Why not use "del"?

Question

A pay raise in Spanish is "un aumento de sueldo". Why is it not "un aumento del sueldo".

I am completely fine with excepting the language for what it is and nor arguing with things that "just are", but this has been bugging me for a while now.

Thanks!

Answer 1

Hello buenpescador,

Welcome to the SpanishDict forum

You asked:

A pay raise in Spanish is "un aumento de sueldo". Why is it not "un aumento del sueldo".

Un aumento de sueldo = A pay rise (or literally, an increase of pay)

In English you could also say: an increase in pay. The Spanish would say an increase of pay = Un aumento de sueldo

In English You wouldn't say: an increase of the ( del sueldo) pay would you? That would sound odd/strange in English and even a bit funny

de = of but del (de + el = del) = of the

I hope this helps

By the way, we say accepting (not excepting!) the language

except is a preposition and we would use it like this: Teacher: "All the children can now go out to play now, except (excluding / apart from) Christopher and Jonathan who I want to talk to about the writing on the walls in the toilets!"

Good Feliz. - britisk, May 30, 2014

Thank you, Britisk :) - FELIZ77, May 30, 2014

??????????? - chileno, May 30, 2014

yes Feliz, I agree with you - 00b055e0, May 31, 2014

Thanks! Also, I am aware that the word is "accepting" not "expecting", not sure how I even made that mistake. Thanks for the correction though, it will be a good lesson for some of the English learners on this forum. - buenpescador, May 31, 2014

Answer 2

Feliz:

A raise of the salary wouldn't hurt the workers.

Is not correct?

I am aware that can be said in other ways, but I wouldn't consider it impossible, and it is comprehensible.

Chileno , you can use raise as a verb: eg I will raise your salary but in England we do not use it as a noun, a raise... only the Americans use it this way! ! - FELIZ77, May 31, 2014

It seems strange to my ears to use it this way! - FELIZ77, May 31, 2014

Not even in context, ie: you are talking about that particular salary... - chileno, May 31, 2014

The article, "the" is not needed in English. However, you could say, "A raise of their salary, but it would have to be in context. It not you would need to identify who "their" is. - rac1, May 31, 2014

Thank You, Rac for confirming that ) - FELIZ77, May 31, 2014

Chileno, understandable ...yes! grammatically correct ...no! I hope this helps :) - FELIZ77, May 31, 2014

That's all I was after... :) - chileno, May 31, 2014

Thank you. - chileno, May 31, 2014

Answer 3

When you use this as a generalized expression, not refferring to any particular person's salary) you are not talking about a "definite thing" (as it could be any one's salary) .. for example .. un aumento de sueldo por lo menos una vez al año es muy importante para las personas asalariadas,,

And in common usage, even when you may be talking about your own salary ,, or some specefic person's salary, you might not want to use "del",, because some expressions are so widely used that they acquire the status of stand alone vocabulary items in day to day speech ,, sl it is better for you to think of the whole expression as a single word (instead of a grammatical phrase) and just use the definite or indefinite article at the start ... for example .. el aumento de sueldo que he recibido este año es muy poco ... or podría conseguir un aumento de sueldo pronto ... so just consider it as one single vocabulary unit (like any word in the vocabulary) and just place the article before it (without fiddeling with its inner architecture.. hehe) ..

Don't think too much .. just use it as is (without trying to correlate it to the grammar too much hehe)

Regards

Answer 4

" a rise in their pay would settle the situation "