"Si, se puede" = "Yes, we can"

Question

Hello everyone,

I was reading about a Mexican restaurant that I ate at recently, called "El Meson" (which unbeknownst to me, means the big tables in Spanish?).

On the webpage, I was reading about the Castro family, which owns the restaurant, and it says that their motto is "Si, se puede" - "Yes, we can". Is this really a good translation, or is this somehow mis-translated?

I was just curious, because I would translate "Yes, we can" as "Sí, podemos".

El Meson Homepage - It is the last sentence, talking about their motto. I hoe they have it right...

Gracias todos!!

C, that was a popular slogan of the Obama campaign also. I still see it on bumper stickers. - Yeser007, Nov 12, 2010

Answer 1

It is a good translation, but not a literal one. A closer translation would be "Yes, it's doable", or "Yes, it can be done". I guess someone was asked to translate "Yes, we can" and thought that "se puede" sounded better than "podemos".

By the way, 'mesón' isn't a big table, even though it seems related to 'mesa'. It means 'inn'.

Mesón means counter (like a kitchen counter) here in Ecuador. - lorenzo9, Nov 12, 2010

That's interesting. It doesn't show up in the dictionary of the RAE though, and anyway it is clear that it meant 'inn' in that context. Many old fashioned restaurants are called "mesones" in Spanish speaking countries. - bill1111, Nov 12, 2010

Billstpor is the man!! - lazarus1907, Nov 12, 2010