5 short unrelated questions
Seguro = sure "I'm not sure" Estoy no seguro. Can it also mean sure like yes? Seguro puede. "Sure you can"? Does this come from seguir (to follow)?
I've learned the word for computer to be computadora. I've also seen it translated as ordenador. Are these two words interchangable? The online translation for laptop (computer) is,
portátil. Or at least that's what the web translation says. Is this correct, or is a better word for laptop (computer).Descargar=to download. To upload is subir?
respuesta y contesta: Do they mean the same thing?
5.Comí dos veces desde que te fuiste. I ate two times since you left. Can you leave out the "te" since fuiste can only mean "you left". I don't think you can, but I can't explain why I think that. Also, can "que" be taken out of the sentence? Que is very confusing to me sometimes. It seems like it appears in places that to my baby Spanish brain it doesn't need to be.
Gracias,
peeps
27 Answers
Hehe, I'll try. Thanks for the compliments.
OK, wasting my time didn't sound exactly as I intended. Let's just say "not using my time productively".
Thanks for the kind words anyway.
I don't have much time, and I waste part of it coming to these fora.
You are helping a lot of people here!
AND you could always look at it as PR in disguise! All of us confused students will remember you fondly, and when our heads -aching from trying to grasp some grammar- hears that the book is now nearing completion, we will be placing our pre-orders with the big big cyber bookshop with a name like a rainforest....
I don't think that is necessarily true, although I agree that this usage is more popular there (and is often used to mock Southern speech).
....and that the pizza eater is from the deep south.
Yes, I realize the meanings are a bit different. I was just referring to the similarity of the constructions.
Do you really need to say "yourslef" in "You are going to eat yourself everything'".
We wouldn't say it that way, but we often use the word whole in such contexts, in which case the meaning is very similar to what you describe for the Spanish.
"We are going to eat ourselves a whole turkey tonight!"
Again, the reflexive pronoun could be omitted, but the nuance would change subtly.
In Spain it has nothing to do with pleasure or satisfaction, actually (although it could happen, of course), since it is often used when you are being forced to eat something you don't want to eat.
I am more or less aware of this usage in English, but I still believe that it is different, since this pronoun is rarely omitted (it sounds strange) in Spanish when the amount of food consumed is specific, whereas in English you don't necessarily have to use it. Let me give you an example:
¡Te lo vas a comer todo!
Here almost no Spanish speaker (at least in Spain) would ever omit this "te". Do you really need to say "yourslef" in "You are going to eat yourself everything'". I doubt it, but correct me if I'm wrong.
There are similitudes, of course, but these pronouns are unacceptable with imprecise (or non-existent) amounts of food, common with specific amounts of food, and almost essential when the total consumption is the main idea. Is it really the same'
...so different from English.
Actually, we have a form in English that is rather similar, and while it isn't used nearly as often as its Spanish counterpart, it is perfectly normal English.
I ate myself a pizza.
She baked herself a pie.
He drank himself a beer.
We made ourselves a fire.
They bought themselves a new car.
The (very subtle) nuance here is that the action was done for the pleasure of the subject. Therefore, while "I ate a pizza" merely conveys the facts, "I ate myself a pizza" conveys the nuance that the pizza was greatly enjoyed, or that the eater was satisfied with the result of the action.
...and lazarus don't reply to this, go and finish your book!
Ah I can never win {sigh}
I used 'la' instead of 'mi' because usually when I use 'mi' I am told I should have used 'la'!
Yes, I'd forgotten about 'cenar' too. :-(
In English we do have the verb 'to dine' of course. 'I dined at a nice restaurant last night'. It sounds rather a grand way of saying it though.
No, it is not a joke. My aim is to include 1000 commonly used verbs, and their usage in detail and with many examples. I'll let you know if I ever finish it (I don't have much time, and I waste part of it coming to these fora).
Comí la cena is grammatically correct, but I would have said "Cené" instead -remember that in English you need two words, but in Spanish there is a verb for "have supper") . "Comí la cena" is even worse, because "la cena" is a specific amount here; most people would have used the "me" here, but in any case, we'd say "cené" or "tomé la cena" (less common).
Are you joking about your book on 'se lazarus? If you are not, I'll be the first to buy it. There are so many tricky things in Spanish but all that pronominal stuff is for me the most tricky -but I suspect that it is the subject that gives the greatest insight into your language.
Criss I see comer as 'to eat' and comerse as 'to eat up'
Comí la cena. 'I ate my dinner'
Me comí la cena. 'I ate up my dinner' (ie finished it off) As with most things here though, I'm not 100% sure....
(Why can't I reply to the last comment, so this shows up in the right order')
Lazarus, I applaud you and your students. I wish I could say anything close to the same with mine, but alas, they are nowhere near perfection in their verb usage after two years - they're just happy to be done with the class and have their credit "'cuz I need it for college."
To help mend my wounded pride, I will tell myself that perhaps your astournding success rate has something to do with the fact that your students are in Spain. They are probably slightly more motivated than mine if they have travelled and are making that kind of committment to take the class, and they also have the luxury of hearing the language spoken 24/7 - while I have to fight the evils of TexMex Spanglish. (where yes, they DO say, "¿Me das un ride'" No, it's not correct; no, it's not pretty; but it's a sad fact of life - and language. Here, "Where you at'" has become an advertizing slogan, as much as I want to slap someone every time I hear it... but I digress).
I shall not waste your time any further, since I am obviously in the presence of a master teacher and I must bow down to your superior skills. Please let me know when your book is published, as I obviously have much to learn from you about "se."
If high school textbooks (in USA, I presume) "lump" all those verbs are reflexive, they are not sparing students unnecessary jargon, but confusing them by telling them that all that looks round is called a ring. The foreign students that I've taught in Spain and who learnt the proper distinction could use them pretty well within 6 months, and almost perfectly within the first two years. The grammar jargon is always kept to an absolute minimum, but there are times when you need to start calling some things by their names, and not just things.
Anyway, I probably shouldn't be wasting more time here, and continue writing my book about SE, and verb uses.
Three R's: Reflexive, reciprocal and Restofwordsthathavebeenputtogether.
There is a third R (reflexive, reciprocal, and X) but its name escapes me at the moment - that's the one "irse" falls into (at the moment, I'm not going to dig through the textbooks I use as a Spanish teacher or the copious notes from my graduate courses in Salamanca).
Usually, high school textbooks lump all verbs that take the me, te, se, nos and se pronouns as "reflexive," since most of the ones the students will see in their high school classes are, and to spare the poor students at least some of the grammarspeak. I was guilty of using the misnomer in my first reply; once you called me out on it I clarified that reflexive applied to dormirse and comer(se), and I was hoping you'd let irse slide since I could not remember the proper term for it at the moment.
I did mention the impersonal use of "se," but I stopped there. I figured three out of the bazillion uses of "se" was enough for 2:00 in the morning, when I needed to be finishing the project I should have finished three days ago instead of playing on these forums.
And now, if you will excuse me, I will use all my willpower to actually take myself to bed, instead of searching needlessly for the missing grammatical term that will now hound me in my sleep...
