Anyone speak Spanish...?

[Nequeo]

I've been wondering about this for six years now. Well, obviously, not six years non-stop. More like maybe once or twice a year, for a few seconds, over the past six years. But it just occured to me that the international readership of this forum may provide a vehicle for obtaining an answer without, you know, going out and researching the issue myself.

Here's the background. I was in Brazil, in a hotel with tri-lingual signs. Portuguese, Spanish and English. I don't know any Portuguese, but I do speak English, and had taken a couple months of beginning Spanish lessons before heading off to South America.

So, I was sitting on the dunny one day, reading the hotel's instructions for operating the spa. Comparing the Spanish to the English... You know, in case one day someone runs up to me in the street and yells, "Quick! Quick! Juan locked himself in the bathroom and threatened to flush my car keys down the loo unless I tell him how to operate the spa!"

I noticed that the English word 'taps' had been rendered in Spanish as 'the mouth of the exit of the water'. La boca del salida de agua, or similar. So, what I have been itching to know ever since then, is whether or not this is a mis-translation, or if there is just no Spanish word for taps.

Anyone know? (A google search for 'mouth exit water' was not particularly enlightening)

[Gannin]

It's not a mistranslation per se'. In English, we can easily join two words together to describe one object (such as webcam) or use one word to describe a single idea (such as the tap to which you refer.) Whereas in Spanish, they generally don't concatenate words to form a new word, and sometimes rather than using a single word to describe an idea, they use a more literal description.

Spanish also has a different form of standard contractions. Rather than joining two words and throwing in an apostrophe as we do in English, they simply drop entire words from the sentence, with the meaning or direction of the sentence being assumed. This is why saying something in English might take two sentences, but an entire paragraph in Spanish. For example.

Tu eres caliente. (You are hot, in the familiar.)

Eres caliente. (You're hot, still generally in the familiar.)

Another possibility for “tap” would be agua de la canilla.

[woedend]

i dont speak spanish(although i can read it decently oddly enough)...a bit of searching turned up the word "grifo", meaning tap or faucet. But, i'm sure someone in spain here would know much better the correct usage, just had me interested enough to search also :).

[endersshadow]

Also note that Spanish changes from place to place (much the same way there's UK English and US English). La boca de la salida de agua may just be the lowest common denometer.

Grifo is a word local to Brazil, llave is local to Chile, Colombia, y Mexico, and canilla is for RP...which I don't know that that is. Or so says my Spanish-English dictionary :-D

[Nequeo]

i dont speak spanish(although i can read it decently oddly enough)...a bit of searching turned up the word "grifo", meaning tap or faucet. But, i'm sure someone in spain here would know much better the correct usage, just had me interested enough to search also :).

Woedend: You raise a point I forgot to mention in my original post. I did at the time look up 'taps' in our Spanish/English phrasebook and saw there one word. Part of my question is wondering why the longer construct was used in place of it.

It ain't that odd being able to read a language better than you can speak it. I reckon anyone with a decent grasp of English etymology, who has studied at least one other Romanantic language, even for one year during Highschool, would probably be able to find their way around a Spanish city without too much trouble. I found during my relatively short trip I could puzzle out most simple written Spanish based on similar words in English/French.

I had much more trouble trying to buy a sandwich off the beaten track in Italy.

[woedend]

right on. After HS, I was close to being able to write french without a hitch, could read it perfectly, never could get the right accents down to speak it well, and understanding people speaking it was impossible. Gave me new respect for bilingual people. They say you never can get accents down perfectly past a certain age(don't remember what it is now, though). So spanish is fairly easy to read, but then again need to check a word here and there. Funny that English is a germanic language yet german seems the most confusing to me!(moreso than latin!)
I am curious about this now though. I wonder if they have poor translators or that is the correct way.

[Gannin]

Despite English being a Germanic language, when you start to really study Latin, modern English uses more Latin words than German words.

Mexico tends to have its own simplified usages of Spanish. Some places, like Peru, stick more to the “pure” Spanish of Spain, though they lack the susoro, which is, in Peru they pronounce their “z” like a soft “s”, whereas in Spain they pronounce it like a “th”. Canilla tends to be associated with a body part.

My fiance is from Peru, so I get to learn lots of interesting things about Spanish.

[Nequeo]

Despite English being a Germanic language, when you start to really study Latin, modern English uses more Latin words than German words.


Have you ever read The Mother Tongue - by Bill Bryson? Fascinating, and very, very funny look at the history of English.

My own girlfriend is Chinese... so I am picking up a few choice phrases in Cantonese. I was very amused to learn that the literal translation of 'abalone' is 'pocket fish'.

[jeremy]

"Grifo" is the correct word for "tap" in spanish (at least, in Spain it is), ie. a tap where the water comes out.
A "stopcock" (regulates the flow within a tube) is a "llave" (which also means "key") in spanish.

[mostwanted]

English is a mixture language. The original words were anglo-saxon, then came the viking influence from their invasions (the germanic words) and later the invasions from normandy (french words, not directly decended from latin). At least that's how I've understood it.

[Gannin]

But if you ever truly study Latin itself (Wheelock's Latin is a really good source) you'll find that we have many words that are lifted directly from Latin, not their French derivatives. Sure we do have some French-derivative words, but most of the Latin words we use in English are straight Latin.

We also have a lot of Latin words that were modified slightly either by way of coming from classical Latin, going through medieval Latin, and then into our language, or just by the journey of inclusion into our language itself. For instance, “sylva” in Latin means “forest” or “trees,” and “sylvan” in modern English usually means “of the forest.” It's the same basic word, just modified slightly.

The biggest role French has played in English is the inclusion of silent letters. In Old English, every letter in a word was pronounced (like Latin), but when French was thrust upon England, over the years, many silent letters got included in the language.

But for the most part, the majority of Latin in English is the direct Latin word with a slightly modified meaning. For instance, “via” in modern English means “by way of,” but in Latin it means “street.”

[jbmalone]

Eres caliente. means you are horny in the Spanish slang around my house.

[Squalor]

Eres caliente. means you are horny in the Spanish slang around my house.

Actually, that'd be "estás", not "eres".

[endersshadow]

Actually, that'd be "estás", not "eres".

No, eres is correct in that case. It's a characteristic. Sort of like, "Eres bonita"...

[Polmac]

No, eres is correct in that case. It's a characteristic. Sort of like, "Eres bonita"...

In Spain the correct sentence would be "estás caliente", but I believe in some areas of South America they use "eres caliente" instead (which would be wrong in Spain)

Back to the original question, I guess the translator was brazilian (they speak portuguese), didn't know the right word in spanish and just used a workaround.

[Squalor]

No, eres is correct in that case. It's a characteristic. Sort of like, "Eres bonita"...

"Eres caliente" would mean you are always horny, you never stop wanting sex. If that's what was meant, then yes; but here in Spain, I've never heard it.

[endersshadow]

This is where slang and translations fall short.

In English, being "hot" means that the person is sexy, gorgeous, etc.

If you want to say that they're horny, it's usually "hot and bothered."

I believe the original purveyor of this meant the former, not the latter, in which case it would be "eres" (a characteristic) rather than "estás" (a state and/or condition).

Buuuuuuuuut, native meanings trump all :-D

[Nequeo]

In Spain the correct sentence would be "estás caliente", but I believe in some areas of South America they use "eres caliente" instead (which would be wrong in Spain)

Back to the original question, I guess the translator was brazilian (they speak portuguese), didn't know the right word in spanish and just used a workaround.

Which I suppose would make it Panish? Kind of like Engrish (http://www.engrish.com/) but for Portuguese/Spanish translations... *shrug* I find it curious.

Speaking of which... my girlfriend recently was talking to someone who had a job in Japan proof-reading instruction manuals for electronic goods. They quit in frustration after frequently finding mistakes on the order of "press bottom" instead of "press button", and being told by management, "No, we're leaving it like that."

[Gannin]

All I can say to that is lol.

[ThirdWorld]

Also note that Spanish changes from place to place (much the same way there's UK English and US English). La boca de la salida de agua may just be the lowest common denometer.

Grifo is a word local to Brazil, llave is local to Chile, Colombia, y Mexico, and canilla is for RP...which I don't know that that is. Or so says my Spanish-English dictionary :-D


the correct word is "grifo" or "llave" its true that few words change from region to region in the spanish speaking countries but there are standard words that just dont change, therefore comunication is easy. everybody knows in south america and central america what a "girfo" is... usually the words that change are the indian or arab in origin. For example, in spanish the word "pavo" mean turkey. and "pavo" is the correct way to say it everywhere from spain to tierra del fuego (chile), but mexicans call the turkey also "guajolote" which is an native indian word that means "turkey"

[arthur]

Interesting thread! :p
Indeed, as already mentioned, tap=grifo (at least in Spain).
Not the worst translation, by far. Much more amazing things occur every day.
As an Ubuntu-based Spanish IT Translator & Interpreter, I am quickly getting used to these niceties.

BTW, this Forum rocks!