Breakdown of El psicólogo dijo que tenía mucha ansiedad.
mucho
a lot
tener
to have
que
that (relative pronoun, conjunction)
decir
to say / to tell
el psicólogo
the psychologist
la ansiedad
the anxiety
Questions & Answers about El psicólogo dijo que tenía mucha ansiedad.
Why do we use the imperfect tense tenía here instead of the preterite?
This is the core of reported speech! The psychologist's original words were likely in the present tense: Tengo mucha ansiedad (I have a lot of anxiety) or Tiene mucha ansiedad (He has a lot of anxiety). When we report what someone said in the past using a reporting verb like dijo, that present tense shifts backward into the imperfect tense, which becomes tenía here.
Since tenía can mean both I had or he had, how do we know who had the anxiety?
Out of context, we do not know! The form tenía is used for yo, él, ella, and usted. The translation says he had assuming we are talking about a male patient or the psychologist himself, but it could easily mean I had. If you need to make it clear, you can add a pronoun to the sentence, such as dijo que él tenía or dijo que yo tenía.
Why is it mucha ansiedad instead of mucho ansiedad?
Ansiedad is a feminine noun. A great rule of thumb to remember from earlier lessons is that Spanish words ending in -dad, -tad, or -ción are almost always feminine. Because the noun is feminine, the adjective for a lot must match it, becoming mucha.
Do you pronounce the p at the beginning of psicólogo?
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