Echar un vino vs poner un vino
Hi there everyone!
In a recent post about the verb echar, which has a lot of uses and meanings in Spanish, our friend Annierats posted the following sentence:
Si quieres ayudarme, ¿puedes echarme otro vaso de vino?
The sentence sounded instinctively awkward to me and therefore I suggested, without reflecting too much about it:
Echar is not really used in this context, Annie. We would use poner, servir... etc. > echar sounds a bit odd here.
And she answered, very logically:
Ok.. We live and learn, the dictionary said to pour out water, so I thought one could pour out wine... Maybe they meant to throw it away type of pouring?
And this comment made me think for a while. Because it's true:
These sentences:
Échame un poco más de agua, tengo sed
¿Me echas más leche en el café, por favor?
sound totally okay to me, so I wondered... what's going on here?
I'm under the impression that this is a cultural issue. Are there any natives that share the feeling that "Echar agua, echar leche are ok, but... echar vino, echar café, echar cerveza are not"?
What's the difference, is there some kind of difference between children and adult's drinks, or what?
I drew the conclusion that the difference is that in Spain, drinks as wine, coffee and beer are strongly associated to socialising and pleasure, more than to the physiological need of drinking or, in the case of the milk, nutrition. We don't really drink coffee, we have a coffee instead.
Here is my vision about this issue:
Tomar vs Beber
Tomar/ tomarse is a slow act, where the objective is not drinking a coffee itself, but it's considered as a moment, in where the coffee is just an excuse. The important difference about "tomarse un café" is that you enjoy that moment, maybe because you are chatting, or maybe because you like coffee, whereas "beber" is a quick and neutral act of swallowing a liquid.
Echar vs Poner
We don't ask others to pour out a coffee for us, instead we ask: put me a coffee, please.
Échame un whisky reminds me of those old western movies where a rough cowboy enters a bar and drinks half a bottle of whiskey in one gulp. So he needs a person constantly refilling his glass.
Ponme un whisky, on the other hand, is a softer act. You are just going for a > drink, and you are going to enjoy that moment.
Any thoughts?
Corrections- suggestions are deeply appreciated. Feel free to edit this post to improve the English.
5 Answers
"Echar agua, echar leche are ok, but... echar vino, echar café, echar cerveza are not"?
Right, I agree.
Well, seems to have somethig to do with a NEW drink:
Ponme un cubata.
Ponme un café
Ponme una cerveza.
Ponme un vaso de leche.
But:
No me eches tanta espuma (a la cerveza)
Échame un poco más de leche.
Laura, this post is very informative and I appreciate it greatly. 
It reminds me of something I was told by people that have "tea" in England....it's not that they always have "tea" but it's the time of day where one relaxes and has a drink...it's the moment as you stated in your explanation above. 
Thank you for clearing this up and I'll add this concept to the milliion others I'm working on!! Have a great day guapa.
It's funny how we learn different things. As I was reading my way down the page, the first thing that came to mind was Heidita correcting me about this social drinking thing "tomar". She had to hammer it into my head a few times (along with caña) but it finally stuck.
Ya voy a decir: ¡Otra botella de vino, por favor!
That should avoid any of these unfortunate misunderstandings, such as the waiter pouring the wine down the sink..
Cogu
This sentence appears in one of my conversation course books (Berlitz Spanish):
Eso es un porrón. Se echa vino y se pone sobre la mesa.
They translate it as:
That's a "porron". You pour wine into it and put it on the table.
So we are talking about pouring wine, but not to a person rather to a thing - ie porron.
Jeje, I'm not sure what point I am trying to make here, just that they seem to be using echar with vino.
