Literal translations
When I typed in "vientre," the site listed hacer vientre as "to have a bowel movement." When I typed in "hizo de vientre," the site translated, "Made of belly; it did of belly." I am confused and do not completely trust this site because of multiple experiences I have had similar to this one. Please advise.
3 Answers
Like English, many words in Spanish have more than one meaning depending on the context it's used in. Also keep in mind that a word can mean something different when combined with other words.
Hacer [something] and hacer de [something] are two different constructions and therefore are going to mean different things.
The dictionary and the translator are a starting point. If what comes out of the dictionary/translator doesn't seem to make sense, then you can definitely come here and ask for help.
Was there an expression in particular you needed help with?
And welcome to SpanishDict!
Having 3 translations to choose from helps, but none of them are going to be 100% accurate, except in the most simple of translations. You have to know some of the language to be able to discern which one to choose from. I often pick and choose the words they suggest to the best of my knowledge of Spanish.
Something that this site has that is very helpful is the dictionary. So if I want to know more about how to use "vientre", I will type in just that word in the little blue search box next to my avatar & name. When you get to that page there are several different ways of using this word. Just go through them and pick the one that fits the best. Sometimes they even give different phrases for different usages.
Hi Norma.
I can tell by the way that you’ve worded your question that you’re a little frustrated. Unfortunately, I can also tell that your expectations are too high. This happens all the time, I think, because people who are fairly new to translating by using computers often have incorrect assumptions about what computerzied translators should be able to do. In reality, unfortunately, things are just not as simple as many people would like them to be.
Languages—like English sometimes needs do, does, or did to negate a sentence or to form a question and Spanish does not have this feature; like Spanish usually does not require subject pronouns because they’re implied in the verbal inflections and English does not have this feature—are much more complex in terms of their differences from one another than any computer programming can fully, adequately handle. In short, they’re only good up to a point.
Therefore, one needs to “play” with the translators, working back and forth, and working with one’s own knowledge of what makes sense and what does not. It’s the only way to arrive at the “correct” answer.
Think of it this way: if one computer programmer could code translation perfectly, taking into account a million different nuances in connotation, idioms that require complete re-wording, and all of the different features that this language has and that language doesn’t have, then there wouldn’t be three different “brands” of translators here at SD, and who knows how many elsewhere.
In short, linguistic, grammatical, and “word bank” differences from one language to another are way more complex than any computer programmer or team of programmers can ever hope to adequately deal with. You have to use them as a tool while keeping in mind their limitations. They can be helpful, but if one doesn’t understand the limitations, one is simply quickly frustrated.
I often use this site for strings of three to six words at a time: Linguee
From the examples, you can often piece together enough clues to figure out whether you’re on the right track or not.
I hope this was helpful. —Brian
