It was during one of the early mornings in a guesthouse listing to music on my tablet, specifically Besame Mucho from Boleros Inolvidables (Unforgettable Boleros) by Chucho Valdés and Irakere, that I thought to investigate the line:
Como si fuera esta noche la ultima vez
Why did the verb resemble the preterite? As it turned out, that's no accident, that's how the imperfect subjunctive tense is formed. You take the preterite in the third person plural, which is fueron, remove the ron and substitute either ra, ras, ra, ramos, rais, ran, or se, ses, se, semos, seis, sen for the 6 person and number combinations.
So the translation is:
As though tonight would be the last time
What a rich set of tenses Spanish has. I communicated the joy of my discovery with a Peruvian friend and he rewarded me with this amusing YouTube video of the Red Army Choir accompanying Besame Mucho. It seems that the 1980 film Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears was responsible for popularising the song, though it had arrived from Mexico back in 1957.
The other wonderful thing I discovered is that the female voice on the album is that of Mayra Caridad Valdés, sister of Chucho. Though relatively unknown as she lives in Cuba, she has a versatile voice that dwarfs more famous singers. As I've mentioned before, the Cuban bolero is not related to the Spanish musical form.
Como si fuera esta noche la ultima vez
Why did the verb resemble the preterite? As it turned out, that's no accident, that's how the imperfect subjunctive tense is formed. You take the preterite in the third person plural, which is fueron, remove the ron and substitute either ra, ras, ra, ramos, rais, ran, or se, ses, se, semos, seis, sen for the 6 person and number combinations.
So the translation is:
As though tonight would be the last time
What a rich set of tenses Spanish has. I communicated the joy of my discovery with a Peruvian friend and he rewarded me with this amusing YouTube video of the Red Army Choir accompanying Besame Mucho. It seems that the 1980 film Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears was responsible for popularising the song, though it had arrived from Mexico back in 1957.
The other wonderful thing I discovered is that the female voice on the album is that of Mayra Caridad Valdés, sister of Chucho. Though relatively unknown as she lives in Cuba, she has a versatile voice that dwarfs more famous singers. As I've mentioned before, the Cuban bolero is not related to the Spanish musical form.
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