Jigsaw Grammar

We have all learned languages at some point of our lives, especially at primary or high school. And I think we all remember those gaps we need to fill in with the right form of a verb, the right pronoun, article, demostrative or whatever.

It's not a bad thing, it might help a lot in fact, especially with things you need to focus on or pay more attention to. But I'm afraid, over the years and doing these exercises time and time again, they left us a wrong sensation on our minds: there's one perfect answer, better than the others, and that's the one the teacher is expecting you to say. If you see this written on a book:

- ¿Qué hiciste ayer?
- Ayer (levantarse) ... ... a las 8, (ir) ... al trabajo, (salir) ... a las 17 y luego por la tarde (ver)... una película en mi casa y (acostarme) ... ... después sobre las 11.

What the teacher wants you to do is practice the forms of pretérito indefinido, and nothing else, but what he's not telling you (but you might be interpreting) is that, when somebody asks you using pretérito indefinido, you have to correspond that answer by using, at least at some point of your sentence, that same tense. Especially we do it in other languages, since we don't know the rules. The answer is YOU DON'T HAVE TO IN ANY LANGUAGE. Look at these possible answers:

- ¿Qué hiciste ayer?

1 - Lo típico: la universidad, con mi novia...
2- Estar en casa, comer, ver la tele y vaguear. Nada más...
3- Ayer fui al supermercado por la mañana y luego por la tarde estuve en la biblioteca.

We tend to apply exercises to practise forms into real life situations. In real life, people don't need to practice the forms of verbs. Some exercises are closer to reality, but ultimately, they're flight simulators and not the real aircraft. Don't answer like a robot, be a human! Try to tell the robot from the human in these examples:

- Tu hermana es muy guapita. ¿Cuántos años tiene?
- Mi hermana tiene 24 años.

- Tu hermana es muy guapita. ¿Cuántos años tiene?
- 24. Pero, ¿mi hermana guapita? ¡Qué va tío!

WARNING: Many times the shortest answer is the most real.

-¿Cuántos años tienes?
-Tengo 29 años.
-29 años.
-29.