Spanish language Q&A Forum

I notice that Spanish often inserts el/la where English doesn't. Like "como la observación, la intuición y la lógica." whereas in English one writes "like observation, tuition, and logic."

Is there a rule for this?

Would it be fair to say that in a negative situation you would not use gran?

So, it would not be un gran atasco, but un atasco grande? (a big traffic jam)

Muchísimas gracias,

A quiz question asks “vas a venir al cine mañana?”. In English it seems more common to say “are you going to go the movies tomorrow?” (or simply “are you going to the movies tomorrow?”) Any insights into this use of venir instead of ir?

Wouldn't that sentence better translate to "Maria eats little bread."?

And "Maria doesn't eat much bread." better translate to "María no come mucho pan."?

Disfruté mucho este video. Me encantó ver todas las cosas coloridas, la música, el arte y las cosas maravillosas que hacen los artesanos. Especialmente me encantó ver el baile tradicional. Me parece que la atmósfera allí es muy emocionante.

Este es también un gran ejercicio con un montón de texto para digerir.

Muchas gracias Shui y un saludo :)

Hi,

The word order in the above sentence confused me.  If the word order was changed to:

¿Tu madre te dio el dinero?

would this change the meaning of the sentence?

If not, is the word order in the original sentence commonly used?

Thanks.

Colin

In your example on the use of tanto...como, one of your sentence  has left me uncertain about the translation. Tanto cuando son pequeños como majores, los hijos siempre preocupan a los padres. The English translation in your example is: Whether they are young or grown-up, children are always a worry for their parents. The use of the personal "a" before the word "los padres" suggests that the children worry about the parents, except that the verb should have been "se preocupan"..If it was intended to mean that the parents always worry about the children whether young or grown-up, in my opinion, the words "los hijos" and "los padres" should be interchanged, with the verb se preocupan. Otherwise  " están ocupados" should have been used instead of "preocupan"  and or used before los padres. Please advise.

I have 2 questions about "no puedo esperar a ver":

1. First I was surprised by the 'a' after 'esperar'.  When do you use this construct rather than esperar on it's own? 

2. In the grammar link for that sentence it says that you shouldn't use this construct at all, so when should you vs when shouldn't you:

"Literal translations from English to Spanish don't work. In this context, do not use this type of construction in the English way:

"Estoy mirando a..." (I am looking forward to...)

"No puedo esperar a..." (I can't wait to...)"