Breakdown of Cuando el guía nos hable, trataré de entender qué representan estas líneas.
hablar
to speak / to talk
qué
what
entender
to understand
nos
to us
este
this
el guía
the guide
cuando
when (statement)
la línea
line
tratar de
to try to
representar
to represent
Questions & Answers about Cuando el guía nos hable, trataré de entender qué representan estas líneas.
Why is it trataré de here, and how do I know not to use the impersonal se tratará de?
The verb tratar de means to try to do something when used with a specific subject. Here, the speaker is making an effort to understand, so it is conjugated personally as trataré. You use the reflexive tratarse de impersonally to mean to be about or to be a question of. Since the sentence focuses on a person trying rather than describing what a situation is about, you need the personal, non-reflexive form.
Why is hable in the subjunctive here instead of the indicative habla?
The main verb trataré sets the sentence in the future. In Spanish, when cuando introduces an anticipated event that has not happened yet, it requires the subjunctive. If this were describing a regular routine instead of a specific future instance, you would use the indicative habla.
Why is the verb representan placed before the subject estas líneas?
In Spanish, it is a strong rule to invert the subject and verb immediately following question words like qué, dónde, or cuándo. This applies to direct questions and indirect questions like this one. Keeping the English word order and saying qué estas líneas representan sounds unnatural to native speakers.
Why does qué have an accent mark if there are no question marks in the sentence?
Words like qué, cómo, and dónde keep their written accent marks when they introduce an indirect question. Because the phrase qué representan estas líneas acts as an embedded question answering what you will try to understand, it requires the accent to distinguish it from the relative pronoun que.
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