El verbo que vamos a ver a continuación, “suppose” es un verbo que puede tener varios significados, y es muy importante saber cuándo utilizarlo correctamente ya que es una de esas palabras polísemicas que si la utilizas cuando debes hace que tu inglés gane puntos ante los demás.
A menudo utlizamos ‘suppose’ cómo significado de ‘imagine’ o ‘guess’
Ejemplos:
- I suppose you’ll be meeting Khaleesi when you go to Japan.
- When you weren’t there, I supposed you must have been held up.
- I suppose you two know each other.
Observa que ‘suppose’ no se usa normalmente en la foma continua. No decimos ‘I am supposing’.
Ejemplos:
- Now I suppose we’ll have to do something else.
- We’re waiting for Rafa and I suppose he must be stuck in traffic.
- At this moment I suppose it doesn’t matter.
Observa que para ‘imagine not’ o ‘guess not’ hacemos que ‘suppose’ sea negativo, no el otro verbo.
Ejemplos:
- I don’t suppose you know where Laura is.
- I don’t suppose she’ll do anything.
- I don’t suppose he has an Android phone charger here.
Al responder una idea con ‘suppose’, pudes usar ‘so’ para evitar repetir la idea que ya se ha expresado.
Ejemplo:
- – Is Martin coming to this meeting? – I suppose so.
‘Supposed to be’ también puede signficar ‘it is said/believed’.
Ejemplos:
- The new Avengers movie is supposed to be excellent.
- He is supposed to have been rude to Alissa but I don’t believe it.
- It is supposed to be the best club in town.
‘Supposed to be’ también se puede utilizar para hablar sobre lo que está previsto o esperado. Parecido al verbo modal ‘should’.
Ejemplos:
- I’m supposed to get to work by 7.
- Andrew is supposed to turn off all the lights when he leaves.
- I’m supposed to pay my rent on the first day of the month.
- It’s not supposed to be here wasting my time.
A menudo, hay una sugerencia de que la acción ‘supposed to’ ocurre cuando en realidad no sucede.
Ejemplos:
- I’m supposed to be there before nine but I’m often late.
- You were supposed to call me.
- I’m supposed to be getting on a plane to Murcia at this very minute.
‘Not supposed to’ a menudo sugiere que algo no está permitido o prohibido.
Ejemplos:
- You’re not supposed to smoke in here.
- I’m not supposed to tell you.
- We’re not supposed to use the Internet for personal reasons at work.
‘Suppose’ también se puede usar como una conjunción para significar ‘what if’. Observa que el verbo que sigue a veces se pone, pero no siempre, sino que “más en el pasado”.
Ejemplos:
- Suppose we take the earlier train to Munich? It would give us more time there.
- Suppose we took the plane instead? That would give us even more time.
- There’s nobody in reception to let our visitors in. Suppose I sit there until somebody comes?
- – I’m going to ask him for a pay increase. – Suppose he said ‘no’? What would you do?
Fuentes: EnglishGrammarSecrets , Wordreference y Cambridge.