Can one say in Spanish "¿ Esto pasó bien el fin de semana?" Many French words and constructions are very similar to Spanish. In French one hears all the time "Ça s'est bien passé le weekend?"

Question

I am learning Spanish, but because I am fluent in French I find a great many similarities in gramatical constructions, genders of many words, and close forms of much vocabulary. I also have strong grounding in Latin.

I was curious if when asking "how did something go or turn out" if in Spanish one could use th constuction I cited in my Question? This is a very common way of expressing the concept in French? Another example: "Ça s'est bien passé la réunion?" (How did the meeting go?)

Thanks . . . Alan

Answer 1

I grew up speaking French and Spanish...

The construction you are referring to is somewhat similar in Spanish but remember that in French:

• "se passer" (French) is reflexive when it means to "happen, take place"

  where as the analogous verb in Spanish is "pasar" and is NOT reflexive (unlike French).

Therefore:

Ça s'est bien passé, le week-end ?

¿Pasó bien el fin de semana?

(in Spanish you do not mention the 3rd person if it is an abstraction or imaginary subject - in French it is obligatory, and you would use "ça" or "il" but in Spanish it's simply ommitted)

J'espère que ça t'aidera à démêler les noeuds entres les deux langues.

Tony Vanegas [e-mail]

Answer 2

I used to study French... a long time ago ... I think that the idiomatic construction you´re thinking of might be translated with "es que...", as in "¿Es que pasó bien el fin de semana?"

There´s no real translation in English, but maybe something like "so, did you have a good weekend?", or "is it (true) that you had a good weekend?".

Answer 3

¿Pasó bien el fin de semana? This works just fine, you do not need the esto. You could also say "¿Cómo pasó el fin de semana?