Breakdown of No sabía nada del encuentro, pero supe la verdad ayer.
no
no / not
pero
but
del
of the / from the / about the (topic)
saber
to know (facts, information)
la verdad
the truth
nada
nothing / anything (in negative contexts)
ayer
yesterday
el encuentro
the encounter
Questions & Answers about No sabía nada del encuentro, pero supe la verdad ayer.
Why does the verb saber translate to 'knew' in the first half but 'found out' in the second half?
This is a perfect example of how state verbs change meaning depending on the past tense you use. The imperfect tense (sabía) describes an ongoing state in the past, so it translates to 'I knew'. The preterite tense (supe) describes a completed event. For a verb about knowledge, the preterite marks the exact moment you acquired the information, meaning 'I found out' or 'I learned'.
Could I use the verb conocer instead of saber here since they both mean 'to know'?
The sentence says No sabía nada, which looks like 'I did not know nothing'. Is this double negative correct?
Yes! Spanish uses and requires double negatives. Whenever a negative word like nada (nothing/anything) comes after the verb, you must put no before the verb. It simply translates to 'I knew nothing' or 'I did not know anything' in English.
Why is it del encuentro instead of de el encuentro?
Whenever the preposition de (which can mean 'about', 'of', or 'from') is followed immediately by the masculine singular article el (the), they must combine to form del. This contraction is mandatory in Spanish, so writing de el is grammatically incorrect.
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