manana - tomorrow or morning?
Hi;
I'm having a lot of trouble with the many Spanish words that have different contextual meaning. Mañana is a perfect example. All my life I have known that "hasta Mañana" meant "until tomorrow". But, I just did a flashcard set that translated "morning" into "Mañana" !
So, how do I say "good morning." ?
Or, "tomorrow morning" as distinguished from "tomorrow"? In the first case, I mean a specific time range, from sunrise to noon on the next day. In the second case, I mean from noon to sunset on the next day. "mañana por la mañana" seems cumbersome and contradictory.
Or even worse, how about "yesterday morning?"
Help!
7 Answers
Alot depends on context when using manaña. It can mean both "morning" or "tomorrow". Por la manaña means "in the morning" but in the context of "Hasta manaña", then manana can mean "until tomorrow" or "until the morning".
Good morning doesnt translate directly in Spanish (like many sayings!). Instead the Spanish essentially say "Good day" ie Buenos Dias, instead of good morning. I suppose you could run around Spain saying "Buenos manaña" but it would be like saying "good tomorrow". And would draw a few odd looks.
There are some really good materials in the reference section on the past (preterite, imperfect) tense and the future (future, conditional) which may shed some more light.
I think the key thing I'm learning is you can't directly translate from English to Spanish and vice versa. Some sayings and word constructions just don't make sense when you go word for word (Tengo hambre is a good example - you would never say, "I have hunger" in English, likewise you would never say, "Estoy hambre" in Spanish!)
I hope this helps!
I was at a bus stop yesterday and there was an advertisment campaign againt hunger. It said
"Su mañana es hoy - There is no way to tell if it is morning or tomorrow here but the context helps alot. His tomorrow is today. It wouldn´t really sound good if you said "his morning is today."
Just thought it might help
A very very simple explanation.
La mañana------the morning --noun
Mañana-----tomorrow ---adverb.
That's why you can have expressions like "Mañana por la mañana" Tomorrow (in the) morning.
Some people say" Mañana en la mañana" but that's not really the Spanish way. We use "por la mañana, por la tarde, y por la noche" for "in the morning, in the afternoon, and in the evening."
Someone asked: "How about yesterday morning?" Easy! "Ayer por la mañana."
You may separate the two by calling morning "matutino"? Or "mañanero"?
Just to add to the confusion, some people use "Hasta mañana" to mean "Hasta luego", that is they use it when they mean they'll see you in a few days.
The first is easy, you do not say good morning in Spanish, rather buenos días or buen día - good day.
Tomorrow morning is mañana por la mañana.
Yesterday morning is probably ayer por la mañana.
