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This is a fairly clear case, but there can be more subtle issues. For example, consider this sentence (that I made up): We got in the car and drove across
by foldr 3y ago
This is a fairly clear case, but there can be more subtle issues. For example, consider this sentence (that I made up):
We got in the car and drove across the island.
Google translate renders this in Spanish as follows:
Nos subimos al coche y cruzamos la isla.
"We got into the car and crossed the island."
This preserves the 'across' part but not the 'drove' part, which is left implicit. That is not an accident: in contrast to English, Spanish tends to be 'verb framed' rather than 'satellite framed' (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb_framing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verb_framing). In this particular case the translation is arguably fine because it is obvious from context that the manner of crossing the island was by driving. I am not a native Spanish speaker, but I think that there would be no way to make the 'driving' part explicit in Spanish without it sounding redundant and odd.
- capableweb 3y agoI'm no Spanish native speaker either (only some years experience), but I'm pretty sure your example would be translated to: > Subimos al coche y condujimos a través de la isla > We got in the car and drove across the island. Making it explicit that you drove across the island :)
- foldr 3y agoI think it sounds a bit weird to use the verb 'conducir' like that (which is why Google translate chooses not to do so). In any case, there are many other such examples of Spanish tending to encode path in the verb rather than manner, even if this particular one doesn't work.
- FranchuFranchu 3y agoNative Spanish speaker here. If I had to translate "We drove across the island", and make the car explicit without the first clause giving context, I'd say: > Cruzamos la isla en el coche > We crossed the island in the car