¡Como odio que se me pierdan las cosas!
1.) ¡Como odio que se me pierdan las cosas!
a. How I hate it when things become lost to me!
b. How I hate it when I lose things!
c. I hate losing stuff!
2.) ¡Odio perder las cosas!
3.) ¡No me gusta cuando pierdo las cosas!
I always get confused with reflexive verbs and object pronouns. Are all of my english translations of the first sentence correct more or less?
And is the first translation (sentence a) more correct than the others (sentences b-c)?
Additionally, are the second two spanish sentences correct, and is it far more common as a spanish speaker to say things in that manner (spanish sentence #1) as compared to the second two spanish sentences?
I ask because a spanish friend said to me the first sentence, but if I had wanted to say or convey the same thing to him it never would have occurred to me to say it like that, I would have naturally opted for sentence 2 or 3. It's very disappointing I think I am never going to be able to say things in the manner of a native :(
2 Answers
Yes, all your English translations convey the same idea. I'm not 100% sure about your other ways of saying the same thing in Spanish; such as in number 2 if you can follow odiar with an infinitive, though I think that that is fine. I definitely would omit the "las" in sentences two and three. It is necessary in the first sentence because essentially "las cosas" is what you conjugate the verb in accordance with. Conjugating verbs in this manner is common because it is a manner of depersonalizing the action, so it is very common with words like drop, lost, forgot, etc, that would require on to "admit" guilt. Don't get down on yourself, it just takes practice before you get used to constructions like these.
Como odio que se me pierdan las cosas!
Se pierden las cosas. (things get lost)
Se (me) pierden las cosas. (me) is the indirect recipient of the action.
The idea here is that it happened to me.
Thus, things get lost and it happens to me.
In this construct, I take no blame for the loss.
Como odio… > Oh how I hate…
So.... How I hate that things get lost and it happens to me.
This is a way to say something that happens without taking the blame for it.
The translation is......***
Pretty much all of the above mentioned.
Thus... the idea is more important than the wording
The idea behind the translation is.........***
How I hate loosing things…but hey, I’m not to blame.
