Problematic "hint"

Question

Too
often I have found the “hints” to be problematic in that I am thrown off by
them. For example, in this lesson one hint was “Lit: "At 2 I have lunch
with dehydrated foods" lunch = almuerzo, foods = alimentos."  Assuming “Lit” means “literally”, the literal
translation should have been “A las dos tengo almuerzo con alimentos
deshidratados” NOT “tomo” or “como”. I do know that "tomar" is used when referring to food, but the so-called "hint" threw me off on this one!

Pat Ecuamiga

Answer

Hola PatiThis hint is there to make you aware that you can't say it exactly the same way/in the same order as the English sentence because it'd be grammatically incorrect or would sound very odd, so we are giving the lit: note to help. In this particular lit note we are giving the right order to follow when producing the Spanish translation, but there is no other way to translate the verb. It is now down to the student to realize that for that sentence you can't use the verb "tener" because in Spanish we don't use it in that context, we use tomar or comer. If "tener" had been an also correct verb we would have included that as another possible answer, but it isn't. I hope this clarified it.Saludos cordialesInma