How would you say "Lake Superior"?

Question

I am writing a spanish paper and I need to say: We saw "Lake Superior". (You know, as in one of the five great lakes bordering Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Michigan?). Do I just leave it as "Lake Superior"?

Here's my sentence so far: Vimos Lake Superior.

Do I need an 'el' after Vimos and before Lake, do I leave it as is since it's a proper noun, or do I change it to something like "Vimos el lago de Superior."

Answer 1

The verb for to go is Ir and we went = Fuimos not vimos (vimos = we saw)

so your sentance should be Fuimos al lago Superior (Lit: we went to the lake Superior)

= We went to Lake Superior

Explanation You should use al meaning to the (lake) not just el

the reason it is al is because you do not use a + el in spanish

a + el becomes / = al (contraction of the article)

I hope that this helps

Yeah, I meant to saw "saw" instead of "went". Thanks though! - PoppyPatch, Jun 5, 2010

Answer 2

Lago Superior. You don't generally translate names, but common terms like Lake, Mount, North, South, New, etc., do get translated. When in doubt you can check the Spanish language version of Wikipedia.

Answer 3

Since it is an proper name, I would leave it as is. "Lago Grande" wouldn't be right. And I think the word "Superior" is the same in Spanish, so you'd be safe leaving it the way it is anyways.

"Lago Superior" is how it's listed in the Spanish language Wikipedia. - KevinB, Jun 5, 2010