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Originally Posted by Gabriel
Does anybody know why it is wrong to use the gerund in certain sentences in Spanish like for example: "robó escapando en un auto"?
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The issue in this example is that there are two actions which take place in this order: 1) committing robbery; 2) escaping. In Spanish, the gerund cannot be used to refer to an action which occurred after the main verb (a gerund may only refer to an action which occurred before or together with the main verb). Here, the main verb is "robar" and there is another action ("escapar") which takes place afterwards. A correct version in Spanish could be: "robó y se escapó en un auto". In this case, we are clearly describing the order in which things happened.
I hope you find it useful! I'd be glad to clarify more issues if you send more examples! Of course, the answer depends on the context, since there are several cases where the gerund is incorrectly used in Spanish.