Studying for my final.
I'd like someone to either rewrite these correctly or just tell me why it's wrong. I'm in Spanish 1 so I'm probably trying to say things I don't have the words for yet so bear with me...like a small child haha. Thank you VERY MUCH in advance! :D
The question was ¿Cuáles son los pasatiempos favoritos de tus padres? I wrote "Mis padres pasatiempos favoritos son dicen a mi que hacer." What I was trying to say was "my parents favorite pastimes are telling me what to do" My teacher put "El pasatiempo de mis padres" Why not my way?
This is in reference to the sentence previous In my paper (too much to write all). I wrote "Puedo conseguirlos, pero nadie está aqui a me presta su carro. I was trying to say "I can get them, but no one is here to loan me their car" I know this is probably wrong, please tell me why.
I wrote "Tengo ganas de tener algo otra" I'm trying to say "I want to have something else" I picked up tengo ganas de from my book so it might not be the right usage.
4 Answers
Your sentence: "Mis padres pasatiempos favoritos son -------"
This first part is wrong is because you are attempting to use the English possessive construction " 's " as in my parents' favorite pastimes are -------"
This does not exist in Spanish. You have to say "The favorite pastimes of my parents are--- which is what your teacher showed you. The rest of the sentence also has problems due to the fact that you only mentioned one pastime--telling you what to do.
I would rewrite the whole enchilada like this. El pasatiempo favorito de mis padres es decirme que hacer. (Just one pastime) If there are more, then you have to mention them.
Your second sentence should be as Rey Mysterio has said, as well as the third.
los pasatiempos de mis padres quieren que haga
los puedo conseguir (puedo conseguirlos), pero no hay nadie que me preste su carro
tengo ganas de tener otra cosa
Hi Valkyrja68,
Here are your answers to the best of my abilities:
1) when you say “my parents’ favorite pastimes... ” there is an apostrophe (’s for singular number, and s’ for plural), which is supposed to replace the meaning of ‘of’ in third person nouns just like in case of the pronouns (like ‘my’, ‘his’, ‘your’ etc..)—so “the eyes of Robert” becomes “Robert's eyes” and so on—which we sometimes drop while writing informally. But is strictly required by grammar. 
Anyway, this usage being completely absent in Spanish you are stuck with “Los ojos de Roberto”, or, “El pasatiempo de mis padres”, in this case. And, don't worry, it doesn't sound weird at all in Spanish.
2) A. this usage of ‘prestar’ is alright, but I would say it smells too much of money, you aren't really asking for a debt, are 'ya? So, I'd suggest (a little change in the way it's put): “los quiero traer, pero quién hay que me de su carro?” [Note: just as in English, using simpler words makes you sound smarter.]
B. As above, you can use ‘quiero’ just like ‘wanna’ (eg, ‘quieres abrir la ventana?’=‘wanna open the window?’ which are really requests, not questions). May be this is the way ‘wanna’ got into English phrases in the first place.
3) ‘tengo ganas de ..’ sounds really elegant actually, but I coincide with Rey_Mystario, ‘something else’ is better translated as ‘otra cosa’. You can note this easy way to sound very Spanish by using ‘otra’ whenever you would have to mention ‘some’ of anything else (or ‘another’); viz. ‘otro día’, ‘otra duda’, ‘otro tiempo’... [by the way, ‘otra vez’ is the most common way to say ‘again’].
You might have encountered native speakers of Spanish sometimes saying ‘other thing’, or ‘other time’ in a way that almost takes a moment to decipher. This difference of uses is what causes it.
Hope this helped!
Hello Valky
Welcome to the SpanishDict forum
Rey wrote,
los puedo conseguir (puedo conseguirlos), pero no hay nadie que me preste su carro
You can also say:
Los puedo obtener / Puedo obtenerlos, pero no hay nadie que me preste su coche
They use coche in Spain but carro in most parts of Latin America 
I hope this helps
