How to select the right word...?
Hello everyone !
I'm sure this question has been asked before, so please just point me in the right direction to previous answers.
I want to read about the experiences of other learners of Spanish when it comes to looking up words in Spanish. Dictionaries usually give several regional variants. I want to know how you choose the right translation. Asking a native speaker is not always possible when one is writing something, usually homework. I understand that with practice, a feel for the language will develop. But this hasn't happened yet. Nor can I draw on parallel experiences from other languages I've learned as they don't have such variations in the standard language.
Thanks for your help !
8 Answers
Spanish doesn't always have a word for the word you're thinking of in English. Once I wanted to say beat up pickup truck. I searched all related words, including jalopy, in the dictionary. Apparently in the Spanish speaking world pickups only get old, never worn out. I finally settled on camioneta agotada only to be informed that agotado, a was used for things like an empty milk carton.
I also spent a lot of time trying to find a word for the icing or frosting on a cake. I did find one, I can't remember it now, but my friends from Chile, Peru, Venezuela and Spain didn't know what I meant when I used it. My local grocery store, where almost all signs and labels are in Spanish as well as English, has a bakery. Surely the ladies who worked there would know. No. Surely the 5-gallon tubs of the stuff would also be labeled in Spanish. No. Surely the canned frosting or something in the baking aisle would be labeled. No. I have put it out of my mind so I can sleep at night.
Sabor gave a good answer to thiis one. So, my answer to this is to put the word in question in the search box first to see if the question has been asked before. Then if you don't get results, as long as it is not homework, post your question here for a native.
This must happen in all languages. I think I read somewhere about a person who wrote to his French pen pal and in his translation he told him that "he regularly played grasshopper on a field near his house".
Get it? Grasshopper instead of Cricket.
When searching for a word from English say to Spanish, it is advisable to double check by then re-looking back at the word you have found from Spanish to English.
I love Sabor's story on icing. Perhaps the Hispanic world doesn't use icing on their cakes. Actually, come to think of it, I don't know what term to use in my mother tongue - Cantonese. The first thing that came to mind was "sugar paste" but that doesn't convey the concept of icing.
Thanks for all the suggestions so far. I do more or less the same at the moment. When faced with several alternatives, I do look in both English and Spanish sections for phrases and examples, but often I remain unsure which the "right" one is. Of course, as lorenzo said, it is all part of the (never ending) learning process.
PS. Just looked on an on-line dictionary for "icing" in Chinese and it said "sugar frost" or "sugar coat". Both are loan translations, I suspect, and neither sounds "natural".
I'm not sure, but people may actually say frosting here.
beat-up is destartalado
If you aren't connected to the internet, but do have a Spanish-English dictionary, at the moment you are trying to write, you can do the following. Look up the word in English to find some possible Spanish equivalents. Then look up all of the likely Spanish words to see what they mean in English. Sometimes, you'll find a good match rght away, sometimes you won't. When it doesn't work right away, it is often best to think of a new word or phrase in English with the same meaning and look for that too.
Words in both Spanish and English often have several meanings, some of which may be uncommon, and some of which may not be included in the dictionary. Choosing words that are wrong or simply so uncommonly used in that manner that you puzzle the reader is, unfortunately, part of learning the language.
This is for Sabor from the Phrasebook.
She was the icing on the cake. Ella era la guinda del pastel.
la guinda. the icing on the cake (sentido figurado)
guinda = cherry - so maybe the word icing does not exist.
I google the one I like. 
Of course to see if it's used in the situation I'm writing about, Either I write the whole sentence if it's not too specific or I write the word with the prepositions or in another sentence... It really helps.
sometimes the dictionary has phrases containing the word and then I try to find one which is closest in meaning to what I'm trying to say/to the context of a translation sentence.
