Fijate

Question

Fijate

in the dictionary : the verb fijar: to set,to establish,to fix....
my teacher said that fijate is like saying LOOK!! followed by an explaination or a reason.
im still confused, could anyone give me the exact meaning for it and tell me in what situations we can use this word, if possible i would like to have some examples in english that have similar meanings aswell.

Answer 1

Yes, it translates to "Look" or "Think about it." It is used when the speaker wants the listener to imagine or pay attention to what is being said.

Answer 2

-Fíjate, ¿sabes con quién está saliendo?
-Check it out. Do you know who she's going out with?

The first part could be replaced with many other options, such as "Hey," "OK," "Listen," etc.

In this usage it is synonymous with mira.

Answer 3

There is an English expression "To fix a stare".I don't know if it could be translated as that but it seems pretty close.

as in "men who stare at goats" - teacherspet, DIC 6, 2012

Answer 4

samdie said:

Natasha said:

So . . . can anyone explain why the site dictionary says "pronomial" instead of "pronominal"? It appears to be an error.

As you guessed, an error (typo).

If it's just an error, it's certainly a popular one. The pronomial spelling gets 1.5 million googits, and Wikipedia defines it as follows.

pronomial
1. Of, pertaining to, constructed using, or serving the purpose of a pronoun

The pronominal spelling does get over 10 million hits, but there seem to be quite a few sites that look otherwise respectable, but are using the pronomial spelling.

Answer 5

samdie said:

The proximate origin is uncertain; it may have been an Eng. formation on fix a., or ad. med.L. fixare or F. fixer (if the latter existed in 15th c.; Hatzf. quotes Montaigne c 1590 for the earliest known use). Cf. Sp. fijar (earlier fixar), Pg. fixar, It. fissare.

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Answer 6

Natasha said:

So . . . can anyone explain why the site dictionary says "pronomial" instead of "pronominal"? It appears to be an error.
As you guessed, an error (typo).

Answer 7

lazarus1907 said:

Apparently, the oldest use of the word "fix" in English was actually to fix one's onto something. Maybe samdie can check with the OED.
Happy to oblige.The OED (before getting into the messy details of usage) says:

[Ultimately f. L. f_x-us (see fix a.), pa. pple. of f_gere to fix, fasten. The proximate origin is uncertain; it may have been an Eng. formation on fix a., or ad. med.L. fixare or F. fixer (if the latter existed in 15th c.; Hatzf. quotes Montaigne c 1590 for the earliest known use). Cf. Sp. fijar (earlier fixar), Pg. fixar, It. fissare.
The earliest recorded use is 'to fix (one's eyes) upon an object'; this is the oldest and still the most prominent application of the corresponding verb in Italian, and it appears in Du Cange's only example of med.L. fixare. The use in alchemy is nearly as old in Eng.; it is found in the Romanic langs. and in the med.Lat. writers on alchemy (e.g. R. Lulli Ep. ad Robertum). While in Romanic the verb has only the senses derived from L. fixus, it was in Eng. taken as the representative of L. figere, superseding the earlier ficche, and (in some applications) fast and fasten vbs.]

Note the reference to "fijar" (Spanish) in the 3rd sentence.

Answer 8

Lazarus has kindly pointed out the following:

Natasha said:

Hi,

You wrote "pronomial" instead of "pronominal".

So . . . can anyone explain why the site dictionary says "pronomial" instead of "pronominal"? It appears to be an error.

:

in the dictionary : the verb fijar: to set,to establish,to fix....If you look in our site dictionary, look up fijar and then look under the heading "Pronomial Verb." There you will see the translation appropriate to your context. (So that you know for future reference . . .)

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Answer 9

in the dictionary : the verb fijar: to set,to establish,to fix....

If you look in our site dictionary, look up fijar and then look under the heading "Pronomial Verb." There you will see the translation appropriate to your context. (So that you know for future reference . . .)

Answer 10

Apparently, the oldest use of the word "fix" in English was actually to fix one's onto something. Maybe samdie can check with the OED.

By the way, "fijate" is the version used in "voseo" countries, and "fíjate" is the one used elsewhere (mostly the one most people are learning here)

Answer 11

Also in English, "to fix your attention on ..." which (when overdone) may be called a "fixation".

Answer 12

any example u can provide in english'? an imaginary conversation prob?

James Santiago said:

Yes, it translates to "Look" or "Think about it." It is used when the speaker wants the listener to imagine or pay attention to what is being said.

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Answer 13

Could we get back to what "fijate" means? I'm still confused.

This question and answer series is one year old. If you have a new quetion about the subject, enter it into a new Question Post and Thread. - Moe, NOV 17, 2009

Answer 14

I was not saying that the entire word comes from French, just that the individual parts all make sense, and that may explain why the misspelling is so common.

Answer 15

James Santiago said:

Sounds better than pronominal in English, at least to my ear. And it makes sense, too. Nom is French for noun, and English was heavily influenced by French. So pronom makes sense to us as a variant of pronoun. And the suffix -ial is very common in English. So pronomial is entirely logical.
I'm not sure that that's a very good supporting argument. While it's true that noun is nom in French, pronominal is pronominal in French.