How would you say..they can not agree what to do?

Question

Trying to do some spanish translation.

How would you say "they can not agree what to do"?

I thought of "no pueden acordar en que hacer".

Not sure if acordar is corect verb or how to express idea of "what to do".

Any ideas?

Jo

"agree on what to do" would be somewhat better. - samdie, Oct 29, 2010

Answer 1

After "acordar", if it isn't followed by a person, you don't need any preposition: acordar algo, acordar hacer algo, but acordar con alguien.

Your "que" needs to have a tilde: qué hacer. I can't explain, since I don't know the theoretical rules, why but it's like this...

This one is just estilistic: it sounds better "no son capaces", they are not able to do it, but, as I said, it's just estilistic, "no pueden" is fine.

The rule in this case is that qué is used when what is used as a pronoun in indirect speech. - lorenzo9, Oct 29, 2010

Or in other words, when 'qué' (or 'quién', 'cómo', etc..) are used in "proposiciones interrogativas", which I guess would be translated as "interrogative clauses". - bill1111, Oct 29, 2010

Billstpor's formulation is better. It's an indirect question. Indirect discourse is more general (encompasing both questions and statements). - samdie, Oct 29, 2010

Answer 2

No se ponen de acuerdo sobre qué hacer.

acordar has a more restricted use, more formal, as in

Acordamos una nueva reunión para el próximo martes.

Los senadores acordaron un nuevo proyecto.