Hasta que no...

Question

I've been seeing this construction recently and I find it confusing. Eng: Until you help me, I won't leave here. Span:Hasta que no me ayude, no me iré de aquí.

I would think that means, "until you DON'T help me". Is this just a construction that I just need to get used too? I'm seeing it often in my study of subjunctives.

I think Feliz77's answer may get to the heart of the matter. There is a predilection in Spanish for the use of double negatives. - Jubilado, May 14, 2015

Answer 1

It's similar to: Until you DO help me, I won't leave.

Here the word DO is not translated to spanish, but it Convey the same meaning as Hasta que NO me ayude....

Interesting. Glad you are here to help. "Do" in English verb usage is considered the emphatic present tense. - Jubilado, May 14, 2015

¡Una respuesta muy buena, Don! Por cierto, ¿de dónde eres, por favor? - FELIZ77, May 14, 2015

Hi Feliz77, I'm from Mexico. - doncruz, May 15, 2015

HI Don , thank you for responding. :) - FELIZ77, May 15, 2015

Answer 2

According to the Oxford English /Spanish Dictoonary (4th edn):

Until (hasta)

In negative sentences no is used optionally before the verb.

ex: 1.No se acostó hasta que Tom (no) volvió

She didn't go to bed until Tom got back (returned)

I hope this helps

Optionally, not optimally, yes? ;-) - jtaniel, May 14, 2015

Yes, it says optionally not optimally lol - FELIZ77, May 14, 2015

Yes, sorry for the confusion; I use predictive text on my phone when I am writing text on posts and if I am not careful to check and confirm.the exact word I want then it changes the word ; sometimes without me realizing it lol - FELIZ77, May 14, 2015

Great post! Very clear and accurate! - LuisCache, May 15, 2015

Thank you very much for your encouragement, Luis :) - FELIZ77, May 15, 2015

Answer 3

I've been told that these two sentences are very similar in meaning:

Hasta que no me ayude, no me iré de aquí.

Hasta que me ayude, no me iré de aquí.

Alas, the difference is too subtle for my understanding.

I think that this is just one of the uses of negatives that strike English speakers as odd. For me, it's like «Mejor que nunca». Uh, better than never? Don't you mean better than ever? But... in Spanish, seemingly unnecessary (or counterproductive) negations occur all the time.

¡Más vale tarde que nunca! = Better late than never! :) - FELIZ77, May 14, 2015

Jtaniel, we must really be careful not to judge other people's languages because they do not conform. to the patterns or rules of our own language.The Spanish often use double negatives in sentences which are not/do not present a problem until we try to - FELIZ77, May 14, 2015

to translate 'word for word' into our native language (mother tongue) then when it makes little/no sense in this way , some people criticise the new language they are trying to learn! ;) - FELIZ77, May 14, 2015

Answer 4

Sometimes there is a negative expression in Spanish that is not negative in English. I tried to find a discussion on this expression on another website but have not so far.

Perhaps related to this is an earlier post I made which you can access by clicking below

Estudiantes de español e inglés

Very good point, Jubilado :) - FELIZ77, May 14, 2015

Answer 5

Like 'near miss' in English, which, of course, actually means the opposite, i.e. 'near hit'...

I seem to recall from my study of French grammar (which I undertook as an academic exercise a L.O.N.G. time ago) that French similarly uses what is referred to as 'the untranslatable ne' or 'non-negative ne'. I don't know about other Romance languages, but perhaps it's a common feature. For what it's worth, in French I learned of its existence and use but never used it myself, and this never affected my ability to make myself understood in speech or writing...

Untranslatable French negative

Another way to look at it might be, 'So long as you don't help me, I won't leave'... ;-) - Faldaesque, May 14, 2015

Ah, ha! That makes lot's of sense. and I do understand that there is no reason for one language to make sense in another language. - AndaBien, May 14, 2015

Thanks for bringing up the French reference. I thought of it as well but could not articulate it in an answer without research. - Jubilado, May 14, 2015

Aye, I'd actually quite forgotten about this in French till I saw this thread. I mostly just watch French films nowadays, & I think it's quite rare in the spoken language... ;-) - Faldaesque, May 14, 2015

Answer 6

This is a good topic, I've been struggling with this for years. It takes a bit of adjustment for us English speakers to get used to it.

The first time I came across this it really threw me for a loop.

Answer 7

I was thinking about this last night as I lay in bed (because I'm sad, that way).

I'm not sure it doesn't make sense, but it depends on how you think about the word 'hasta'. Although translated as 'until', in my mind 'hasta' and 'hacia' are similar, and if you think of it more like 'hacia', i.e. 'towards', and think of it referring less to the destination or objective (i.e. someone helping you), and more to the process of moving towards that destination or objective, then you can kind of see why 'no' applies, because over the course of that process, in fact the someone (whose help you want) is not helping.

Thus, 'so long as you're not helping me, I won't leave'...

Or maybe I should just take some cocoa before I got to bed...

Two unsolicited pieces of friendly advice: 1. Think of more profound subjects before sleep and 2. Take the cocoa! :-) - Jubilado, May 15, 2015

;-) - Faldaesque, May 15, 2015