Skuld Triglot Newbie SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5221 days ago 31 posts - 43 votes Speaks: Spanish*, CatalanC1, EnglishC1 Studies: German, French
| Message 9 of 23 17 January 2012 at 10:11pm | IP Logged |
mrwarper wrote:
It's a good technique that I use myself indeed.
Interestingly enough, ~600000 is a hell of a lot of results. This suggests "mirar la televisión" is a real idiomatic usage in the 'usual' sense somewhere else, presumably in a relatively small area of the Spanish-speaking world (I don't know where because I haven't heard it in that sense). |
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Dear mrwarper, you really know exactly where is this small area: Catalonia, Valencian Community and Balearic Islands. You only have to remember... ;)
The reason is simple - linguistic interference. In those places, apart from castilian Spanish, it's spoken also Catalan/Valencian. In this/these language(s) 'to watch TV' its said 'mirar la televisió', which is very similar to Spanish 'ver la televisión'.
So, even in bilingual native speakers - Castilian Spanish and Catalan/Valencian, not my case - is usual this kind of interferences, named colloquially as 'castellanades' [you express youself in catalan/valencian and introduce some Spanish idiomatic elements] or 'catalanadas' [you express youself in Castilian Spanish and introduce some Catalan/Valencian idiomatic elements].
These usages -'castellanades'/'catalanadas'- are not considered a correct usage of these languages. Some linguists catalogue them as 'barbarisms' or similia.
Edited by Skuld on 18 January 2012 at 1:43pm
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hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5131 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 10 of 23 17 January 2012 at 10:30pm | IP Logged |
Skuld wrote:
The reason is simple - linguistic interference. In those places, apart from castilian Spanish, it's spoken also Catalan/Valencian. In this/these language(s) 'to watch TV' its said 'mirar la televisió', which is very similar to Spanish 'ver la televisión'.
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That doesn't explain its use in Latin America. While "ver la televisión" is considered the correct usage (although I have no rule to back that up - it's just what most educated Spanish speakers use), I've definitely heard "mirar" used in Mexico too.
R.
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Skuld Triglot Newbie SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5221 days ago 31 posts - 43 votes Speaks: Spanish*, CatalanC1, EnglishC1 Studies: German, French
| Message 11 of 23 17 January 2012 at 11:20pm | IP Logged |
hrhenry wrote:
Skuld wrote:
The reason is simple - linguistic interference. In those places, apart from castilian Spanish, it's spoken also Catalan/Valencian. In this/these language(s) 'to watch TV' its said 'mirar la televisió', which is very similar to Spanish 'ver la televisión'.
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That doesn't explain its use in Latin America. While "ver la televisión" is considered the correct usage (although I have no rule to back that up - it's just what most educated Spanish speakers use), I've definitely heard "mirar" used in Mexico too.
R.
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Interesting. I don't know the reason of this usage in Latin America.
Hypothesis: Immigration? Travellers?
TV have existed for more than a half of century. Catalonian people are known for being very fond of travels. There is an urban legend about the existence of Catalonian travellers in every corner of the World.- And other one referring to Galician immigrants, too.. I know, this is another story.
I really don't know.
Edited by Skuld on 17 January 2012 at 11:24pm
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sab15 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5214 days ago 39 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Dutch, Portuguese
| Message 12 of 23 17 January 2012 at 11:30pm | IP Logged |
Perhaps it's an influence from the US. In English we "watch tv", and "watch" is translated as "mirar" in Spanish, no? While "ver" is "to see". We don't "see tv" here.
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mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese
| Message 13 of 23 18 January 2012 at 12:20am | IP Logged |
US influence in Mexico? It wouldn't be surprising at all.
@Skuld, I can't remember what I never knew, but thanks for the pointer about Catalan speakers.
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Skuld Triglot Newbie SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5221 days ago 31 posts - 43 votes Speaks: Spanish*, CatalanC1, EnglishC1 Studies: German, French
| Message 14 of 23 18 January 2012 at 12:31pm | IP Logged |
mrwarper wrote:
@Skuld, I can't remember what I never knew, but thanks for the pointer about Catalan speakers. |
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@mrwarper: I tought we talked about it some time ago. Or perhaps not. Now, I'm not completely sure. Don't worry. You are welcome. ;)
sab15 wrote:
Perhaps it's an influence from the US. In English we "watch tv", and "watch" is translated as "mirar" in Spanish, no? While "ver" is "to see". We don't "see tv" here.
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mrwarper wrote:
US influence in Mexico? It wouldn't be surprising at all. |
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@sab15, @mrwarper: Possibly, this is the 'real' reason. In fact, for political issues, Catalan/Valencian 'normalizators of the language(s)' -sic- tend to copy English usages for new words or expessions of the language(s) -neologisms.
The reasoning I posted can be reversed and adapted in this way:
As TV has only existed for less than a century, and Catalan/Valencian 'normalizators of the language(s)' regularly paid by public Spanish funds since thirty years or so, 'normalizators' copied this concrete English usage into Catalan/Valencian 'mirar la televisió' from 'to watch TV' independently from Spanish RAE [Real Academia Española], which possibly regularized 'ver la televisión' as the correct usage fifty years ago or more.
In the last thirty years, about fifteen millions of people or more have lived with these two very similar expressions in bilingual Spanish-Catalan/Valencian areas of Spain.
And a similar situation has happened in some Latin American areas with a lot of direct English influence. -i.e. Mexico. In that places, the process has been easier: they tend to copy directly 'to watch TV' into 'mirar la televisión'.
Summarizing, you can been be perfectly understood with the two expressions. The usage 'ver la televisión' is academically preferred to 'mirar la televisión'. But, with time, possibly things will change. Or not.
Edited by Skuld on 18 January 2012 at 12:40pm
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mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5227 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese
| Message 15 of 23 18 January 2012 at 3:53pm | IP Logged |
Not that I have the slightest interest in doing so myself, but shouldn't you just check where the 600000 Google hits for 'mirar la televisión' come from in the first place, and then theorize about it being the result of US influence in Mexico, political normalization in Spain, etc? :)
@Skuld, I'm usually not interested at all in issues involving Catalan, in the same vein I'm not interested in football, so I doubt we discussed it.
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fiziwig Senior Member United States Joined 4866 days ago 297 posts - 618 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish
| Message 16 of 23 18 January 2012 at 4:43pm | IP Logged |
Skuld wrote:
hrhenry wrote:
[QUOTE=Skuld]
The reason is simple - linguistic interference. --- |
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Interesting. I don't know the reason of this usage in Latin America.
Hypothesis: Immigration? Travellers?
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There's also the simple fact that incorrect language finds its way onto the Internet for any number of reasons. The phrase "Those dogs are" Googles in at 6.6 million hits while "Them dogs is" gets 204,000 hits even though it's clearly bad English.
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