Feeding the dog, en español.

Question

"Dar de comer al perro."- To feed the dog. It helps me to understand phrases like this in terms of the individual words, so I was hoping someone could explain this to me, word by word.

dar= to give de= of/from comer= to eat al perro= to the dog

This looks to me something like "to give of to eat to the dog" and I can't explain it. I would have expected "dar la comida al perro" or something.

Also if you wanted to change the tense, would you conjugate dar and leave comer in the infinitive?

E.G. "dando de comer al perro" I am feeding the dog "voy a dar de comer al perro" I am going to feed the dog "di de comer al perro" I fed the dog

Are all of these correct? Thanks in advance

Answer 1

I understand that you were looking for a breakdown of that particular phrase; however, I just thought I'd add another way to say "feed the dog."

Feed the dog (informal command) = alimenta el perro

I fed the dog = alimenté el perro

Did you feed the dog? = ¿Alimentaste el perro?

Mrianne, a dog is a family member! alimenta AL perro - 00494d19, SEP 10, 2009

Answer 2

Avoid literal translations - they fail in situations like this. The phrase "Dar de comer al perro" has an exact translation in Polish, but not in English. The best way of learning a new language, especially at the beginning, is to take most of the fixed phrases for granted and learn them as "chunks" of language.

"Estoy dando de comer al perro"

The other examples are ok.

There are also examples of English verb patterns, like "let somebody do sth" or "get somebody to do something" which cannot be literaly translated to many languages - then you find phrases in your language which convey the same meaning.

I suppose you're right, thanks. - Hamfist, SEP 10, 2009

Answer 3

The mistake people make is in assuming that Spanish sentences are really English sentences written in a secret code. The assumption, then, is that all you have to do is to decode the words and you've got it right back in English.

That is not the case. Spanish is a completely different language, that works very differently in the way sentences are constructed, and in the thought behind them.

Once you figure that out, learning Spanish makes a little more sense.