FSI Spanish Readings - Two Questions (Questions About Your Target Languages) Language Learning Forum

FSI Spanish Readings - Two Questions
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Language Learning Forum : Questions About Your Target Languages

10 messages over 2 pages: 1 2 Next >>

johndem
Newbie
Joined 5012 days ago
16 posts - 16 votes
Studies: English

Message 1 of 10

04 October 2010 at 10:24am | IP Logged

Hi,

I'm studying Spanish using the FSI basic course. I'm now at unit 18.
I have a few difficulties with some sentences in the readings at the end of unit 17 and 18.

1.

In unit 17 one can find the following phrase:
Eso fue todo, sólo que hablé un momento con ellas.

Now, I know that it roughly means "That was all, I only talked to them for a moment."
But it's the "sólo que" part that confuses me somewhat. Couldn't you just say "Sólo hablé un momento con ellas" or maybe even "Hablé sólo un momento con ellas" ?

2.

In the reading at the end of unit 18 the following phrase can be found:

Y eso lo hacen porque se creen superiores.

Again, this roughly means: "And they do that because they feel superior".
But why is the phrase with "eso lo"? Why not "Y eso hacen..." (they do that because...) or "Lo hacen" (they do it because...) ?

There are the kinds of things that give me most problems so far. Because from an English perspective they seem somewhat illogical. Also there is no real individual analysis of these phrases in FSI.

John
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fireflies
Senior Member
Joined 4977 days ago
172 posts - 234 votes

Speaks: English*

Message 2 of 10

04 October 2010 at 4:33pm | IP Logged

2. And they do it because they believe themselves to be superior.

or And this they do because they believe themselves to be superior.

Creo que sólo significa 'just' pero no estoy segura. :)

Edited by fireflies on 04 October 2010 at 4:37pm
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El Forastero
Pentaglot
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Colombia
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Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, French^B1, English^C1, Italian
Studies: German

Message 3 of 10

04 October 2010 at 5:21pm | IP Logged

"Solo que hablé un momento con ellas" means almost the same that "Solo hablé un momento con ellas". But the first one seems that there's an opposition against another sentence said before, perhaps an acusation.

The first one is actually two coordinated sentences: "(es) solo" and "hablé un momento con ellas", linked by "que". and "(es) solo" means: "It's precisely THAT, not whatever else one can think", and this sounds a little bit more emphatic.

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johndem
Newbie
Joined 5012 days ago
16 posts - 16 votes
Studies: English

Message 4 of 10

05 October 2010 at 9:29pm | IP Logged

Ah, I see.

Thanks for your help guys!

The "eso lo hacen" part is still somewhat difficult to understand totally because it seems that both "that" and "it" is stated.

I'm sure that once I come it accross more often, it will sink in.
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Andy E
Triglot
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United Kingdom
Joined 6899 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, French

Message 5 of 10

06 October 2010 at 7:37am | IP Logged

johndem wrote:

Y eso lo hacen porque se creen superiores.

Again, this roughly means: "And they do that because they feel superior".
But why is the phrase with "eso lo"? Why not "Y eso hacen..." (they do that because...) or "Lo hacen" (they do it because...) ?

This is the use of a "redundant" object pronoun. The object of the sentence is "that". It's been placed at the beginning of the phrase to give it emphasis or focus - equivalent to saying:

"and that they do because they..."

y lo hacen porque se creen superiores = "and they do it because..." is ok as well.

However, y eso hacen porque se creen superiores just sounds off to me. Every time I say it, I want to put the lo in there.

I placed the word rendundant in quotes above because if the object precedes the verb I think this use is almost obligatory. Sounds like I should be looking up Butt and Benjamin on this; perhaps when I get home from work or maybe someone else can chime in.

Edit: Checking B&B (11.16.1 Redundancy when object precedes verb), it's as noted above but they add the following:

The pronoun is not used after eso in such phrases as eso creo yo , eso digo yo (but compare eso lo digo yo)
...
Redundant pronouns are not used with indefinite direct objects i.e. ones that refer to an unspecified or unidentified quantity or number, as in mucha prisa ha debido tener, carne no como
...

(English translations omitted for the sake of brevity)

Edited by Andy E on 06 October 2010 at 10:31pm
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johndem
Newbie
Joined 5012 days ago
16 posts - 16 votes
Studies: English

Message 6 of 10

07 October 2010 at 9:50am | IP Logged

Ah, ok I see.

Thank you very much.

I wish I had some exercises to practice putting in the LO in those kind of situations. I hope something like that it comes in a later FSI unit.
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Javi
Senior Member
Spain
Joined 5777 days ago
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Speaks: Spanish*

Message 7 of 10

14 October 2010 at 9:50pm | IP Logged

johndem wrote:

Hi,

I'm studying Spanish using the FSI basic course. I'm now at unit 18.
I have a few difficulties with some sentences in the readings at the end of unit 17 and
18.

1.

In unit 17 one can find the following phrase:
Eso fue todo, sólo que hablé un momento con ellas.

Now, I know that it roughly means "That was all, I only talked to them for a moment."
But it's the "sólo que" part that confuses me somewhat. Couldn't you just say "Sólo
hablé un momento con ellas" or maybe even "Hablé sólo un momento con ellas" ?

2.

In the reading at the end of unit 18 the following phrase can be found:

Y eso lo hacen porque se creen superiores.

Again, this roughly means: "And they do that because they feel superior".
But why is the phrase with "eso lo"? Why not "Y eso hacen..." (they do that
because...) or "Lo hacen" (they do it because...) ?

There are the kinds of things that give me most problems so far. Because from
an English perspective they seem somewhat illogical. Also there is no real individual
analysis of these phrases in FSI.

John

1. solo que = just that (notice that solo is misspelled in your book, according to the
most current spelling conventions)

2. When the DO goes in front of the verb, you normally have to duplicate it. For
example:

Ayer vi a Juan (just one DO)
a Juan lo vi ayer (two DOs)

I hope that helps.
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Cainntear
Pentaglot
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Scotland
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Speaks: Lowland Scots, English*, French, Spanish, Scottish Gaelic
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Message 8 of 10

14 October 2010 at 11:03pm | IP Logged

Number 2 is something that I think is called "prefixing" (which is a particular kind of "fronting")

I have the money.
Tengo el dinero.

The money, I have it.
El dinero lo hago.

Spanish uses prefixing more than English.
Why?
English uses changes in voice pitch and stress for emphasis, but Spanish prefers to rely on grammar for the same purpose.

Esto lo hacen works in Spanish but *this they do it doesn't work in English (NB, I changed from Eso to Esto to avoid the ambiguous "that" in English). Conversely This they do is rare but not unknown in English while *Esto hacen is pretty much impossible in Spanish.

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