Word
Perdíamos cuando nos animamos el uno al otro para mejorar la puntuación.
Meaning
We were losing when we encouraged each other to improve the score.
Part of speech
sentence
Pronunciation
Course
Breakdown of Perdíamos cuando nos animamos el uno al otro para mejorar la puntuación.
a
to
para
for
perder
to lose
mejorar
to improve
Questions & Answers about Perdíamos cuando nos animamos el uno al otro para mejorar la puntuación.
Why do we need el uno al otro if nos animamos already means "we encouraged each other"?
While nos animamos often means "we encouraged each other," it can also mean "we encouraged ourselves." Adding el uno al otro removes any ambiguity, making it crystal clear that the action is reciprocal (person A encouraged person B, and vice versa). It also adds a nice touch of emphasis.
Why is it al otro and not just el otro?
The al is a contraction of a + el. We need the preposition a here because the people being encouraged are the direct objects of the verb animar. When a specific person is the direct object of a verb, Spanish requires the "personal a".
Why use the imperfect perdíamos but the preterite animamos?
If a group of women were speaking, would el uno al otro change?