Poor Mili! She's caught between scheming Ivo and his grandmother, who have cooked up a plan to turn her from un desastre into a more refined woman. When Mili protests to the grandmother, she takes Ivo's side:
Mi nieto tiene razón. Vos sos una muchacha en estado... digamos... casi salvaje.
My grandson is right. You're a girl in a state that is... let's say... almost savage.
Captions 76-77, Muñeca Brava - 18 - La Apuesta - Part 6
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Por primera vez, la mariposa tiene razón.
For the first time, the butterfly is right.
Caption 12, Muñeca Brava - 9 - Engaños - Part 5
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While tiene razón literally means "has reason," it is best translated as "is right."
Here's another example of tener + razón
Juan tenía razón, necesitábamos mejores atacantes.
Juan was right, we needed better forwards [soccer].
Sometimes you will see tener + la razón. The meaning is the same: "to be right."
En lo que respecta a mi casa, mi esposa cree que siempre tiene la razón.
As far as my house goes, my wife believes that she is always right.
But what if you literally want to say "he has reason," as in this example?
He has reason to believe Annie will get an A.
(perhaps she is smart, she got an A last semester, the teacher likes her, etc.)
In this case we want to employ either the phrase "tener razones para" or "tener motivos para":
Él tiene razones para creer que Annie va a sacar un A.
He has reason to believe that Annie is going to get an A.
Él tiene motivos para creer Annie va a sacar un A.
He has reason to believe that Annie is going to get an A.
Also, as we touched upon in a previous lesson, "tener por qué" also means "to have reason," but you will find it used mostly in the negative sense:
Él no tiene por qué creer que Annie va a sacar un A.
He has no reason to believe that Annie is going to get an A.
No tengo por qué quejarme.
I have no reason to complain.
No tengo por qué contarte mis secretos.
I have no reason to tell you my secrets.
No tienes por qué preocuparte.
You have no reason to worry.
On rare occasions, you will come across "tener por qué" used in the positive sense:
Ellos tienen por qué luchar.
They have reason to struggle.
"¡Órale, arriba, epa, epa, arriba, ándale!"
Sound familiar? Yes, it's the fastest mouse in all Mexico -- Speedy Gonzales! -- and he stars in A.B. Quintanilla's music video. But instead of racing around rescuing people, Speedy is tending to a broken heart in this fun video. Listen in:
Él nunca le teme a nada pero esta vez sí lloró
He is never afraid of anything but this time he did cry
Captions 12-13, A. B. Quintanilla - Speedy Gonzalez
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Poor Speedy! It takes a lot to make this brave mouse cry. In fact, Speedy's fans might not believe their fearless hero would actually shed tears, so the song adds an emphatic "sí" to get the point across. With "sí" placed in front of the verb "lloró", the sentence means "...he DID cry" (with the stress on the verb) or "... he did indeed cry." Believe it or not: He did.
As you know, "sí" with an accent over the "i" means "yes," as in the affirmative answer to a question. But "sí" is also widely used in Spanish to add emphasis to an assertion. In English, we make affirmations with "indeed," the auxiliary verb "do" and/or by stressing the verb.
Let's look at some examples to clarify.
Yo sí estoy trabajando en el proyecto final.
I AM working on the final project.
Carlos sí puede tocar la armónica.
Carlos can indeed play the harmonica.
A Nancy sí le gusta Miguel.
Nancy DOES like Miguel.
Note that the emphatic "sí" appears just before the verb in these affirmative statements in Spanish. In the English equivalents, we might stress the verb -- as indicated in all caps above.
For more examples of the emphatic sí at work, we turn to our friends in Mexico City. Yes, Amigos D.F. are back, talking about kidnappings. Listen in:
.. pues sí ha habido mucha inseguridad...
... well, there HAS been a lot of insecurity...
...O sea, como que sí hay interés de parte de las autoridades
... I mean, it's like there IS interest from the authorities
Yo sí tengo la esperanza que se reduzc'... se reduzcan este tipo de eventos, ¿no?
I DO have the hope that these kinds of events will be red'... will be reduced, right?
Caption 57, Amigos D.F. - El secuestrar
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When you listen to native Spanish speakers make affirmations -- like the ones above -- note that there's no stress placed on the verbs themselves. It's a rookie mistake for Spanish students to say something like "Yo sí TENGO la esperanza..." when native speakers would simply let the "sí" make the emphasis for them.
Another interesting phrase to tumble from Landa Henríquez's lips is:
La mujer a los cuarenta, ya sabes está requete buena
A woman in her forties, you know she's very very hot
Caption 41, Landa Henríquez - Mujer Cuarenta
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"Estar buena" is "to be hot," as in sexually attractive. It's got little to do with the temperature on those sweltering Caribbean nights. (Meanwhile, the sand might be hot under foot, but you'd use "estar caliente" to describe that.) But what's "requete"? According to the authoritative Diccionario de la Lengua Española (by the Real Academia Española), "requete-," "rete-" or "re-" are prefixes that intensify the meaning of what follows -- like "very" in English, or "muy" in Spanish.
Abre el baúl, mueve la candela... -Slow... Señor Maquinitero.
Open the trunk, move the candle... -Slow... Mister Mix Master.
Captions 7-8, ChocQuibTown Interview - Eso es lo que hay
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In our exclusive interview with ChocQuibTown, we meet the band, including its leader ("líder"), bass player ("bajista"), and a guy named Slow, who describes himself as Señor Maquinitero. Señor what?? After watching Slow busy at work on turntables, with equalizers and computer cords all around, it makes sense to conclude that he's calling himself something close to "Mister Mix Master," as we translated in the captions. You see, una máquina is "a machine." The diminutive maquinita is "a little machine" or "a video game." Finally, the suffix "-ero" can be added to a noun to create a new word that describes somebody who works with that noun. Here are a few examples:
Yo iba a ser jugador de Millonarios o, en su defecto, ingeniero constructor de puentes.
I was going to be a Millonarios (soccer) player or if that falls through, a bridge building engineer.
Captions 30-31, Los Años Maravillosos - Capítulo 3 - Part 6
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Aprendió todos los oficios: vaquero, mayoral, domador de potros.
He learned all the trades: cowboy, shepherd, horse-breaker.
Caption 18, Europa Abierta - Jassin Daudi - Con arte
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zapato (shoe) + -ero = zapatero (cobbler or shoe salesman)
vaca (cow) + -ero = vaquero (cowboy)
ingeniería (engineering) + -ero = ingeniero (engineer)
rap (as in rap music) + -ero = rapero (rapper, rap artist)
Knowing your suffixes helps decode words that you might not find in your dictionaries -- like maquinitero or rapero. But note that Spanish has more than one suffix for professionals or tradespeople. For example, a standard Spanish dictionary lists someone who works with machines (e.g. to fabricate parts) as un maquinista ("a machinist"). Some more:
bajo (bass) + -ista = bajista (bass player)
batería (drums) + -ista = baterista (drummer)
taxi (taxi) + -ista = taxista (taxi driver)
Eh... toco... toco tarola... Batería, baterista. -baterista de Banda Pioneros.
Um... I play... I play the snare drum... Drums, drummer. -the drummer of Banda Pioneros.
Captions 4-5, Banda Pioneros - ¡Conócelos!
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A few nouns can have either -ero or -ista added to them to form new words, like the all important fútbol (soccer). Note that the definitions are slightly different:
Futbolero = soccer supporter
Futbolista = soccer player
But don't make sweeping generalizations about -ero vs -ista from the sporty example above. For example, a professional "bookseller" is a "librero" while a "book lover" or "book worm" is "amante de los libros," "un bibliófilo" or "ratón de biblioteca." Knowing the suffixes can help you along, but some memorization is required to get the details right (as in English).
Finally, we want to clarify: You might have noticed that the suffix -ista always ends in a, regardless of the gender of the person who's being described. With words like futbolista and taxista, you must rely on the articles to get the gender across. For example:
La futbolista = the female soccer player
Un taxista = a male taxi driver
Michael Stuart sings about a few things he either did not or cannot do. Listen in:
No te había ni conocido
I hadn't even met you
Caption 8, Michael Stuart - Me Siento Vivo
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No me puedo ni imaginar
I can't even imagine
Caption 19, Michael Stuart - Me Siento Vivo
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In both cases, we translated ni as "even," which may confuse some students who think first of ni as "nor," "or" or "neither" first and foremost. (For example: No tengo tiempo ni dinero para viajar, or, No tengo ni tiempo ni dinero para viajar translates as "I don't have the time nor the money to travel").
But the ni we hear in Michael Stuart's song is a ni as in ni siquiera that means "not even."
In the case of Michael Stuart's lyrics, we translate ni as "even" instead of "not even" because English doesn't do no double negative the way Spanish does. (Sorry! A lame attempt to illustrate our grammatical point.) If it did, we'd translate caption 19 from our song as "I can't not even imagine."
When there is only one (single) negative, the substitution of ni for no in a sentence not only changes the meaning from "not" to something more along the lines of "not even," but it tends to make the statement a bit more emphatic as well.
To a native speaker, the second statement has an implied meaning along the lines of "It's not like I drive more carefully now, I don't even drive at all!" or "I don't even think about driving!"
¡No llores! ("Don't cry!") is a useful command to know -- especially if you're the parent of a small child or a serial heartbreaker. It's also the title of a featured song by singer Gloria Estefan.
Did you know that negative, informal commands are formed differently than affirmative ones? You see, once you add a no, informal commands require the tú form of the present subjunctive to be grammatically correct. That means an -ar verb like llorar ("to cry") takes the second-person subjunctive ending -es to become no llores as a negative command.
To help you learn this grammar rule through repetition, just listen to the opening of this song:
No llores, no llores, no llores, no llores...
Don't cry, don't cry, don't cry, don't cry...
Caption 1, Gloria Estefan - No Llores
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Got that? If the singer wanted tears to fall, she might have ordered, "llora, llora, llora, llora..." ("cry, cry, cry, cry...").
Now let's look at a line of the song with a little more vocal variety:
No te preocupes, deja el llanto y escucha mi canto que dice así...
Don't worry, leave your crying and listen to my singing that goes like this...
Caption 29, Gloria Estefan - No Llores
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In this one line, we have three -ar verbs -- preocupar(se), dejar and escuchar -- in command forms. Did you notice that no te preocupes ("don't worry") takes the -es ending while the two positive commands -- deja ("stop") and escucha ("listen") -- simply end with "-a"? In the affirmative, informal commands tend to look like the third-person indicative, with some exceptions, for example:
Decir as a command is "di" -- as heard in caption 15 of this same song -- and hacer is "haz" -- as heard in caption 6. You can review informal command forms here, and/or here.
Note that the verb "dejar" can mean "to leave, to quit, to cease, to stop." So, "¡Déjame en paz!" means "Leave me alone!" (or, more literally, "Leave me in peace!"). "Dejar de" + an infinitive means "to stop [doing something]." Here's part of the song that illustrates:
No llores... -Deja de llorar, deja de llorar, deja de llorar
Don't cry... -Stop crying, stop crying, stop crying
Caption 10, Gloria Estefan - No Llores
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And again:
Deja de sufrir y suelta los temores
Stop suffering and let go of the fears
Caption 12, Gloria Estefan - No Llores
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Dieciocho motivos pa' dejarte
Catorce consejos pa' olvidar
Quinientas razones para odiarte
Saco la cuenta, y a sumar...
Captions 1-4, Ricardo Arjona - Quien
Dejar(te), olvidar, odiar(te), sumar...
Songs sung in Spanish seem to contain a lot of verbs in the infinitive. Maybe that's because infinitives are so easy to rhyme -- since all end in either -ar, -er or -ir. But we digress. Among the new content on Yabla Spanish, there's a song by Guatemalan Ricardo Arjona. In it, we heard so many infinitives that we pored over the grammar rules to make sure we struck the right note in our translations. Below we'll highlight some of what we found along the way.
First, let's look at the translation of the first four lines of Arjona's song:
Dieciocho motivos pa' dejarte
Catorce consejos pa' olvidar
Quinientas razones para odiarte
Saco la cuenta, y a sumar...
Eighteen reasons to leave you
Fourteen tips to forget
Five hundred reasons to hate you
I do the math and I add...
Captions 1-4, Ricardo Arjona - Quien
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What do all the infinitives in bold have in common? OK, they are all -ar verbs. But what else? They are all preceded by a preposition -- specifically, para ("for, in order to") in the first three lines, and then "a" ("to"), above. As a rule, only the infinitive may follow prepositions in Spanish.
We've discussed the use of prepositions para and por (both meaning "for") before infinitives in a past newsletter, if you'd like to review. (Loyal readers: Remember Chayenne's song "Por amor, por amar"?). With that concept already covered, let's move to the fourth line of our excerpt above.
"Saco la cuenta, y a sumar...?" What does a + infinitive mean? A ver ("Let's see") is the most famous example. You hear it all the time -- sometimes just to buy time in spoken Spanish. You also might hear ¡A bailar! ("Let's dance!") to get people going on the dance floor, or ¡A volar! ("Let's fly!") at a graduation ceremony. It's one of the many ways to express a command in Spanish.
The a + infinitive construction in our new song by Arjona gave us a little pause, because translating a sumar as "let's add" sounded a little funny in English... But if you realize the singer is, in a sense, urging himself to crunch the numbers, the meaning falls into place.
Later in the song, we hear this line, twice:
Saco la cuenta y a restar...
I do the math and I subtract...
Caption 28, Ricardo Arjona - Quien
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As you've probably noted, for the English captions in these lines, we ended up choosing to keep the subject -- "I" -- throughout the sentence. But students who understand that a sumar and a restar are commands issued by the singer to urge himself on will have a better understanding of what the lyrics intend to communicate.
Can you find some more lyrics by Ricardo Arjona that use the preposition + infinitive construction? Here are a couple lines we were humming:
Dejaste minas en la casa
con objetivos de matar
You left mines in the house
with the objective of killing
Captions 33-34, Ricardo Arjona - Quien
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[Want a refresher on the other uses of the infinitives?
ThoughtCo has some nice explanations of infinitives in Spanish here]
From a kitchen in Puerto Escondido (Oaxaca, México), we learn in Spanish about making refried beans -- two useful lessons wrapped up in one video. Note that we're not just talking about refried beans and rice: These onion-y beans can be served with bread, tortillas, cheese, scrambled eggs, sausage, nothing, everything... the sky's the limit. In sum, we hear, as a general rule:
Bueno es una... se puede variar con todo lo que... lo que se le antoje.
Well it's a... you can vary it with everything that... that you wish.
Captions 29-30, Desayuno Puerto Escondido - Frijoles Refritos
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Those of you following the subtitles word for word may wonder why we chose to translate se puede as "you can." Here, "you" is really an impersonal, general subject; it could also be translated as "one can." You see, in Spanish, the construction se + a verb in the third person (singular or plural) is commonly used to deemphasize the subject. Here are a few examples:
Se habla español aquí
"Spanish is spoken here"
Se come bien en esta cuidad
" People eat well in this city"
¿Cómo se dice "Formula One" en español?
"How do you say "Formula One" in Spanish?"
As you can see in the above examples, the "se + verb" construction can be translated into English in a few ways: (1) With a passive construction; (2) using "people" or "one" as the unspecified subject; or (3) using "you" as the subject, but in an impersonal, generalized sense. The third choice -- "you" -- seemed like the most appropriate translation for our refried bean recipe.
Native English speakers, if they directly mirror the English passive voice, can come up with unnatural Spanish phrases. Instead they need to accustom themselves to the Pasiva con "se."
"Cars are repaired in two days."
Los autos son reparados en dos días. [Not natural in Spanish]
Se reparan autos en dos días. [Natural in Spanish]
"This bill is being discussed in the Congress."
Este proyecto de ley está siendo tratado en el Congreso. [Not natural]
Este proyecto de ley se está tratando en el congreso. [Natural]
Just a few moments later in the Oreiro interview, Natalia Oreiro's father corrects himself with the phrase mejor dicho, which can be translated as "better said" or "rather." Note that dicho ("said") is the past participle of the irregular verb decir ("to say").
Es lo que te dije anteriormente, es ver a la gente, cómo...
It's what I told you previously, it's seeing the people, how...
Mejor dicho, ver a Natalia... cómo le llega a las personas ¿no?
Rather, seeing Natalia... how she reaches people, right?
Captions 80-83, Biografía Natalia Oreiro - Part 8
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We also hear dicho in our interview with the co-founder of Tu Rock es Votar Armando David. Armando says dicho y hecho ("said and done").
Y dicho y hecho, eso generó toda una controversia durante muchos meses en donde...
And said and done, that generated a whole controversy during many months in which...
Captions 67-68, Tu Rock es Votar - Armando
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Looking around at other dicho sayings, we found the catchy:
Del dicho al hecho hay gran trecho.
From the saying to the deed, there's a big distance.
(or "Easier said than done.")
By the way, another definition for dicho actually is "saying," as we noted previously in this space.
One of the very first things a student of Spanish or any language learns is how to count. So, what comes after veinte (twenty)? Veintiuno! (Twenty-one!) Simple, right? So listen to this young man from Mexico introduce himself in front of the video camera:
Hola, ¿cómo están? Mi nombre es David del Valle. Tengo veintiún años y soy estudiante de negocios internacionales.
Hi, how are you? My name is David del Valle. I'm twenty-one years old and I'm a student of international business.
Captions 1-2, Amigos D.F. - Consejos para la calle
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So where did the "o" at the end of veintiuno go? As it turns out, "veintiuno" is on a short list of Spanish words that lose their last, unstressed syllable when they come before certain nouns. [To get technical, we're talking about "apocope," (apócope in Spanish) defined as "the loss of one or more sounds or letters at the end of a word" (Merriam-Webster).]
Remember, when nothing follows the number 21, every syllable is pronounced:
¿Cuántos años tiene David?
Veintiuno.
How old is David?
Twenty-one.
But when 21 is followed by a masculine noun or feminine noun that begins with a stressed "a" or a stressed "ha" sound -- it loses that final "o" and an accent mark is added to keep the stress on the "ú." For example:
David tiene veintiún años.
David is twenty-one years old.
El pobrecito tiene veintiún granos.
The poor kid has twenty-one pimples.
La caja tiene veintiún hachas.
The box has twenty-one axes.
When 21 is followed by a feminine noun that does not begin with a stressed "a" or "ha" sound, the final "o" in veintiuno becomes an "a," giving us veintiuna, for example veintiuna chicas (twenty-one girls) or veintiuna sillas (twenty-one chairs).
El libro tiene veintiuna páginas.
The book has twenty-one pages.
[Note: It is not at all uncommon to hear this rule as it pertains to feminine nouns being "broken" by native Spanish speakers. For example, the Spanish pop group "21 Japonesas" (21 Japanese Girls) is often called "Veintiún Japonesas" by broadcasters, much to the dismay of language watchdogs.]
The number "one" ("uno") and any other number that ends with "one" follows the same pattern, so it's "ochenta y uno" without a noun following the number, but ochenta y un años or ochenta y una reglas ("eighty-one rules"). [Note that no accent mark is needed for the u in un since there could be no confusion regarding which syllable to stress in the one syllable word.]
Other common words that drop endings before certain nouns include "ciento -> cien" ("100"), "bueno -> buen" ("good"), and "santo -> san" ("saint"). There is a more extensive list of apocopes in Spanish here.
Did you wonder why it's "lo mismo" and not "el mismo" or "la misma" in our examples above? The answer is that "lo" is the neuter article in Spanish and it is used to stand in for an abstract idea, concept, category or quality--in other words, something that's not a concrete object or person. One way to translate it is as "thing" -- but sometimes there's no easy translation.
Here are some more phrases that take "lo" before an adjective:
lo bueno = "the good part, what's good"
lo fácil = "the easy part, what's easy"
lo important es que... = "the important thing is that..."
lo mío = "(that which is) mine"
lo nuestro = "(that which is) ours"
lo más = "the most" -- as in LoMásTv, of course!
Let's look at the refrain once more (with "lo" as our focus):
No es lo mismo una sospecha que saberlo de verdad
A suspicion isn't the same [thing] as knowing it for sure
No es saberlo de verdad lo mismo que una sospecha
Knowing it for sure isn't the same [thing] as a suspicion
Captions 7-8, Circo - La sospecha
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Now, you've noted that "lo" is standing in for something unknown in this song -- something that's neither masculine nor feminine per se. When "lo" appears before an adjective or adverb, it's easy to recognize as neuter. But, to complicate matters, "lo" can also be a masculine direct object -- as in, "Lo vi" ("I saw him"). The only way to straighten out whether "lo" is a masculine or neuter object in a sentence is via the context.
In our Circo song lyrics, the second "lo" (-- "saberlo") also stands in for something undefined. As the direct object of a verb, lo works in a similar way in these common phrases:
Lo siento = "Sorry" (or, literally, "I feel it")
No lo sabía = "I didn't know [it]"
No quiero saberlo = "I don't want to know [it]"
For more on the neuter, see
ThoughtCo.com > Spanish language > The neuter gender in Spanish
When we premiered the spacy music video Bienvenido by Sizu Yantra several months ago, we received this letter:
If someone had asked me to translate "if you find the world sickly" I might have come up with "si el mundo tú encuentras enfermizo"... could someone explain why the "lo" is in there? --DonJorge, San Mateo, CA
Si al mundo lo encuentras enfermizo, delirante y brutal...
If you find the world sickly, delirious and brutal...
Caption 2, SiZu Yantra - Bienvenido
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When lo is not busy working as a neuter article (e.g. lo importante, "the important thing/what's important"), or as an "undefined" neuter direct object (e.g. No puedo creerlo, "I can't believe it"), lo can also be found serving duty as the masculine singular direct object pronoun, just as la does as the feminine singular direct object pronoun.
¿Dónde encontraste el perro?
Lo encontré en la calle.
Where did you find the dog?
I found it on the street.
¿Desde cuándo has querido a María?
Siempre la he querido.
Since when have you loved Maria?
I have always loved her.
¿Quien rompió la mesa?
Juan la rompío.
Who broke the table?
Juan broke it.
As you can see, when we mention the direct object by name (e.g., el perro), it comes after the verb. When we replace it, the direct object pronoun (such as lo, or la) comes before the verb.
However, it is permissible in Spanish to mention your direct object by name AND put it before the verb, but if you do this you must include both the object and its pronoun. When we do this we provide more emphasis to the direct object, as Sizu Yantra emphasizes "el mundo" in the example above.
Al perro lo encontré en la calle.
I found the dog in the street.
La mesa la rompió Juan.
Juan broke the table.
Now's a good time to go back and take another listen to Bienvenido by Sizu Yantra! (it's in the "Music Videos" section).
In Part 2 of our chat with Arturo Vega, artistic director of The Ramones, the interviewer asks:
¿Entonces tú estudiastes [sic] esto? ¿Estudiastes este arte o eso ya fue algo que tú...?
Then did you study this? Did you study this art or was it something that you...?
Captions 45-47, Arturo Vega - Entrevista - Part 2
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If you've studied basic Spanish grammar, you've probably learned that the correct second-person preterite of estudiar (a regular, -ar verb) is (tú) estudiaste without a final 's.' So what was the interviewer saying -- not once but twice? Was she so tongue-tied in the presence of Vega that she couldn't speak her own language without adding stray s's? Or was it simply a manner of speaking that you don't come across in textbooks?
Elsewhere in the interview, we heard the same -astes ending on another -ar verb:
Que otros artistas que... quizás nos están viendo hoy pueden a... aprender algo más de cómo tú desarrollastes tu... tu... tu trabajo.
That other artists who... may be watching us today can be... can learn something more about how you developed your... your... your work.
Captions 6-8, Arturo Vega - Entrevista - Part 2
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(Use the "slow" button on the Yabla player and you'll hear that there's no mistaking that there is a final 's' there.)
After asking around (and browsing online), we found that some Spanish speakers in many countries (Spain included) do indeed say (tú) estudiastes, even though it's considered improper. People also say things like "(tú) comistes" and "(tú) dijistes," equally frowned upon by grammarians.
Among professional translators and other highly educated multi-lingual folks, we found heated debates on message boards about -astes/ -istes. Some say the endings came from the Spanish vosotros (-asteis/ -isteis) form. Some note that all other endings for "tú" verbs end with an "s," so it comes as a natural extension of Spanish grammatical rules ("pattern pressure"). Some argue it is acceptably "casual" in some settings while others insist it is dead wrong and painful to hear.
As you yourself navigate la habla hispana (the Spanish-speaking world), there is a good chance you will continue to encounter this usage. You may have even already danced salsa to such tunes as Cuando Llegastes Tú (Louie Ramirez) or Llegastes Tú (Ray Sepúlveda). Unless your spoken Spanish is of such an extremely high level that you can easily slip in and out of "dialect" depending on what community you are socializing in (and you really feel compelled to "fit in"), you probably don't want to adopt this style yourself. And when writing, it's definitely best to refrain altogether.
Pero al desear siempre un poco más... por allá ya vas
But by wanting always a little more... you're already going there
Captions 7-8, SiZu Yantra - Bienvenido
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References (such as this one) would suggest that al desear here could be translated as "when wanting" or "in wishing," but we went with "by wanting." The idea here is that one action leads to the other, the desire in itself makes you move forward. An equally acceptable translation here would be "in wanting always..."
Al cambiar de actitud, la mayoría de la gente puede cambiar el modo en que otros los tratan.
By changing their attitude, most people can change the way others treat them.
Al confesarle la verdad, le dio la posibilidad de evaluar la situación.
By telling the truth, he gave her the opportunity to assess the situation.
Al dejar a aquella mujer, pudo comenzar una nueva vida.
By leaving that woman, he could start a new life.
Final note about Sizu's Bienvenido: You will probably find captions 10 and 12, in particular, rather unusual in terms of sentence structure. These lines can have even native speakers scratching their heads and are not typical Spanish.
From the clarity of the diction and the pacing of the music, you might think Sizu Yantra's tune Bienvenido would be easy to translate. But you'd be wrong. Some lyrics drove us to semantic delirium! Here is the opening:
Y si tú ya estás aquí, yo quisiera preguntarte
And if you're already here, I would like to ask you
si al mundo lo encuentras enfermizo, delirante y brutal
if you find the world sickly, delirious and brutal
Tú ya estás aquí y deseando que tú goces...
You're already here and [I am] desiring that you enjoy [it]...
Captions 1-3, SiZu Yantra - Bienvenido
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The very first line of lyrics is clearly enunciated and seemingly unambiguous -- with personal pronouns tú and yo included to set the listener off on the right foot. OK: it's sort of trippy, but we have every reason to believe we are hearing what the songwriter wanted us to hear.
But we get to the second sentence (caption 3) and native English speakers may find themselves at a bit of a loss. "Deseando" -- the gerund of the verb desear ("to desire, to wish, to look forward to") -- has no immediately apparent subject. So, how would we know to translate "deseando" as if it were the first person, progressive, "estoy deseando"? There are a few clues to solve this mystery. Let's investigate:
If this detective work seems complicated, remember that in English we have a similar situation with "Wish you were here." Taken on its own, this seemingly simple sentiment has an implied subject (Could it be "I wish"? Or: "We wish"?) and then a subordinate clause using the subjunctive. At the end of the day, the subject is left to context -- or the listener's own interpretation.
Back to our slippery song. "Deseando que tú goces" was finally translated as "I am desiring that you enjoy it..." because it matches best with the first line of the song (where "yo" is introduced) -- and doesn't break any grammar rules. Whew. Keep listening, for more constructive confusion!
Do you ever wonder why "por qué" has an accent in certain instances and not others? In a similar vein: Do you know the reason "porque" is sometimes one word and sometimes two? Tune in to the latest new content at Yabla Spanish and read the captions to see "por qué" and "porque" in action.
Our team of translators took special pains to put all the accents in their proper places in the captions of this week's installment of the documentary ¡Tierra Sí, Aviones No! You'll see evidence of their hard work in the short excerpt below.
¿Por qué? Porque él es el único responsable.
Why? Because he's the only one responsible.
Caption 9, ¡Tierra, Sí! - Atenco - Part 4
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Why does the first "por qué" take an accent mark over the é? Because it is used to ask a question, that's why. Remember: "Who, what, when, where and why" (those famous Five Ws of journalism) all take accents in Spanish -- as in "Quién, qué, cuándo, dónde y por qué."
Now that you've got the "questioning word = accent mark" rule in mind, let's look at some trickier cases. One pops up just a sentence later.
Pero a nivel ejidal no tiene por qué meterse en nuestro ejido.
But at the cooperative level, he doesn't have reason to meddle in our cooperative.
Caption 13, ¡Tierra, Sí! - Atenco - Part 4
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No tener por qué + infinitive ("to have no reason to...") is one of those auxiliary (modal) verb phrases that you simply have to memorize -- or figure it out from context. Listen for it; we think you'll find it's surprisingly common in spoken and written Spanish. In these cases por qué means "reason" or "cause." For example:
No tengo por qué juzgar el comportamiento de otros.
I have no reason to judge the behavior of others.
Sometimes it's best translated in the sense of necessity.
Amor no tiene por qué doler.
Love doesn't have to hurt.
Listening to the lyrics of Belanova's ballad featured this week, we encounter another "por qué":
Me pregunto por qué
I ask myself why
no te puedo encontrar
I can't find you
Captions 9-10, Belanova - Me Pregunto
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In the song's refrain, above, Belanova lead singer Denise is asking herself a question. We don't need to use question marks to get the idea across; the "por qué" here expresses an indirect inquiry.
We left you to figure out that "porque" -- one word, no accent mark -- means "because." It begins the answer to many a "por qué" question. Why? Just because!
That is, expressed in Spanish:
¿Por qué? ¡Porque sí!
Why? Just because! (or: Because I said so!)
The Mexican trio Belanova use the haber + de + infinitive construction repeatedly in the chorus of Por Ti:
Si mi vida ha de continuar
If my life should continue
Si otro día llegará
If another day will come
Si he de volver a comenzar
If I should start all over again
Será por ti
It will be for you
Captions 7-10, Belanova - Por ti
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As it turns out, the haber+de+infinitive construction, often found in music and literature, is deceivingly difficult to translate with precision. A native speaker staff member tells us that, in the context of this song, she gets the sense that ha de continuar expresses possibility ("if my life is to continue / is going to continue") more than obligation ("if my life must continue"). However, generally speaking, haber+de+infinitive, does convey a sense of obligation or necessity, though often milder than the tener+que+infinitive construction (tiene que continuar -`"has to continue") or hay que+infinitive construction (hay que continuar -"has to / must continue").
For this reason, in the end, we chose to use "should" in our English translations as it is nicely ambigious, conveying a sense of possibility but also having the alternate meaning of mild obligation.
Note that haber+de+infinitive and hay [also from the verb haber] + que + infinitive are completely distinct, and used in distinct contexts. So, how should you decide de vs que? You see, hay que continuar, loosely translated as "one has to continue," would always express a generalization. Meanwhile, the first-, second- and third-person conjugations of haber -- that is, he, hemos, has, han, ha and han -- plus 'de' yields a more specific, though milder sense of obligation, or of possibility, as in our featured song.
Check out these discussions on the topic:
ThoughtCo. > How is Haber de used?
WordReference.com > haber de, haber que, tener que
A final note regarding the verbs in Belanova's provocative refrain: 'Volver a comenzar' could be translated bit by bit as "to return ['volver'] to begin ['comenzar']. But in English, we tend to say "to start again" or, with more emphasis, "to start all over again."
Among Polbo's song lyrics that are entirely in Spanish in this video, we see the diminutive of todos ("everyone" or "all") repeated in the refrain:
Ahora toditos se fueron... al sur
Now everyone's gone... south
Caption 10, Polbo - Yo era tan cool
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Why use the diminutive of todos here? Well, adding the suffix -ito to make it toditos doesn't change the meaning of the word. It simply renders it more colloquial.
You see, in Spanish adding a diminutive suffix -- namely, -ito or -ita -- is often used in informal speech -- in its extreme, in baby talk or other affectionate banter. So, a gatito (gato / "cat" + -ito) can be a little cat (or "kitty") but it can also be a big cat that you're discussing with a small person. For example:
Mira el gatito, mi amorcito
Look at the kitty, my little love
This could be said at the zoo in front of a lion's cage if we're talking baby talk. Another example:
Besitos grandes
Big affectionate kisses
Back to our song. Toditos is "everyone" said in a friendly, familiar way. Toditos is not meant to shrink the size of "everyone," just to make it more casual.
Colombian crooner Juanes has the audience singing along to every word of his hit Para tu amor in this week's featured video. Catchy lyrics are helpful language-learning aids: When they get stuck in your head (and won't leave) they build up your vocabulary and aid in your memorization of usage rules. Case in point: Para tu amor contains many lyrical lines that can help non-native speakers grasp the difference between para and por -- both translated into English as "for" in many cases. In newsletters past, we've drawn from the Yabla Spanish archive of song lyrics to write about distinctions between por and para. (Linked here for your review.) So, in this week's newsletter, we'll use Juanes to illuminate a gender rule bender instead.
He sings:
Yo te quiero con el alma y con el corazón
I love you with my soul and with my heart
Caption 13, Juanes - Para tu amor
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Check our online dictionary and you'll see alma (a noun) is feminine, as so many Spanish words that '-a' are. But alma belongs to a subgroup of feminine nouns that take masculine articles when singular. Others include:
Note that all four examples listed above begin with a stressed a-, which wouldn't sound right to a native speaker if preceded by la or una. Also note that when plural, they revert to the feminine article las or unas. So it's las aguas tibias ("the lukewarm waters").
As a final note: Whatever the number, alma and her gender-bending ilk behave like feminine nouns when they are paired with adjectives. That is to say, the adjectives they are paired with are made feminine with an -a ending. For more on words that break gender rules, see:
ThoughtCo. > Spanish grammar > Gender reversals