You are lucky to be alive

Question

Tienes suerte de estar vivo. The main issue I have here is the use of DE, it seems nothing more than an auxiliary (helper word, maybe aux is the wrong term) which I guess is fine, but I can usually think of reasons for it. Otherwise it's like "you have the luck of being alive" and I want to translate "DE" to "of" even though I shouldn't do something silly like that... I know "just think in Spanish and don't try to translate" but, sometimes I just want to know, it's just an auxiliary (helper word if aux is not right I'm not sure) here, right? Gracias.

Answer 1

Infinitives in Spanish behave like nouns, and in Spanish in general, you can only join nouns with "de": eg. copa de vino, cuarto de estar, suerte de los tontos. The closest equivalent would be "lucky of being alive" ("lucky to be alive" is best, but it is a completely different structure.)

That makes sense, It's because Infinitives in Spanish behave like nouns! Ok, gracias. ;) - jeezzle, Sep 13, 2010