Breakdown of El actor se queja como si el ruido le molestara.
el ruido
the noise
el actor
the actor
le
to him / to her / to you (formal)
molestar
to bother
como
as / like (such as, similar to)
quejarse
to complain
si
if
Questions & Answers about El actor se queja como si el ruido le molestara.
Why is molestara in the imperfect subjunctive if he is complaining right now in the present?
Why do we use le instead of lo before molestara?
The verb molestar (to bother) often acts like the verb gustar. The noise (el ruido) is the grammatical subject performing the action. The person being bothered is treated as an indirect object, so we use le (to him) rather than the direct object lo.
Why is there a se in se queja?
The verb for to complain is quejarse, which is a pronominal verb that always requires a reflexive pronoun. Even though the actor isn't literally complaining to himself, this verb simply needs the pronoun to carry the meaning of complaining. You cannot just say el actor queja.
Could I use molestase instead of molestara?
Yes! The imperfect subjunctive has two interchangeable sets of endings: -ara / -iera and -ase / -iese. Saying como si el ruido le molestase means the exact same thing. However, the -ara ending used here is much more common in spoken Latin American Spanish.
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