"en qué capítulo vas"

Question

Hello dear friends,

I need a little help here

I appreciate any help I could get on this..

I need to translate this English sentence mein into Spanish : "what chapter of the novel are u on right now" ,,, now ,, if I were to translate this ,, i would say : "que capítulo está leyendo ahora" or simply put .. "que capítulo lees de esta novela ahora", (and I might be wrong) .. but the translation given in my book seems rather outlandish to me ,, which is : "en qué capítulo vas de esta novela" ,, if any one could help mw with the best possible translation ,, I would appreciate the help .. thanks

Answer 1

Annie and your book are correct. This is a idiomatic use of "ir" but it is very common. Your other ways of saying it would be understood but would not sound natural to a native speaker.

I would probably say something similar to your questions. ¿En qué capítulo estas ahora? Or non-chapter related: ¿En qué parte estas ahora?

But ¿Por qué capítulo vas? is what you are more likely to hear.

This is a perfect example of why fluency is so hard to achieve.

thank u friend ,, I understand now,, and u are correct ,, inspite of having acquired a good command over the grammar I am still atleast a million light years away from fluency ,, thanks to these id - 00b055e0, Apr 7, 2014

thanks to these idiomatic usages of so many verbs and expressions. - 00b055e0, Apr 7, 2014

That is way I say that I will never be fluent. Along with my many other problems. But fluency is not really necessary for most of us. - gringojrf, Apr 7, 2014

I am happy with being conversational. - gringojrf, Apr 7, 2014

Conversational is a huge step forward, Gringo, I agree totally. - annierats, Apr 8, 2014

I am so sad , I wish I were a cybernetic organism (a cyborg) and could just download Spanish - 00b055e0, Apr 8, 2014

Answer 2

¿Por qué capítulo vas?// (¿Por cuál capitulo vas?)

thank u so much Annie ,, but if I may ask ,, "why ir" .. can we not use some other verb that may make it sound more in tune with its English counterpart" - 00b055e0, Apr 7, 2014

Sí, creo que '' Estaba leyendo el capítulo 12 cuando se me caió el libro en el baño.´´ - annierats, Apr 7, 2014

Typo: cayó - annierats, Apr 7, 2014

haha ,, thanks .. pero .. por favor no deje caersete el libro en el baño ,, hehehe ,, muy chistoso - 00b055e0, Apr 7, 2014