"frente a"
The translation for "front" is difficult for me. I get tripped up on this constantly.
Here is a sentence with "frente a,"which I understand in this instance but I nevertheless am posting for reasons I'll set forth afterwards:
"Asunción se ubica justo frente al limite que la separa de Argentina."
I am told by a Spanish speaker that "justo frente" means "right in front." However, I think that in a Spanish speaker's mind "in front" includes what American English speakers think of as "across." In discussing this further, the Spanish speaker explains," in front, you know, opposite." But, if we American English speakers were looking from one side of the border at Asunción on the other side of that border, we wouldn't say that Asunción is in front of us, though in a technical sense I suppose it would be. Nor would we, in normal usage, say that Asunción is opposite. (Maybe in England, they would say "opposite"; I don't know.)We would say that Asunción is across the border from us.
By the way, it is my understanding that "frente a" in the above sentence could be replaced with "enfrente de" without changing the meaning.
So I guess what I am posting is more of a comment borne of frustration. But if my observation is wrong, then I guess this is a question.
3 Answers
Bueno, The English translation for is your sentence is: "Asunción is located just in front of the border/line that separates it from Argentina." It is NOT across the border as you seem to implyl
"Opposite" would be "opuesto" "de enfrente" sometimes just "enfrente" "enfrente de mi casa" would be "opposite my house"
It's a somewhat difficult expression with which some people make mistakes.
My copy and paste didn't work too well in posting comments to Daniela. So I'm trying again now to extract a couple of items from SpanDict's definition of "frente." In the definition of "frente" there are examples of the use of "frente" followed by "a" which appears to mean the same thing as "enfrente de":
5
frente a
(enfrente de) opposite
frente al hotel hay un banco. there's a bank opposite the hotel.
5. (in front of)
a. opposite Hay una escuela frente a mi casa. There is a school opposite my house.
So, what I'm saying is that American speakers wouldn't say there's a bank opposite the hotel; rather, we would say that there is a bank across from the hotel, implying that the bank is across the street. If one said there is a bank in front of the hotel it wouldn't be as clear that there is a street in between the two buildings.
So it is with the city of Asunción. If one translated "Asunción se ubica justo frente al límite que la separa de Argentina" as "Asunción is right in front of the border..." it sounds awkward. Similarly, if "frente a" were replaced with "enfrente de" it would still mean to me that Asunción is "next to" or "across" the border.
Daniela, you may be right that I'm making this too complicated. And for that I'm sorry.
Daniela, I'm sure you're right. Like I said, the use of the word "front" is confusing to me.
Having said that, in English if one is describing the location of a border town one might say that it is right next to the border, right before the border, or right across (from) the border. But if someone said to me it's in front of the border, I'd find myself doing an extra mental step to figure out what that means. Now, if someone says that Asunción is right before the border, that would imply that I'm in Paraguay or referring to the fact that Asunción is in Paraguay. If someone says it's right next to the border, that wouldn't imply anything about the location of the speakers; rather, it simply refers to the close proximity to the border. Similarly, if someone says it's right across the border it might imply, but not necessarily so, that the conversation is taking place in Argentina; on the other hand, it could be taken as simply referring to its location on one side of the border regardless of the location of the speaker.
