Hi gui, welcome to the forum!!

echar de menos: to miss (somebody)

Have a go at "double click" on "echar", it will lead you to the dictionary and you will find more expressions with echar..

So . . .

Echo de menos a mi hermana porque está en Nueva York hace unas semanas.

I miss my sister because she's in New York for a few weeks.

Is this right? And how is it different from:

Le extraño a mi hermana . . .

I would say: (Le) echo de menos a mi hermana porque está en Nueva York por unas semanas.

I don't think "hace" works here to mean "for."

And I think it's pretty much the same as "Le extraño..."

I miss...

James, this por here is very typical for south American. In Spanish though we DO say: hace unas semanas.

I personally consider "por unas semanas" spanglish, I hope Gustavo won't be annoyed.

Although "extrañar" a alguien is the most common way to use this prhase,
echar de menos also can be use as "note the lack of something".

Thank you, Gustavo & James!

So I can say it any way I want to

Yes, really you can. In Spain preferably "hace unas semanas", as you did.

Le, Les is common in the Spain Spanish.
La, Lo(s) is used in Latin America.

When you are talking as a personal reflection is not necesary at the begining, you can say: "echo de menos a mi hermana = extraño a mi hermana"

In a conversation or structured sentence, you can use it:
- Supe que tu hermana está de viaje.
- Si, está en Nueva York, y la/le echo de menos!

Espero sea de alluda.

Yeah, to my gringo ear it sounds like she is saying "I miss my sister because she is in NY a few weeks ago."

On a similar topic, I know that AmEng has been influencing BrEng a great deal in the past few decades, much to the chagrin of many Brits, but I wonder if Mexican Spanish has been doing the same to Iberian Spanish.

Gustavo, that's the way I learned it, and the texts I have used certainly don't use Spanglish.

If the sentence were "Hace unas semanas que está en NY," then I would agree that it means "She has been in NY for a few weeks," but I have never seen it used without the que and at the end of the sentence. If I went to Spain and heard that, it would really confuse me.

Dos países separados por un idioma común. jejej Así se dice en cuanto a las dos variedades de inglés.