medio ambiente

Question

en ingles o español, que es medio ambiente. necesito un definicion. ¡¡¡¡Por favor!!!!

Answer 1

I don't follow your line of reasoning. What are the two nouns? ambiente would be an adjective (ambient, not ambiance) If I had to translate this into English and not use the word environment I would suggest the surrounding (ambient) medium.

lazarus1907 said:

However, Martin has a point: the expression "medio ambiente" does not seem to follow the usual pattern in Spanish constructions, as one noun is being used to modify another, not as an proper name, but as an adjective.

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Answer 2

Ok, now I understand the source of confusion. I thought ambiente=ambient and ambience=ambiance, but upon looking closer it seems that ambience is just an alternative spelling for ambiance and that ambiance (or ambience) is defined as ambiente in Spanish. So in Spanish they use the same word for ambient and ambiance. Now I understand where the two noun argument comes from in Spanish when it doesn't exist in English.

Looking at this from an English viewpoint medio ambiente would be noun + adjective, but from a Spanish viewpoint this could be seen as either a noun + noun (acting as adjective) or noun + adjective depending on whether you see ambiente as a noun or as an adjective. (ambiance or ambient)

Quentin said:

I don't follow your line of reasoning. What are the two nouns? ambiente would be an adjective (ambient, not ambiance) If I had to translate this into English and not use the word environment I would suggest the surrounding (ambient) medium.

lazarus1907 said:

However, Martin has a point: the expression "medio ambiente" does not seem to follow the usual pattern in Spanish constructions, as one noun is being used to modify another, not as an proper name, but as an adjective.

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Answer 3

Quentin said:

I think the word media in this context means medium with the English meaning of not 1/2, average, or middle but as in water is a better medium for conducting sound waves than air. the environment is the medium that surrounds us

I think you are correct that medio in this sense comes from the meaning of "medium," but that still begs the question of why medio is used in this way. Medium, in this sense, is defined as " An intervening substance through which something else is transmitted or carried on," but in the sense of environment, nothing is being transmitted or carried.

Of course, the real answer is the usual "Because that's the way we say it."