On the other hand, some Latin American countries offer a climate that lets their old cars last a looooong time. People from the U.S. who love antique and classic vehicles would gasp at the number of old cars in great condition in Latin America.
My point is that many, many Latin Americans are still rolling their windows up and down–but only in English. In Spanish they’re just opening or closing them.
On the other hand, some Latin American countries offer a climate that lets their old cars last a looooong time. People from the U.S. who love antique and classic vehicles would gasp at the number of old cars in great condition in Latin America.
My point is that many, many Latin Americans are still rolling their windows up and down–but only in English. In Spanish they’re just opening or closing them.
Most new vehicles have electric windows these days. We press or move a button and the window goes up or down. How can we say this another way to mean the same thing?
It’s simple, really–we open or close the window. We don’t roll the window–not unless we have one of those very basic vehicles that still let you open and close a window without the help of a little electric motor inside the door.
Yesterday’s numbers were 42 – 28 – 30 – 29 and 33 – 44 – 20 – 22.
Now consider the phrase “Roll up the window.”
Who rolls up windows anymore? Before I give the Spanish for it, I want you to think of another way to say it in English to make it easy to translate into Spanish.
Yesterday’s number was 11 – 14- 18- 36.
Here are two more teléfonos to dial. They use 20s, 30s and 40s.
Marca: cuarenta y dos – veinte y ocho – treinta – veinte y nueve.
Marca: treinta y tres – cuarenta y cuatro – veinte – veinte y dos.
Marca this teléfono (telephone number): once – catorce – dieciocho – treinta y seis.
Try saying it, too. It should get you someone in Mexico, if you’re in that country.
Let’s try this dialing thing again. We all say “dial” in English, even though very few phones nowadays have a dial–a round mechanism that registers numbers.
The word for dial in Spanish is marcar. To tell someone to dial, you say, “Marca,” followed by dos – cinco – ocho, etcetera.
Dial a number, any number.
Wait, you probably can’t do that. A dial is round. The old, old phones didn’t have a dial, but the not-as-old ones like I grew up with did. You put your finger through one of the openings on it, whichever number you wanted, and dialed one at a time until you had dialed the whole number.
In Spanish you never dial numbers. You simply…uh…how do I say this in English? You register the number…you enter the number…you do whatever it takes to cause a ring on the other end.
Some things are hard to translate.
