Questions about cargar and quien

Question

How charged is the phone? My dog, who has one leg, is named Mel. She needs to go to the vet, but my phone is dead, so I can't call the vet.

¿Cuánto cargado es tu móvil? Mi perro, quien tiene una pierna, se llama Mel. Ella necesita ir al veterinario, pero mi teléfono está muerte, así no puedo llamarle al veterinario.

1)Quien or que after perro? And why? I want to use quien because the translation to English is "who"

2)Is muerte a good word to describe a phone that is out of battery?

3)How do you all ask "how charged is your phone"?

4)Any other thing you would change? Así and se llama sound a little odd.

Answer 1

¿Cuánto cargado es tu móvil? Mi perro, quien tiene una pierna, se llama Mel. Ella necesita ir al veterinario, pero mi teléfono está muerte, así no puedo llamarle al veterinario.

x

1)Quien or que after perro? And why? I want to use quien because the translation to English is "who"

Que- que is used for who if there is nothing intervening, if you put a preposition, even a, for a person you can use quien. I don't know for a dog- maybe it depends on how much you anthropomorphize it:

El hombre que..., El hombre a quien...

2)Is muerte a good word to describe a phone that is out of battery?

No muerte is the noun death, you would need something like muerto, or descargado. I don't know which is prefered where, descargado is safe.

3)How do you all ask "how charged is your phone"?

Cuán cargado, or qué tan cargado is what I would do. Cuán is more formal/literary the other more normal speech I think. I probably might prefer cuánta carga tiene...

Think of cuán vs. cuánto like tan vs. tanto. You would say tan cargado, but tanta carga.

4)Any other thing you would change? Así and se llama sound a little odd.

Cargado is a state- estar- except I changed that to carga tiene. Carga being a noun goes with cuánta.

Did you mean rota after pierna. Most dogs have four legs. I suppose you might want to take her to the vet if she was down to one.

Se llama sounds fine- is called.

I would not use ella. That makes me think your dog is female (perra)? I don't know if you can use perro, then switch the sex or not. I do not know if it is more natural to maintain masculine for a female dog, or do all feminine, but it seems confusing to mix it. I rewrote this bit to be more how I would say it. Maybe something closer to yours would work.

Así que. Need the que.

Llamar direct object with peronal a, no indirect, unless you are calling him something (a name, for example).

This sounds okay to me, I would be interested in a native thought:

¿Cuánta carga tiene tu móvil? Mi perra, que tiene una pierna (rota), se llama Mel. Tengo que llevarla al veterinario, pero la batería de mi teléfono está descargada, así que no puedo llamar al veterinario.

I am a learner as you know, this is just for your consideration, and await other input.

A lot of work went into this answer, but I know you are seriously trying to learn. Hopefully there are some good points for you in what I wrote. :) - bosquederoble, Jan 7, 2017

All of your answers are very good. You go out of your way to help. :) - rac1, Jan 7, 2017

I can verify the accuracy of answer. However "pila" is also used a lot for small batteries, such as are used in small electronic equipment. - Daniela2041, Jan 7, 2017

Thank you Daniela. I don't know why but I use pila for ones that have letters- AA, AAA, C, D, etc. but batería for those squarish ones. :) - bosquederoble, Jan 8, 2017

Wow thank you so much Bosque! Everything you helped to fix makes sense. - Ramonaspiker, Jan 8, 2017