En mi vida he comido caracoles.

Question

En mi vida he comido caracoles.

Is it true that "En mi vida" is a false friend? That it means "Never in my life" ? If this is true i feel like I've been using it the wrong way for a long time now. jaja

Answer 1

It's true. Although it depends on context and where the phrase is placed, often if it's at the beginning of a sentence, right before a verb it means 'nunca en mi vida'.

You can say 'me alegra que estés en mi vida' (I'm happy that you are in my life) and the 'en mi vida' is translated as you would expect 'in my life'.

I hope this helps.

It depends of context... so it isn;t true. - chileno, Apr 17, 2014

It's true that 'en mi vida' is a false friend 'sometimes' jeje ;) - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 17, 2014

se dice 'it depends 'on' ;) - Kiwi-Girl, Apr 17, 2014

Right...I looked at that and i didn;t do anything... :D - chileno, Apr 17, 2014

Answer 2

I don't really know the answer, but from this thread:

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=2683333

It seems it depends on context and how you say it.

In the above thread, see this answer by our very own Chileno:

Bueno, no es tan fácil así.

"En mi/la vida" por sí sola no significa "nunca", si no imagina que digo "En mi vida comí muchos pasteles" y esto significa que en mi vida he comido muchos pasteles.

Lo más extraño es que en "En mi vida comí tantos pasteles" es que la entonación en que se dice puede significar que nunca había comido pasteles o que siempre había comido pasteles.

I'm still holding that as true. :) - chileno, Apr 17, 2014