Una imagen vale más que mil palabras...

Question

I'm applying to film school in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and currently revising my application essay before I send it in. I've studied film previously in New York and when applying to that school, I wrote in that essay my response to the question of why film can change the world, saying something to the effect of: "If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many must 25 per second be worth?" Well, I like to think a creative statement like that helped me get into a competitive film school, so given that I have a similar prompt on the essay for the school in Buenos Aires, I tried to translate the phrase.

It shouldn't be so difficult, as I've studied Spanish extensively for over 10 years but it just seems to be one of those confusing sentences based on a grammatical rule from Spanish 1. I originally had in the rough draft:

Si una imagen vale más que mil palabras, ¿cuánto valen 25 por segundo?

I'm not sure why I left it that way, I feel like the word cuánto should be reflective of the object it's referring to, in this case, palabras, therefore:

Si una imagen vale más que mil palabras, ¿cuántas valen 25 por segundo? ~as in~ Si una imagen vale más que mil palabras, ¿cuántas (palabras) valen 25 (imágenes) por segundo?

I've already had the essay corrected by two Spanish professors, one a native Colombian and the other a native Cuban, and neither caught the error, so that adds to my confusion as to whether or not it was even an error. I'd appreciate the help, and sorry for the overly detailed back story!

Answer 1

I'm only a beginner in Spanish and most probably I'm embarrassing myself right now, but your sentence "Si una imagen vale más que mil palabras" sounds to me like if a picture is worth more than a thousand words rather than if a picture is worth a thousands words.

I completely agree with you on this....

"I'm not sure why I left it that way, I feel like the word cuánto should be reflective of the object it's referring to, in this case, palabras, therefore:"

Even in English you aren't asking what amount of money (how much) 25 pictures per second are worth but rather what number of (how many) words they (25pic/sec) are worth. So I believe the same concept should be conveyed in Spanish.

As crazy as it sounds, I'm gonna give it a shot....

Si una fotografía tiene un valor de mil palabras, ¿cuántas 25 por segundo tuvieran?

I think we'd better wait for a native speaker!

See you definitely understand the idea I'm trying to express, and your shot was almost there, some small issues with word order and the verb "tener" in the second clause, but it actually gives me a new idea of how to translate the phrase, so thanks! - jpguitar55, Jul 20, 2011

I know 'tener' in the second clause must be in the subjunctive but I'm not sure in which tense, imperfect or simply present subjunctive. The present conditional might be an option as well. - SpanishPal, Jul 20, 2011

Answer 2

Si una imagen vale más que mil palabras, ¿cuánto valen 25 por segundo?

Totalmente correcto.

Buena suerte, jpquitar55. - LuisCache, Jul 20, 2011

Answer 3

Cuánto = how much

¿Cuánto valen 25 por segundo? (¿Cuánto valen 25 palabras/imágenes por minuto?)

Cuántos/cuántas = how many

So you can't use how many for how much and in this instance I believe you want to say how much. How much do 25 per second ...

I agree "Cuánto valen 25 palabras/imágenes por minuto?" makes better grammatical sense but does it imply that a certain, unknown amount of one has the same worth as the other? I'm trying to establish the relation in value between the two - jpguitar55, Jul 20, 2011

It's correct the way you had it. Quit analyzing it to death. - margaretcorwin, Jul 20, 2011