In this post, I’m not going to discuss whether “deber” is translated as “must” or “should”. You can already find lots of discussion of that topic on the Internet. I’m going to translate it as “should” for the purposes of this article.

Instead, I want to point out a common usage of the future tense in Spanish which English speakers find either odd or confusing or both. Most language learners learn that:

debería   deberíamos
deberías  deberíais
debería   deberían

which is actually the conditional tense form of “deber”, and is also what is usually translated into English as “should” when referring to something in the present:

Deberías estudiar más. = You should study more.
No deberías comer tanto. = You shouldn’t eat so much.
Deberían bajar los precios. = They should lower the prices.

All of the examples imply something that can/could be acted on NOW.

When we refer to something that should be done in the FUTURE, you can also use the future tense of deber:

Deberás estudiar más este fin de semana. = You should study more this weekend.
No deberás comer tanto cuando vuelvas a casa. = You shouldn’t eat so much when you go back home.
Deberán bajar los precios el año que viene. = They should lower the prices next year.

So what’s the difference between “deberías estudiar más” and “deberás estudiar más”? Well, that’s where the “should” or “must” debate starts again. Some would argue that the “deberás estudiar más” example above should be translated as “You must study more this weekend” when in reality, it could be either “should” or “must”, depending on the situation and the kind of emphasis you give it. It’s definitely not a black and white issue.

Brad

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Yesterday, my wife told me that she had tried to call her aunt who lives just up the street and had got no answer. Since I knew that the aunt is frequently in the back part of the house and the phone is in the front, we had the following exchange:

yo: ¿Por qué no te acercas?
ella: Sí, ya me voy a acercar.

which translated into everyday English would be something like:

me: Why don’t you go to her house?
her: Yeah, I’ll go in a moment.

It suddenly occurred to me that this use of “acercarse” might not be obvious to an English speaker learning Spanish. I looked at “acercarse” on a couple of online dictionaries and they defined the verb as:

1. To approach, to come near, draw near, to come close to.
2. To be reconciled (amantes).
3. Acercarse a (Comp.), to close in on.

You really have to stretch your imagination to correlate the dictionary definition to the way we used the verb in our little conversation.

The point is that dictionaries are wonderful, necessary aids in learning a language but they can and do fall short at times when showing common usages. Frequently they just point you in the right direction, and you’ll have to go beyond what the dictionary says out there in real life, in one way or another.

Brad

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“Corresponder” and “correspond” sure look like they should mean the same thing, don’t they? But the real meanings are:

(Spanish) corresponder = (English) match / coincide with
(English) correspond = (Spanish) escribirse (write to each other)

Here are some examples of each one:

Spanish

(corresponder)
1. A ti te corresponde la mitad del dinero.
2. A ella le corresponde escribir el resumen – a mí no.
3. El tiene el lugar que le corresponde.
4. Este texto no corresponde a esta foto.
(escribirse)
5. Mi hermana y yo nos escribimos una vez al mes.
6. Pedro y yo ya no nos escribimos.

English

1. You are entitled to half of the money.
2. It’s her job to write the summary – not mine.
3. He is now in the appropriate place.
4. This text doesn’t go with this photo.
5. My sister and I correspond once a month.
6. Pedro and I no longer correspond.

Brad

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Entrar (en)

To enter or go into a place in Spanish the verb “entrar” is used in Spanish. It’s easy to remember since both the English and Spanish forms come from Latin.

The problem that students of Spanish encounter is that they forget to use the preposition “en” when mentioning the place. Here are some examples:

Spanish

1. Entramos pero sólo nos quedamos cinco minutos. (no “en”)
2. Entramos en el restaurante pero sólo nos quedamos cinco minutos. (must use “en”)
3. Entré en la tienda pero no había nadie. (must use “en”)
4. Ella entró y terminó gastando todo su dinero. (no “en”)
5. Ella entró en la tienda y terminó gastando todo su dinero. (must use “en”)

English

1. We went in but we only stayed five minutes.
2. We went into the restaurant but we only stayed five minutes.
3. I went into the shop but no one was there.
4. She went in and ended up spending all of her money.
5. She went into the shop and ended up spending all of her money.

Salir (de)

To leave a place, “salir” is one of the verbs you can use. You can also use “irse”, “dejar” and “abandonar”, but I want to talk about “salir” today since it is possibly the most common verb to use.

Once again, the problem for students is a preposition (this time “de”), which must be used when you mention the place you are leaving. Examples:

Spanish

1. Salimos sobre las 8:00. (no “de”)
2. Salimos de la fiesta sobre las 8:00. (must use “de”)
3. Salieron del hotel y entraron en una cafetería. (must use “de”)
4. Saldré cuando termine. (no “de”)
5. Saldré de la oficina cuando termine. (must use “de”)

English

1. We left about 8:00.
2. We left the party around 8:00.
3. They left the hotel and went into a cafe.
4. I’ll leave when I finish.
5. I’ll leave the office when I finish.

Brad

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I just received a spam telling me where I could “ordenar mis drogas”. Two mistakes in Spanish in just three words.

droga vs. medicamento

First of all, in Spanish “drogas” are one thing and “medicamento(s)” are quite another. The first one is the “bad” stuff – the kind that you’ll have to go to the local park at midnight in order to buy. Marijuana and cocaine are two examples of “drogas”.

The second one (medicamento) is what your doctor prescribes. A “medicamento” could be, among other things, penicillin or cough medicine.

ordenar vs. pedir

The Spanish verb “ordenar” can mean “to order”, but only in the sense of telling someone to do something: “el juez le ordenó que no se acercara a la familia” (the judge ordered him not to go near the family).

“pedir” is the verb you want to use when ordering a product or service. Some examples:

Spanish

1. He pedido dos libros en Amazon.
2. ¿Puedo pedirlo por correo?
3. Ella pidió un vestido nuevo pero todavía no ha llegado.
4. No es buena idea pedir medicamentos por correos.

English

1. I’ve ordered two books from Amazon.
2. Can I order it by mail?
3. She ordered a new dress but it still hasn’t arrived.
4. It’s not a good idea to buy mail-order drugs.

Brad

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This is a common mistake in Spanish for intermediate and advanced learners:

English has a special use of the future tense (will) which does NOT translate into Spanish. In English, when we want to emphasize that someone habitually refuses to do something, we can use the future tense, as in:

“He won’t accept a job as a gardener”, or “she won’t eat broccoli”. Both of these sentences could be reworded in English as “He refuses to accept a job as a gardener” or “she refuses to eat broccoli” and imply that this is an ongoing situation while not referring to any specific situation in the future. When this is the case, we use the reflexive verb “negarse a” which means “to refuse”. The future in Spanish is NOT used in this situation. Some examples:

English

1. He just won’t listen to me. (meaning ‘he never listens to me’)
2. He won’t accept a job as a gardener. (meaning ‘he refuses to accept that job ever’)
3. She won’t eat broccoli. (meaning ’she never eats broccoli’)
4. They just won’t pay attention to the math teacher. (meaning ‘they never pay attention to him’)
5. They won’t come here when my father is at home. (meaning ‘they never come when he’s there’)

Spanish

1. Se niega a escucharme. (wrong: No me escuchará)
2. Se niega a aceptar un trabajo como jardinero. (wrong: No aceptará un trabajo como jardinero)
3. Se niega a comer broccoli. (wrong: No comerá broccoli)
4. Se niegan a prestarle atención al profesor de matemáticas. (wrong: No le prestarán atención…)
5. Se niegan a pasar por aquí cuando mi padre está en casa. (wrong: No pasarán por aquí cuando…)

Brad

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I’ve chosen this expression since students have asked my about it many times. It’s obvious why they ask – the literal translation makes no sense at all in English. And I just discovered that I had serious problems finding a translation for it on a Google search. So let me try to fill the gap: the best translation I can come up with is “no reason to” or “not have a reason to”. Let’s see how that works with some examples:

Spanish

1. No tienes por qué venir mañana porque viene Jorge.
2. No tenemos por qué comprar una casa nueva – ésta está bien.
3. No tienes por qué preocuparte por mí – estoy bien.
4. Ustedes no tienen por qué mentir.

English

1. You don’t have any reason to come in tomorrow because Jorge is coming.
2. We don’t have any reason to buy a new house – this one is OK.
3. You don’t have any reason to worry about me – I’m fine.
4. You don’t have any reason to lie.

Brad

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But it’s not as difficult as it seems. Spanish has two good verbs that mean “to lend / to loan”: “dejar” and “prestar”. Basically, instead of saying “Can I borrow your pen?” in Spanish you say “Can you lend me your pen?”. The following examples should help illustrate the point:

Spanish

1. ¿Puedes dejarme / prestarme tu chaqueta?
2. Quería que Juan me dejara / prestara su moto pero me dijo que no.
3. Pepe quería que le dejara / prestara mi barco.
4. ¿Cuando puedes dejarme / prestarme el libro?

English

1. Can I borrow your jacket? / Can you lend me your jacket?
2. I wanted to borrow Juan’s motorcycle but he said no. / I wanted Juan to lend me his motorcycle but he said no.
3. Pepe wanted to borrow my boat. / Pepe wanted me to lend him my boat.
4. When can I borrow the book? / When can you lend me the book?

Notice that you can express the sentence either way in English, but the second version in the examples above is the one that is equivalent to the way Spanish does it.

By the way, Spanish-speakers learning English usually have a difficult time with the concept of “borrow” and only sort it out by remembering that the person borrowing is on the receiving end while the person lending is on the giving end. This is one instance where I think it’s easier to learn in Spanish than in English.

Brad

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On traveling from Andalucia north to Extremadura (in Spain) at the beginning of Easter, the traffic advisory message panels all said:

Correr menos gasta menos.

I wondered what someone learning Spanish would make of this message – probably some gibberish like the title of this post. Anyway here’s the explanation:

‘Correr’ when used referring to driving means ‘to drive (very) fast’. ‘Gastar’ means ’spend (money)’ but it is also used to mean ‘consume (resources). In Spanish you can ‘gastar luz’ (use electricity), ‘gastar mucha agua’ (use a lot of water), and our topic for today ‘gastar gasolina’ (use gasoline / petrol). So with this information we can now translate the message to drivers on the roads of Spain as:

If you drive slower you’ll use less gasoline / petrol.

It’s a good thing they put it in Spanish since it wouldn’t have fit on the boards in English. By the way, this is one of those somewhat rare examples where the Spanish is shorter than the English.

Brad

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I just ran across the common phrase “No hay pero que valga“. The translation into English is the title of this post “No buts about it“. Now you could just learn this idiom in Spanish and go on with your life, but it’s more interesting to analyze it a bit:

The literal translation is “there is no but that is of value”. “Valga” is the subjunctive form of the verb “valer”, whose basic meaning is “to be worth” but is commonly used in asking about prices: “¿Cuánto vale ese reloj?” = “How much is that watch?” or “What’s the price of that watch?”.

The verb “valer” uses the subjunctive here because of the negative phrase “No hay” – in other words, denying the existence of something.

So there’s a lot to learn in this little idiom. I hope you’ll find it useful.

Brad

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