Questions & Answers about El niño lleva dobladas tres ranas.
Why does this sentence use dobladas instead of just doblado?
When using the llevar + past participle construction to talk about accumulated quantities, the past participle acts like an adjective and must agree in gender and number with the direct object. Since ranas is feminine plural, you must use dobladas. This is different from the present perfect with haber, where the participle never changes (like ha doblado).
Doesn't llevar usually mean "to carry" or "to wear"?
On its own, llevar does mean "to carry" or "to wear." However, when combined with a past participle (like dobladas) and a quantity (tres ranas), it forms a special expression for how much of an ongoing task has been completed up to now. It is usually translated using "so far."
Could I change the word order to El niño lleva tres ranas dobladas?
Yes, absolutely. In this construction, the past participle can go either immediately after the verb llevar or after the direct object. Both lleva dobladas tres ranas and lleva tres ranas dobladas are perfectly natural and mean exactly the same thing.
How is this different from simply saying El niño ha doblado tres ranas?