Breakdown of Creo que no deberías fiarte de su memoria.
no
no / not
su
his / her / their / your (formal)
que
that (relative pronoun, conjunction)
creer
to believe / to think
deber
should, must (+ infinitive)
la memoria
the memory (ability to remember)
fiarse de
to trust
Questions & Answers about Creo que no deberías fiarte de su memoria.
Why do we use the pronominal form fiarte here instead of just fiar?
This is a classic semantic shift. The non-pronominal verb fiar usually means "to sell on credit" or "to entrust". When you make it pronominal and add the preposition de (fiarse de), the meaning changes completely to "to trust" or "to rely on". Since the advice is directed at "you", we attach the pronoun te.
The sentence expresses an opinion and has a negative no. Why isn't deberías in the subjunctive?
The tricky part is where the negative is placed. Creo que no states what you actually do believe ("I believe that you shouldn't..."), so it requires the indicative mood (here, the conditional form deberías). You only trigger the subjunctive when the main verb of belief is negated, as in No creo que debas... ("I don't think you should...").
Could I put the pronoun te before the conjugated verb instead?
Yes! With a conjugated verb followed by an infinitive, you have two options. You can attach it to the infinitive, as in the example (no deberías fiarte), or you can place it before the conjugated verb (no te deberías fiar). Both are very common and mean exactly the same thing.
Can I use confiar en instead of fiarse de in this context?
Yes, no deberías confiar en su memoria would also be completely natural. While they are often interchangeable, fiarse de is frequently used when talking about mechanical or factual reliability (relying on a memory, a machine, or a promise not to fail), whereas confiar en can sometimes imply a deeper, more emotional level of trust.
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