Okay, so “esperé” – it means “I waited” in Spanish. Sounds simple, right? But let me tell you, getting this seemingly basic thing to work in my little project took a bit longer than I expected. I’m building this, like, language learning flashcard app, and I wanted a section where you could see verbs conjugated in the past tense.
First, I started by setting up the basic HTML structure. Just a simple div to hold the verb and its translation. Nothing fancy, just:
- <div id=”verb-container”></div>
Then came the JavaScript part. I figured I’d use a simple object to store the verb and its conjugation. Something like:
- const verbs = { “esperar”: “esperé” };
Initially, I tried to directly display the conjugation using innerHTML. I grabbed the “verb-container” element and set its innerHTML to verbs[“esperar”]. And… it worked! “esperé” popped right up on the screen. I was feeling pretty good about myself at this point.
The Road Block
But then, I realized I needed a way to, you know, actually choose different verbs. It wouldn’t be very useful if it only showed “esperé” all the time! I added a dropdown menu with a few verb options (esperar, comer, vivir, that sort of thing).
I created a function to update the displayed verb when the dropdown selection changed. I thought I had it all figured out. I used an event listener to detect the change, grabbed the selected verb, and… nothing. It just stayed blank.
I spent a good hour debugging, I checked inspect element and messages, going line by line, trying to figure out what I messed up. I even googled “javascript dropdown not updating div” and went through a bunch of Stack Overflow answers that didn’t quite fit my problem.
Finding Error
Turns out, I was making a super silly mistake.I forgot that JavaScript is * my value of option is capitalized.I quickly fixed my code.
Finally, it worked! I selected “esperar” from the dropdown, and “esperé” appeared.I learned that patience and go through code carfully is crutial.
