sábado, 26 de julio de 2014

So which preposition should we use with the verb 'to arrive': in or at?

The preposition that comes after ‘arrive’ is often problematic. Even native speakers have trouble with this. If we are talking about arriving in a specific place name such as a village, region, country, city, park then we must utilise the preposition ‘in’. For example, ‘the England rugby team arrived in South Africa last night’ or ‘we arrived in Rotterdam yesterday’ or ‘she will arrive in the village of West Harting later’. So, when we mention the name of a specific place (village, town, city, county, country…) then we must use ‘in’ with the verb ‘to arrive’. Should the place where we arrive not be a city, village, county etc then we must utilise the preposition ‘at’. For example, ‘I arrived at the police station half an hour ago’ or ‘she will shortly arrive at the cinema’ or ‘he has already arrived at work’ or ‘when will we arrive at Madrid bus terminal?’ Note in the last example that the generic place supersedes the specific place (Madrid) with regard to the implementation of the preposition.

Separate from this is the phrase 'to arrive at a decision'. This is not to be confused with the above.
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domingo, 6 de julio de 2014

How do we translate the word 'fiesta' to English?


Good evening/morning, so a lot of fiestas are taking place right now in Spain. So what would be the closest word to 'fiesta' in English? Well ultimately some loss in translation is inevitable as a fiesta in Spain is a concept that is unique to Spain. Probably, the best word would not be 'party' for 'fiestas' happening in big towns or cities as the 'fiesta' really becomes quite sizable in big towns or cities. In these cases, the most appropriate word would be 'festival'. So Pamplona/Iruña has a bull running festival in early July. Valencia has a festival in March and San Sebastian de los Reyes similarly has a bull running festival in late August. If the 'fiesta' occurs in a village then we can safely name it a 'village party' since we do have village parties in the UK, albeit very different to those in Spain. Also, in the UK, a party can be at someone's residence or in a night club (discoteca). All the best.