Eating Mexicans
In English, you might hear someone say, "Do you want to go eat Mexican?"
While grammatically lacking, we understand the inference, "Do you want to go eat Mexican food
How would a native Spanish speaker receive "¿Quieres ir a comer mexicano?"
Where it would probably be more-correct to say, "¿Quieres ir a comer comida mexicana?"
I know, in Mexico, they'd probably just say "¿Quieres ir a comer."
But suppose you were in Spain, and you wanted Mexican food; what does the man on the street say?
3 Answers
[Feel free to correct my English, please]
Hello jrschenk,
¿Quieres ir a comer comida mexicana? or ¿Quieres ir a comer a un restaurante mexicano? are the more correct and complete ways to say it.
But 'the man on the street' (including myself) would probably say: ¿Te apetece mexicano? (Everybody will get that you are talking about food)
Also good options are:
¿Quieres comer mexicano?
¿Quieres ir a comer mexicano? (food is implicitly understood).
¿Quieres ir a un mexicano? (means 'to the restaurant').
By the way, ¿te apetece? is the same as ¿quieres?.
EDIT: One more thing. In Spain you will use this method for every type of food that has a demonym (gentilic?) in it. We use the masculine (chino, tailandés, mexicano...) because we refer implicitly to the restaurant. Nevertheless, feminine will be used when the word comida is in the sentence. For example:
¿Te apetece comer chino? = ¿Te apetece comida china?
I hope this helped you. ¡Saludos!.
I would say that translates to "comemos mexicana" (comemos comida mexicana?)
I would say, "Quieres la comida mexicana?" I think your writing "Eating Mexicans" was an attention grabber! OK, I am guilty of having done that as well.
