they eat off / of the plates
Hola a todos, gracias por sus respuestas. Estoy resolviendo unos ejercicios en línea y me pide que traduzca del inglés al español la siguiente oración:
- They eat off the plates
y la traduje como "ellos comen de los platos", pero entonces en inglés sería "of" en vez de "off" ¿ no es así? ¿acaso "to eat off" existe? ¿en tal caso qué significa?
3 Answers
Hola Maestro.
Sí que existe "to eat off" y eso quiere decir ¨comer de¨ como ya comentaste.
¨de¨ significa ¨of¨, pero también ¨from¨, en este caso ¨off¨ o ¨off of¨ pueden significar ¨from¨
Así que ¨comer de¨ es lo mismo como ¨eat off (of)¨
Good explanations from the others too.
I would say that definitely "off" in the context of ¨from¨ that both Kiwi and Jubilado mentioned.
Personally, I'd be most likely to express it in Jubilado's last form with "off of"
An example, such as a mother instructing a child on manners.
Johnny, put your cake back on the plate. We don't eat off of the table, we eat off of plates.
Or.
We don't eat from the table. Eat off of the plate please.
Hola Maestro.
As Kiwi said you can translate this "from" and it may make better sense, and it might even be translated with progressive present in English: They are eating from the plates. In certain contexts one might here hear "eat off the plates": I don't want them to eat off the plates in the cabinet (but again "from" would work just as well). There is even another expression "eat off of": They are eating off of the plates that we just bought. In a larger context what you actually say in English may have any of these forms.
Remember that 'de' can also mean 'from' so perhaps that would be the literal translation, they eat 'from' the plates which is equivalent to 'they eat off the plates'.
