an egg hatched
How do you say,
"One of the eggs hatched"
without saying, for example, "el pollo rompió el cascarón y salió"?
I just want to say, "the eggs hatched", without referring to the product of the egg (a chicken, or whatever).
2 Answers
Los huevos fecundados también llamados huevos fértiles son incubados o empollados para que eclosionen, es decir; sean rotos desde dentro por el pollito tras su desarrollo.
Los huevos no fecundados o infértiles no eclosionan. Se rompen si es debido a un hecho fortuito o accidente o los rompe alguien de forma voluntaria. Por ejemplo para hacer una tortilla
There is no intransitive verb "to hatch" in the dictionary. Some words going from one language to another just do not have a direct translation. For example "to like" does not exist in Spanish. You have to say that something "is pleasing" to you.
Similarly there is no verb like "calzar" in English. "¿Qué número calzas?" To say that in English you would have to say "What shoe size do you wear?"
A Google search brought up a word that I have never heard before "eclosionar"
So "Los huevos eclosionaron." is what would be the result of putting it into the past tehse. "Una eclosión" is normally an "emergence" and "eclosionar" is not in my big Larousse dictionary. In my California Spanish I would probably say "Los huevos se rompieron." which could also mean that they got broken. I'm a city girl, I would have to ask a Mexican chicken farmer to be sure.
The same Google search revealed "incubar" Normally this is a transitive verb. Las gallinas incubaron los huevos. I have never heard it used intranstively. But Spanish is subject to much evolution, especially in countries like Mexico and Argentina.
My Spanish comes from what I learned as a child in Spain, and later on living among Mexican Americans in California and really learning proper Spanish in College. I am now a college professor of Spanish.
