Breakdown of ¿Viste algo encima del escenario?
ver
to see; to watch (TV, a film)
algo
something
encima de
on top of
el escenario
the stage
Questions & Answers about ¿Viste algo encima del escenario?
How does the past tense of ver work here, and why doesn't viste have an accent mark?
In the simple past tense (pretérito indefinido), ver takes the regular endings for ER/IR verbs, but it drops the accent marks completely. The forms are vi, viste, vio, vimos, visteis, and vieron. Here, viste is the informal 'you' (tú) form.
Why does the sentence use algo for 'anything' instead of 'something'?
Algo does mean 'something', but Spanish also uses it for 'anything' when asking a question. So ¿Viste algo? covers both 'Did you see something?' and 'Did you see anything?'.
Why do we say encima del instead of encima de el?
The phrase for 'on top of' is encima de. When de is followed by the masculine singular word for 'the' (el), they always combine into the contraction del. Because escenario is masculine, it must be del escenario.
Is escenario the same as the English word 'scenario'?
They look similar, but escenario is a false friend in this context. While it can mean 'scenario' in some situations, it is the standard Spanish word for 'stage' in a theatre or concert.