frequently uses adjectives instead of adverbs to describe the physical or emotional state a person is in while performing an action. Because it acts as an adjective here, apresurado must agree in gender and number with the subject, aquel señor (masculine singular).

Question 3

Could I use ese señor instead of aquel señor?

Accepted Answer

You could, but it changes the perceived distance. While ese means "that" (often implying it is somewhat close to the listener or just out of reach), aquel means "that one over there" (far from both the speaker and the listener). Using aquel emphasizes that the speaker is wondering about a man they see off in the distance.

Question 4

Why is the subject aquel señor at the very end of the question?

Accepted Answer

Spanish has very flexible word order. In questions starting with an interrogative word like ¿Por qué?, it is completely natural and very common to invert the word order and place the subject after the verb, or even at the very end of the sentence.

¿Por qué caminará tan apresurado aquel señor?

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