A lo mejor

Question

What does "a lo mejor' mean
Is it possible to look up phrases in this "spanishdict" gadget?

Answer 1

To me an accurate translation of "A lo mejor" would be "At best". There are other words in Spanish that work better to say maybe like "talvez" and better to say perhaps like "quizas".

Answer 2

I don't know about the Spanishdict gadget. The translation is: perhaps, maybe, as likely as not

Answer 3

Renae, I agree with you. But then I kind of started thinking about what "probably" is actually saying (or, what you could replace it with in English).

Just for a scenario...

P1: "Is he going to be late to the party?" P2: "Probably, yea."

P2's answer could (not saying it's 100% accurate or similar) be replaced with something like, "That's my best guess." or "It's best to assume that."

Sometimes we have to translate our own language first to make sense of a phrase in Spanish.

thank you "sygoneblue" for your perceptive explanation of "a lo mejor..". I stumbled inot this tonight while reading & could not figure out WHY it translated as "maybe". But your explanation makes it clear & I truly agree w/ your final comment... - t8805jg, Apr 7, 2011

Yeah, I think "probably" is basically a reference to probability in a rudimentary way: more likely than not. In other words, when someone says something probably will happen, they are saying that it is more likely than not that it will. - JohnMooreEsq, Aug 16, 2011

Answer 4

"a lo mejor"="probably"

Answer 5

Hello SSSandra,

Your question: Is it possible to look up phrases in this "spanishdict" gadget?

Yes. Across the top of the home page are various tabs, one of which is 'translation'. There you can translate phrases.