Breakdown of Si lo sabías, ¿por qué no me lo dijiste?
no
no / not
saber
to know (facts, information)
me
to me / myself (reflexive) / me (direct object)
lo
it / him (m)
por qué
why
decir
to say / to tell
si
if
Questions & Answers about Si lo sabías, ¿por qué no me lo dijiste?
Why is sabías in the imperfect tense but dijiste is in the preterite?
sabías describes a continuous state in the past because you possessed this knowledge over a period of time. dijiste, on the other hand, is in the preterite because the act of telling, or failing to tell, is viewed as a single, specific event that should have happened at a precise moment.
Why do we need the word lo in Si lo sabías when the English translation just says "If you knew"?
English often drops the object when it is understood from context, allowing us to just say "If you knew." Spanish is stricter; if you are talking about a specific, already-established fact, you generally must include the direct object pronoun lo to represent "it."
In the phrase no me lo dijiste, why does me come before lo?
When a Spanish sentence uses double object pronouns, the indirect object, which is the person receiving the action (me), always precedes the direct object, which is the thing being said (lo). A handy rule to remember this pronoun order is "people before things."
Could I say Si lo supiste instead of Si lo sabías?
It would change the meaning and sound strange here. The preterite supiste usually implies an action or sudden change in state, meaning "you found out" or "you realized" at a specific moment in time. Because the speaker is asking about an ongoing state of possessing knowledge, the imperfect sabías is the correct choice.
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