Breakdown of Mi madre tenía razón y ahora me arrepiento.
y
and
ahora
now
tener
to have
la razón
the reason / being right
mi
my
la madre
the mother
arrepentirse
to regret (one's own actions)
Questions & Answers about Mi madre tenía razón y ahora me arrepiento.
Why doesn't the sentence say lo arrepiento to mean 'I regret it'?
The verb for 'to regret' is arrepentirse, which is a pronominal verb (it always needs a reflexive pronoun like me). In Spanish, you don't use a direct object pronoun like lo to say you regret 'it'. If you want to explicitly state what you regret, you use the preposition de, as in me arrepiento de ello, but here the 'it' is just understood from the context.
Why use the imperfect tenía instead of the preterite tuvo here?
We use the imperfect tenía because her 'being right' is being described as an ongoing background state in the past, rather than a single completed action or a sudden event.
I often want to say estaba correcta for 'she was right'. Would that work here?
Since this lesson is about expressing past regrets, how would I use the new grammar to say 'I wish I had listened to her'?
You would use ojalá followed by the pluperfect subjunctive (past perfect subjunctive). For example, Ojalá la hubiera escuchado. This structure is the natural way to express a strong regret about something that didn't happen in the past.
Learn Mi madre tenía razón y ahora me arrepiento and more in Spanish
All course content and exercises are completely free — no paywalls, no trial periods, no signup needed.
- ✓ Practice with interactive exercises
- ✓ Track your progress with spaced repetition
- ✓Learn at your own pace — completely free