encima de o sobre - Which is better in this instance?
In one of my workbooks there is an exercise where one of the sentences to translate is: "Usually the raccoon lives in a tree, but I'm lucky because my house is on top of this raccoon."
(Not something that I would feel particularly lucky about, but that is another matter) 
The answer key in the book has the translation as: "Usualmente el mapache vive en un árbol, pero tengo suerte porque mi casa está encima de este mapache."
I thought this was a bit weird because, although "encima de" does mean "on top of", doesn't it have the flavor of being actually on top of (as in touching) the something it is on top of? Maybe I'm lucky to have a raccoon under my house, but it doesn't sound like the raccoon is! He's being crushed!
In this instance, I thought sobre would be better because, while it means "on top of", it can also mean "over" or "above". Am I completely off track here? Am I splitting hairs and it really doesn't matter which one I use? What do you think?
Gracias a todos!
2 Answers
Holly, I think the problem in this sentence is the English version. When you say "my house is on top of this raccoon" it sounds strange. Although no English speaker would probably think that the house is actually sitting on top of the raccoon, it is unclear. Also, the first and the second clause don't really have much to do with each other so the use of "but" in this sentence sounds very awkward at best. I know this is from a workbook, but It sounds awful, is grammatically incorrect, and doesn't contain enough information to make an accurate translation.
Although "sobre" (no "de") and "encima de" are often used interchangeably, there are subtle differences. The English in this sentence seems a bit odd to me, but nevertheless I would say "encima de" is the right choice. To me "encima de" would indicate that you are both in the same tree, while "sobre" could mean you are above (not touching) the tree.
