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How + adjective/adverb in Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| sab15 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5217 days ago 39 posts - 41 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Mandarin, Dutch, Portuguese | Message 1 of 10 22 November 2011 at 4:52am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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How do you express How + adjective/adverb in Spanish? Like in the sense of how much + adj/adv.
Some examples: How far is the house from here? Do you know how big the house is? How fast does the car go? In your opinion, how blue is that paint? Very blue, or is it a bit green? Thanks a lot. SB 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
 jeff_lindqvist Diglot Moderator SwedenRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 6913 days ago 4250 posts - 5711 votes  Speaks: Swedish*, English Studies: German, Spanish, Russian, Dutch, Mandarin, Esperanto, Irish, French Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 10 22 November 2011 at 10:47pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Cómo de + adjective/adverb seems to be a way to express it (cómo de lejos, cómo de grande etc.):
http://www.wordreference.com/es/translation.asp?tranword=how (scroll down to compunds) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| FireViN Diglot Senior Member Brazil missaoitaliano.wordpRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5233 days ago 196 posts - 292 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, EnglishC2 Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 10 23 November 2011 at 2:56am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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I would use Cuán + adj/adv, but I'm not sure if this word is actually used or only in literature..
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| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5230 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 4 of 10 23 November 2011 at 9:57pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
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For questions: ¿Cómo de + adj./adv.? (current) or ¿Cuán + adj./dv.? (a bit old fashioned but perfectly valid).
For exclamations (how good!, what a good xyz!): ¡Qué bueno! (no "a" there). In the affirmative (f.ex. ...how long something is...): ...lo largo que es..., ...como de largo es..., ...cuan largo es... (remarks: no accents in this case; use of "cuan" is more current) You can hear "que tan" + adj./adv. for any of the above from Latin American speakers. Every time you say it, God kills a puppy. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| Juаn Senior Member Colombia Joined 5349 days ago 727 posts - 1830 votes Speaks: Spanish* | Message 5 of 10 24 November 2011 at 1:17am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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¿Qué tan lejos queda la tienda? and ¿qué tan grande es el apartamento? is perfectly good Spanish in these latitudes.
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| Eltwish Diglot Newbie United States larrykenny.com Joined 4786 days ago 13 posts - 25 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Japanese, German | Message 6 of 10 24 November 2011 at 3:06am | IP Logged | ||||||||
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Indeed, ¿Qué tan...? is pretty much all I've heard in Mexico, and how I've learned to say it. (My apologies to the aforementioned puppies.) ¿Qué tan rápido corre ese carro? And for "How far away is...?" you'll often just hear ¿A cuánto queda...?
The cuán... that FireViN mentioned I've indeed only seen in writing, though again, this is only my experience with Mexican Spanish. Edited by Eltwish on 24 November 2011 at 3:07am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||
| mrwarper Diglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member Spain forum_posts.asp?TID=Registered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5230 days ago 1493 posts - 2500 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2 Studies: German, Russian, Japanese | Message 7 of 10 25 November 2011 at 12:54pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Hi Juan :)
I know, but the key term there is these latitudes. In my latitudes there are tons of common local language butcherisms and malapropisms that I wouldn't recommend anyone to use, even if they are locally valid to achieve communication (what is "good" is a completely different story, and I don't want to sparkle another pointless prescriptivism/descriptivism debate). I'd be out on a limb to say it's wrong per se, but it sure feels wrong (the fact that comparisons are expressed as 'tan X como' doesn't mean you can turn them into quantification questions just like that, even less changing particles). Plus, even if it were approved by the academy (I am more inclined to listen to scholars than to functionally illiterate people*, regardless of possible intersections or sheer numbers :) it'll only get you smirks outside the 'village', unlike other Latin American "localisms" that cause the opposite effect. Think of it as saying 'if I was you' instead of 'if I were you'. Is it wrong? Well, that's arguable. Would you recommend its use? I certainly hope not. As Manuel Seco said in one of his dictionaries, Spanish is remarkably uniform for a supranational language, and it is more uniform the higher the register you consider. I think this is a Good Thing :) @Eltwish: thanks for mentioning "A cuánto queda..." for "how far"; I had forgotten it, and it's interesting because the adverb disappears sometimes. Another example would be "a cuánto iba el auto" (how fast it moved / did it move). On a puppy-related note, did you hear that in formal / educated environments? I always thought Mexicans were more considerate to small furry animals (than speakers from other countries, anyway). *I'm not saying that you or Latin Americans in general are 'illiterate', mind you. I mean that everyone and his mom can say what's right and wrong, but most people going against 'the rules' do so only because they can't fully grasp how everything works, or simply don't bother to speak properly. OTOH scholars are far more likely to get it right when they propose reforms because they know their stuff, at least theoretically. Of course, being a scholar isn't a guarantee of anything, as shown by the utter failure of their last nonsensical reform proposal a few years ago. It is highly ironical this last proposal was aimed to please those raised in the ever lowering education standards of the last years. Ungrateful illiterates :) Edited by mrwarper on 25 November 2011 at 1:22pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||
| anamsc Triglot Senior Member Andorra Joined 6207 days ago 296 posts - 382 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Catalan Studies: Arabic (Levantine), Arabic (Written), French | Message 8 of 10 25 November 2011 at 2:12pm | IP Logged | ||||||||
Without getting into the prescriptivism / descriptivism debate (which I have a feeling you and I would be on different sides on!), I just want to say something about what you have written. Just because a form is dialectal, that does not necessarily mean that it is low-register. It is perfectly possible for something to be dialectal in usage but to still form part of the high-register speech of that dialect (or group of dialects), as is the case with this particular feature. A quick Google search will show you that it is used in numerous news articles from throughout Latin America, for example. I don't think that is the case with most "local language butcherisms and malapropisms," and it certainly shows that this construction is common in usage outside this mysterious "village" that you refer to. And another thing -- there are way more Spanish speakers total in Mexico and Colombia (the two countries mentioned that used this feature) than in Spain. I don't really see why the usage in Spain should dictate what is "correct" any more than the usage in these two countries, or why what "feels wrong" to a Spaniard should be any more wrong than what feels wrong to a Mexican or a Colombian. As far as "cuan ___" -- besides in literature, I have only heard that from Argentinian speakers. Maybe it is in common usage there; can any Argentinians on the forum let me know if that is true? (EDIT): I just wanted to add that this usage is accepted by the RAE, which has the following to say about it:
Source: http://buscon.rae.es/dpdI/SrvltConsulta?lema=qu%C3%A9 (see entry 4g) Edited by anamsc on 25 November 2011 at 2:24pm 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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