The grammatical function of "que" (without the accent on the "e")
El perro que vivimos es de los vecinos. What is the function of the word "que" in this sentence? Can you translate the entire sentence into English'
8 Answers
James Santiago y Natasha. Buen hecho, amigos. Hay muchas trampas que en que podimos caer. Verdad'
James Santiago said:
Natasha said:
It should be: El perro que vimos. vivimos would be from vivir, not ver.
Good one, Natasha! Amazing that neither Ms. Klum nor I caught that. It just shows that when we read, our brains are trying to find meaning, and if we see something nonsensical, our brains try to make sense of if.
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Natasha said:
It should be: El perro que vimos. vivimos would be from vivir, not ver.
Good one, Natasha! Amazing that neither Ms. Klum nor I caught that. It just shows that when we read, our brains are trying to find meaning, and if we see something nonsensical, our brains try to make sense of if.
James Santiago said:
And, Ken, note that the "that" is optional in English, but the que is not optional in Spanish. It is required.
And there several good reasons for that. If you hear:
The dog...
El perro...
So far, although it looks identical in both languages, it is not. In English, the dog is likely to do or be something (ie. it is the subject), whereas in Spanish, there is something about the dog, but the dog doesn't have to do or be anything, for it could be an object, since the main subject can easily appear later in the sentence (e.g. El perro lo vendí ayer). If we continue listening:
The dog we saw...
Ese perro (nosotros) vimos....
Now they are completely different sentences. The fact that English uses the personal pronoun, means that we must be introducing a subordinate clause (with its own subject and verb), since personal pronouns do not normally appear in the middle of a sentence. In Spanish, however, personal pronouns are normally not used, and even if they were, they could be the subject of a sentence regardless of their position. The subject of English verb is clearly "the dog", whereas in Spanish it must be "nosotros" (we), for the verb must agree with the subject. To make the dog the subject of the sentence, we must signal somehow that we are about to insert a subordinate clause, so that "vimos" is not the main verb, but part of the clause, and therefore, the main verb, "es", will appear shortly after the subordinate clause is over.
It should be: El perro que vimos. vivimos would be from vivir, not ver.
Heidita said:
HI Ken, here you got a relative pronoun. In this sentence it would be direct object.
the dog (that ) we saw is the neighbours'
And, Ken, note that the "that" is optional in English, but the que is not optional in Spanish. It is required.
going off of what heidta said, "que" can be used in a few (subtly) different ways:
it can refer to persons and things:
La mujer que escribio la carta es amiga mia - the woman who wrote the letter is a friend of mine
or the object of a verb:
El libro que tu compraste es muy caro - the book that you bought is very expensice
or as an object of a preposition
Ese es el avion en que tu viniste de Houston. - That is the plane in which you came from Houston.
HI Ken, here you got a relative pronoun. In this sentence it would be direct object.
the dog (that ) we saw is the neighbours'
