Adjective + de + infinitive

Question

Yesterday in Spanish class, I asked my teacher how you would say "The movie is fun to watch" in terms of the grammar of the "fun to watch" part. She told me that the correct way is "La película es divertida para ver." However, I just looked up something about infinitives after prepositions, and I've seen a lot of examples that would say "La película es divertida de ver." I'm not sure if the two ways are interchangeable or not, but seeing as my Spanish teacher isn't a native speaker, I can understand if she's wrong. So basically, in this situation, is the proper construction adjective + de + infinitive?

Thanks for any help!

Answer 1

"Divertida para ver" sounds a bit odd to me; "divertida de ver" is better. However, in "¿Tienes una película divertida para ver?" is fine, because "para ver" refers to the movie, not to "divertida".

Thank you ! I'll let my teacher know. - 003c2fcd, Apr 6, 2011

By the way, the last digit of PI should have been rounded down to 5, hehe - lazarus1907, Apr 6, 2011

:) - lorenzo9, Apr 6, 2011

Answer 2

It seems like you can say things like

"Es difîcil de leer" / "Es difîcil a leer." / "Es difîcil leer"

"Es difícil leer" means "Reading is difficult", not "It is difficult to read". You cannot say "Es difícil a leer"; it might be understood, but it is utterly unacceptable, it sounds horrible.

Well, then there are tens of thousands of horrible Spanish speakers who post online. :) - Luciente, Apr 6, 2011

Answer 3

I think your teacher may have fallen into the trap of attempting to translate something directly and in the end creating a phrase that would never be used in another language.

The only thing we do with a film as viewers is watch it, so the "para ver" makes the sentence in Spanish wordy and redundant. It would be more natural to simply say "La película es muy divertida."

Couldn't it be fun to criticize, lampoon, analyze, satirize, mock, ......? - 0074b507, Apr 6, 2011

I agree with Julian. - lazarus1907, Apr 6, 2011

When you say "I liked the movie." in English, you are not normally saying you enjoyed eating it as a bedtime snack. - lorenzo9, Apr 6, 2011

Answer 4

There are exceptions, but typically the use of "es adjective + infinitive" corresponds to "gerund is adjective" and "es adjective +de infinitive" corresponds to "it's adjective + to infinitive".

Answer 5

It seems like you can say things like

"Es difîcil de leer" / "Es difîcil a leer." / "Es difîcil leer"

and all are understood.

I Googled and "Son dificiles leer" and "Son dificiles de leer" got results but "Son dificiles a leer" didn't.

It seems like the "de" is the best one!