lunes, 25 de noviembre de 2013

Desayunar/comer/cenar: you need to add the verb ‘to have’ or ‘to eat


Many students say a sentence like this in our Skype English classes: ‘I will lunch at the hotel restaurant’. This is actually not correct. The verbs ‘desayunar’, ‘comer’ and ‘cenar’ can not be translated literally with one work. You need to put the verb ‘to have’ or ‘to eat’ before the literal translation. So the sentence above should be translated by: ‘I will have/eat lunch at the hotel restaurant’ or ‘I had/ate dinner at my Mum’s yesterday’. Granted, you may occasionally find sentences like ‘I dinnered at Harrod’s last night’, especially in poetic circles, but it’s very, very rare and may not be actually grammatically correct according to the dictionary.
http://www.clasesinglesonline.com/

martes, 12 de noviembre de 2013

Yo estoy deacuerdo/I agree:



Much confusion is prominent with these terms (Yo estoy deacuerdo/I agree) in our Skype English classes as the types of words are different. If we say ‘Yo estoy deacuerdo’ we have the subject, verb and adjective. The correct translation of ‘yo estoy deacuerdo’ would be ‘I agree’. Here in the English we have the subject and verb only. It is very common for most students to say ‘I am agree’ as they translate literally, word for word, from Spanish to English. As ‘agree’ is a verb and not an adjective, the same word order can’t work when translating from Spanish to English. In other words, we can never have the subject, the verb ‘to be’ followed by the infinitive of the word ‘agree’. If we consider the sentence ‘she (subject) is (verb ‘to be’) cry (infinitive)’, you can probably make out that this sentence is very wrong. The same goes with ‘I (subject) ‘am’ (verb ‘to be’) ‘agree’ (infinitive)’. It really doesn’t work. So now you can see more fully why ‘yo estoy deacuerdo’ should be translated by saying ‘I agree’.


Similarly, ‘no estoy deacuerdo’ would be ‘I don’t agree’. 

martes, 5 de noviembre de 2013

'Asignature' is not 'signature'




When we are talking about studying students in our Skype English lessons often translate ‘asignatura’ with ‘signature’. Unfortunately, we have a false friend here. A ‘signature’ is normally a ‘firma’ for example on contracts, cheques and other documents. ‘Asignatura’ would be ‘subject’ such as history, maths or linguistics.