Breakdown of El cliente pide cosas como si viviera aquí.
vivir
to live / to be constantly (doing something)
aquí
here
pedir
to ask for / to order
como
as / like (such as, similar to)
la cosa
thing
el cliente
customer
si
if
Questions & Answers about El cliente pide cosas como si viviera aquí.
The client is asking for things right now (pide). Why does the second part of the sentence use a past tense (viviera)?
After the phrase como si (as if), Spanish always requires the imperfect (past) subjunctive. Even though the client's asking is happening in the present, the hypothetical situation requires this specific past tense. This actually matches English, where we also shift to the past tense to say "as if he lived here" instead of "as if he lives here".
Why is there no word for "for" after pide?
Wait, isn't the verb for "to ask for" pedir? Why is it spelled pide instead of pede?
Yes, the infinitive is pedir, but it is a stem-changing verb in the present tense. The e in the stem changes to an i in all forms except nosotros and vosotros. That gives us yo pido, tú pides, and él/ella/usted pide.
Could I use viviese instead of viviera in this sentence?
Absolutely. The imperfect subjunctive has two interchangeable sets of endings: -ra and -se. Saying como si viviese aquí means exactly the same thing. However, the -ra endings (like viviera) are much more common in everyday spoken Latin American Spanish.
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