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Published: Saturday, 01 June 2024 20:08

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Past Imperfect Tense

As explained in verb section, Past Imperfect tense is used to talk about past actions generally, without a specific duration. This includes past habitual actions, as well as actions that were not completed in the past. In Past perfect, actions were completed (He went to church), but in Past imperfect, it's like "He went to church every Sunday". Think of it as "when events were completed" they were "perfect", i.e how it was supposed to be. However, when events in past were left uncompleted, then it's not really perfect, so we call it "Imperfect".

Link => https://lingvist.com/course/learn-spanish-online/resources/spanish-imperfect-past-tense/

Below are 2 cases where it's used. This is important to learn, as is more common than you might think !!

1. Gerund form: ex: I was eating => estaba comiendo. We use past imperfect form of was => estaba. Estar form  (NOT ser form) used with gerund. See in Gerund section
2. Habitual/repeated action (used to) => I used to play tennis => Yo jugaba al tenis. Again we use past imperfect form of jugar => jugaba. 

This is the conjugation table for Past Imperfect: Different for -ar verb and -er/-ir verb. 1st and 3rd person singular form are same, while 2nd person singular is just an "s" added at end. So, this makes singular form of this table really easy.

-ar verbs:

 We basically add the suffix -ab to the stem word

-er/-ir verbs:

 We basically add the suffix -ía (i with an accent) to the stem word.

NOTE: This suffix "ía" etc is the same as that used in "Simple conditional form" (i.e would go, etc). The only difference is that it here it goes with the stem (i.e gust + ía = gustía), while in Simple conditional, the full full base word is used (i.e gustar + ía = gustaría).

ex:

• Simple Past tense (Preterite): I built a house last year (event is completed) => yo construí una casa el año pasado. (To construct is "construir" an -ir verb, so conjugation is construí)
• Past Imperfect: I used to build houses (habitual) => yo construía casas ( construir verb is conjugated to construía)
  • ex: I used to live in Spain => yo vivía en españa

Another way of saying "I used to":

There is one other way of saying I used to, which is not very common. We use word "solía" for "I used to", and then we use the infinitive form of verb (w/o any conjugation).

ex: I used to read a lot => solía leer mucho.

Irregular verbs in Past imperfect:

There are only 3 verbs which are irregular in past imperfect => Ser, Ver, Ir. (Estar still follows regular -aba form that is used for -ar verbs)

ex:

• I was very happy in elementary school => Era muy feliz en primaria. => Here, it means "I used to be very happy", it's not a event that completed. Even though "was" is used which seems to indicate that's past perfect, but the meaning of sentence implies "used to" which makes it past imperfect.
• I used to watch movies every saturday => yo veía peliculas todos los sábados.

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Published: Wednesday, 29 May 2024 13:39

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Participle form of verb

The participle form in Spanish is equivalent to the English past participle (V3 or third form of the verb). In English, these verbs indicate things done in past, but add a sense of completion (i.e had done, have asked, etc).  In English, the verb itself ends in -ed, -en, etc (i.e looked, taken, etc). In Spanish, the regular participle form of the verb changes -ar/(-er/-ir) to -ado/-ido (always ends in -do). In some cases the participle form can change to agree with a noun gender and plurality (-do/-da/-dos/-das). These happens usually when participle form is used as an adjective. Take the -ado/-ido form of verb to form (m,s) adj form. In some other places, -edo is listed as the participle form for -er verb. Some irregular verbs have participle form completely diff. See ex below:

Participle form used as Adjectives:

• pérder => to lose. Adj "loss" is pérdida => loss.
  
  • ex: We are very sorry for your loss => Sentimos mucho su pérdida
  • ex: lost keys => las llaves perdidas
• entrar / salir => to enter / to leave. Adj are entrada/salida which means entrance/exit. These are 2 most common adj that you see in bldgs, etc (at entry/exit signs)
• enojar => to anger. Adj is enojado/enojada. ex: He/She is angry => él/ella está enojado/enojada
• ocupar => to be busy, Adj is ocupado => busy. A similar word with "pre" prefix means something very diff. preocupar => to worry. Adj is preocupado => worried

Participle forms for Irregular Verbs:

• decir (to say) => dicho (NOT decido) is participle form.
• hacer (to do/ to make) => hecho
• ver (to see) => Visto (NOT vido)
• escribir (to write) => escrito (NOT escribido)

Participles always have a main verb and an auxillary verb. In the example "I had done", there are 2 verbs => "had" is the auxillary verb, while "done" is the main verb. Both verbs are conjugated in English depending on the person. i.e I have done vs he has eaten. Auxillary verb changed from "have" to "has" depending on I or He. The same rule applies in Spanish. However, with consecutive verbs, there is the consecutive verb rule (discussed in verb section too).

Consecutive verbs: When we have 2 verbs back to back, only the 1st one follows the conjugation table, the second one is in infinitive or participle form.  With participle forms, the auxillary verb is the 1st verb, and the main verb is the second verb. So we conjugate the auxillary verb based on 3x2 table, while the main verb is transformed to it's participle form (ending in -ado/ido).

Main verb: Main verb is transformed to -ado/ido as explained above. There are no 3x2 tables for it.

Auxillary Verb: Haber is the spanish word for has/have, and is the auxillary verb we use with participle form. We conjugate it based on 3x2 table below. Haber itself can be in past participle form as "had", which conjugates to habido.

ex: I have sung => yo he cantado. => Here "have" being the auxillary verb is conjugated based on 3x2 table below, while "sing" being the main verb is transformed to it's participle form.

ex: I had sung => yo habido cantado => Here both main and auxillary verb are in past participle form.

Haber => has/have : This is different than Tener which means "obligation to do something" or to have something. This form of have which is "haber" is used in Perfect form (or "past participle" V3 form in English) as an auxillary verb.  Below table shows the present tense table for haber, for sentences like "He has eaten", etc. Haber is an irregular verb, and it's stem is har for transformation purpose for all forms, except 2nd person plural (vosotros) form. Since har is an -ar verb, it follows the -ar table for few entires and -er table for remaining few. Past tense for haber is shown in later sections. Along with this auxillary verb, the main verb needs to have the V3 form which is explained in verbs section. To reiterate, regular participle form of the main verb changes -ar/-er/-ir to -ado/-edo/-ido (always ends in -do).

• Present form (stem is har)

• base word = haber => har (has/have)	singular	plural
  I => First person	he (using har as base but transforms as -er verb) ex: I have eaten rice => yo he comido arro (eat is comer,so V3 form should be comedo, but instead it's comido)	hemos (use har as base, but as -er) ex: we have => hemos
  You (informal) => Second person	has (using har as base)	habéis (use regular haber as base)
  He, she, You (formal=> Third person	ha (using har as base) ex: He has sung => el ha cantado	han (using har as base)

• ex: cantar (to sing) => sung => cantado (NOTE: gerund form was cantando, while here it's cantado)
• ex: hacer (to do) => done => hecho (irregular verb)
• ex: The museum has closed => el museo ha cerrado. OR The museum is closed => el museo está cerrado (está used since it's temporary state)

Participles come in all moods as present, past and future. We saw the present form for haber above. The other most used forms are past and future. However, the main verb remains same in all forms, it's the auxillary verb (has/have/had/will have) that changes forms to imply past/present or future.

• Past form (stem is hub) => hube, hubiste,etc. However, past tense of have is had, which is already a past participle and gets conjugated as habido. So, no need of past form.
• Future form (stem is habr) => habré, habrás, etc
  • ex: I will have written the letter => yo habré escrito la carta (instead of escribido, it's escrito)

Other Pronouns:

• There is / There are => Both of these translate to same word "hay" (pronounced aa-e, or eye). This word is actually 3rd person form of haber in present tense, which is translated as "It has". 3rd person form is ha, but it's also hay. We can also make questions by writing ¿hay? which means "Is there? / Are there?"
  • ex: ¿hay café? => Is there (any) coffee?. Sí, hay café => yes, there is coffee
  • ex: ¿hay más café? => Is there (any) more coffee?. 

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Published: Tuesday, 23 April 2024 14:04

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Backward Verbs:

Most of the verbs that we saw are forward verbs, i.e I drink water => Here we conjugate "drink" based on person doing the work. So, translation is => yo bebo agua. However, there are so called "Backward Verbs", where the subject in the English sentence becomes the object in Spanish.  Link => https://www.thoughtco.com/using-encantar-other-than-third-person-3078317

• ex: "I like the house" (subject + verb + object) is reversed as "The house pleases me" (object + verb + subject) in Spanish. Here the verb goes with the object, even though the subject is doing the verb. Since the object is usually 3rd person, we commonly use 3rd person form of the verb in singular or plural form. So, the translation should be 'la casa me gusta" (me is the IOP, so it comes before the verb). However, this is NOT correct, as the order is again changed in Spanish to match what's in English. The subject + verb + object order is still maintained. So, translation is => me gusta la casa. The "house" is the subject/noun here, and NOT "I". Verbs transform based on who's doing it. Here, noun "house" is doing the pleasing work, and it's a 3rd person. So, depending on whether House (noun) is singular/plural we use "Gusta" or "Gustan" conjugation. If we wish to use word "love", then we use encanatar. So, if we wish to say  "I love the house," the phrase would be translated as Me encanta la casa.

Pronoun like it, him/her, them, etc also used instead of noun (i.e I like it). you, he/she etc, where we use him/her, etc. So, we always need to have me/nos, te/os, le/les before the verb.

There are 2 ways to rewrite these sentences having backward verbs. Let's say as an ex: "I like the car". We can transform it in 2 ways (both use the (object + verb + subject) form):

• The car pleases me => el carro me agrada. This is IOP form where IOP (here it's me) comes before the verb (pleases). This is the way we learned in pronoun section. "me" is IOP and not DOP, as verb is being done to someone (question to ask is to whom, and NOT what, so it's an IOP). So, translation is straightforward here. However, we can't use verb "gustar" here, as "gustar" means like This is NOT the way we use "backward verbs" in spanish. We use regular verbs here.
• To me, pleases the car => me gusta el carro. This is the way backward verbs are used. Instead of saying "The car please me", we say "To me, pleases the car". Since car is noun, order doesn't change, so we say "me gusta <noun_object>". The object always needs to have "definite" article => el, la for singular and los/las for plural. If instead of noun, we had pronoun (i.e it), then "it" being a DOP, we have to change order => me le gusta. There are 4 possibilities in the sentence depending on whether subject is noun or pronoun, and whether object is noun or pronoun. See in pronoun section.

TRANSLATION TIP:

• Pronoun (or the person doing the "like") is always "indirect object pronoun" (me, him, etc. so always use le/les, and NOT lo/la),
• The object (noun or pronoun) being liked is put after the verb if it's noun, but before the verb if it's pronoun. See in pronoun section for the rules.
  • Noun object: indirect object pronoun (me, te, le) + verb (gusta, gustan) + object_noun/pronoun (cart) => me gusta la libro. 
  • Pronoun object: indirect object pronoun (me, te, le) + object_pronoun (her, it, etc) + verb (gusta, gustan) => me te gusta. Object pronoun is a DOP here

The following list includes few Spanish backward verbs. Note that most are used to describe opinions or psychological/physical reactions, possession, or involvement.

• aburrir - to bore
• faltar - to lack
• gustar => to like
• encantar => to love
• molestar - to bother
• interesar - to interest
• disgustar - to disgust
• picar - to itch
• fastidiar - to annoy
• importar - to care about something. Looks like similar to important, meaning something important which you care about.
• quedar - to remain

Gustar => To Like: The Spanish verb gustar is an -ar verb usually translated in English as “to like”. It's a backward verb. it’s more about what pleases a person rather than what a person likes.  Here "Book pleases me" rather than "I like books".

The other forms gusto/gustamos, gustas/gustáis are used for the object, when instead of noun, we have pronoun as me/us or you/you_all. However these are less commonly used. I've seen different forms of translations based on these. I've written ones below that seem logical. The same table transformation is followed as shown for present tense of -ar verbs above.

 It's always in this form =>

• Me gusta => I like
• Te Gusta => you like
• le gusta => He/She likes

Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAfXpyZlz-I&list=PLv63dFTP4Sjq6knRsZQI-bTnRE38cZZoy&index=134

Encantar => To Love: Similar to verb gustar, it's a backward verb. It means, "to enchant" or "to bewitch." However, it is most often used to express an extreme like or love for an object. 

There's also an adjective "Encantado", which means "delighted" or "pleased". We use that when meeting people. Encantada is a past participle conjugate of encantar, but here it's used as an adjective. Like happy person, delighted person, etc.

ex: encantado, señorita Maria => I (male) am pleased (to meet you)

ex: encantada, señor John => I (female) am pleased (to meet you)

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Published: Tuesday, 26 March 2024 19:40

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Primetime TCL procs:

PT and other synopsys tools support a lot of tcl procs that make writing tcl programs easier. We already saw a lot of PT cmds as all_fanin, report_timing, etc that were for for specific task. There are many general purpose procs too provided by synopsys that can be used to make our own procs lot easier to write. These procs are loaded automatically when you invoke PT_SHELL, so you can call these procs directly.

Parsing arguments:

One of the most used tcl procs is for parsing proc arguments. Let's say we want to write a custom tcl proc for taking in some inputs and producing a o/p (ex proc to add 2 numbers). The standard tcl cmd for parsing args is by using the cmdline package provided by tcl. However, synopsys provides their own cmdline parser which is std across all of their cmds, and much easier to use. It also has helper proc to show the required args if -help is typed or if wrong args are provided.

parse_proc_arguments => This parses the argument list and puts them into the array specified. This is put inside our proc, and is the first line inside our proc, so that it will parse the args and put them into the array for use downstream.

syntax: parse_proc_arguments -args <arg_list> <result_array>

define_proc_attributes => This prints info on screen about the proc (i. what it does), args required, etc. This is when you just type the proc name, or use -help option (similar to how all std PT cmds show options, etc when you use -help option, or type the cmd with incorrect options). This checks for correctness of args too when you call the named proc. So this proc is a companion proc to parse_proc_arguments. Usually we use both these procs with a

ex:

proc my_proc {args} {
 parse_proc_arguments -args $args results
 set sp [get_pins $results(-from)]
 if {[set num [get_pins $results(-num)]] eq {}} {return 0}

foreach argname [array names results] { echo " $argname = $results($argname)" }
}

define_proc_attributes path_dly_onscreen \
 -info "Prints delay of gates on screen" \
 -define_args {\
    {-from            "startpoint name or collection"    "" string  required}
    {-to              "endpoint name or collection"    "" string  required}
    {-num              "num of paths"    "" float  required}
 }

parse_proc_arguments