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raferguson

Dec 14, 2004, 4:43 PM

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Traduccion of "IT"

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Pienso que no es possible traducir la palabra ingles "IT". "Eso" es cerca, pero pienso que no puedo usar "Eso" como sujeto de un frase. Mi diccionario tiene traducion de "IT" como el, ella, ello. Pero, "IT" significa una cosa, nunca una persona.

Por ejemplo: "It is mine". Es possible decir "es mio", pero la frase no tiene el concepto de una cosa, nunca una persona.

Estoy preguntando por me classe de ingles como segunda lingua. (ESL).

Gracias de antemano.

Richard

http://www.fergusonsculpture.com

BrentB

Dec 14, 2004, 7:43 PM

Post #2 of 14 (2515 views)

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Re: [raferguson] Traduccion of "IT"

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¿Eso es mío?

esperanza

Dec 15, 2004, 5:40 AM

Post #3 of 14 (2505 views)

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Re: [raferguson] Traduccion of "IT"

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If your ESL students understand that in English there is no gender attached to nouns, they might have an easier time understanding the concept of 'it'. IMHO, the place to begin this teaching segment is connected to gender as well as to pronouns.

In Spanish, of course, él, ella, and ello refer back to the gender of the noun possessed. Even the possessive pronoun in the examply you cited refers to the gender of the object possessed.

¿De quién es el libro? Es mío.
¿De quién es la gatita? Es mía.

Eso doesn't translate to 'it', it means 'that', when speaking of a concept, an idea, or some point of reference which has no gender.

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jerezano

Dec 15, 2004, 12:46 PM

Post #4 of 14 (2497 views)

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Re: [esperanza] Traduccion of "IT"

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Hola,

It as an object pronoun is quite simple. It is Lo. Give it to me. Dámelo. or Démelo.

It as an indirect pronoun can be a bit more complicated, but He he put it (something unknown) in it (a box): Él lo pusó en ella (la caja which is feminine). He put it in it (a drawer): El lo pusó en el (el cajón which is masculine). He put it in it (something which is completely unknown): El lo pusó en ello.

It as a subject is quite simple. It is ello, ella. or el. It is a dog. Ello es un perro. It is a rat. Ella es una rata. I don't know what it is. No sé que es (the modismo), but No sé que es ello is also correct when the thing is completely unknown but since the sex is unknow you can use either este or esta for nearby or in-hand objects or esa or ese things away or aquella or aquella for a far off object. All will be understood and unless I am corrected by Sr. Quevedo can be used interchangeably.

It's good to see somebody back on this forum. Let us hear more from you.

Adios. Jerezano.

raferguson

Dec 15, 2004, 6:06 PM

Post #5 of 14 (2483 views)

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Re: [esperanza] Traduccion of "IT"

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I had not thought of IT in the context of gender, which a couple of people brought up. Maybe that is the most useful thing I got out of this discussion. We do have gender in English, (He, She, his, her), but only for human beings. In Spanish, people use el, ella, ellos, ellas for ordinary things.

My original idea that IT has no direct parallel in Spanish is correct, but I had been teaching IT without focusing on the gender of ordinary objects, which English does not have. Clearly I need to teach IT in conjunction with the concept of gender for ordinary nouns.

I will think about this some more, and work on a lesson that might make the whole idea clearer.

Thanks for the ideas to date, and I am still open to more discussion.

Richard

http://www.fergusonsculpture.com

thfarrell

Dec 16, 2004, 9:01 AM

Post #6 of 14 (2472 views)

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Re: [raferguson] Traduccion of "IT"

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Hi...

> We do have gender in English [...]
> but only for human beings

Not sure I'd agree. Pets, boats and even the weather can have gender ("sure it's nice today, but she'll be a damn sight colder tomorrow").

Also, I think the notion of gender with respect to persons is a very different thing than with respect to language. It's (almost?) a completely different word - as if they were homonyms.

The connection between speaking of a "feminine person" and a "feminine noun", for example, is not clear. Speakers of languages like English (me, for example), tend to make more of the gender characteristics of words than do native speakers of such languages. Clearly, given the jokes one sometimes hears that rely on the feminine gender of words that describe masculine things (or vice versa), native speakers "get" the connection, but what do we make of the understanding of the word "pistola", a thing which for Freud is archtypically masculine yet which is "feminine". What would Benjamin Whorf (not a Klingon) say? Hmmmm...

Tom
---
"Beauty is in the i of the Beholder"
(Julia Mandelbrot)

raferguson

Dec 16, 2004, 3:50 PM

Post #7 of 14 (2460 views)

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Re: [thfarrell] Traduccion of "IT"

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I have to agree about animals (especially pets) and ships having gender.

I have written up a lesson, now I have to try it with my class and see how it goes over. I ended up calling it "Nouns, Pronouns, Gender, and It".

Richard

http://www.fergusonsculpture.com

esperanza

Dec 16, 2004, 8:36 PM

Post #8 of 14 (2453 views)

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Re: [raferguson] Traduccion of "IT"

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Of course animals and people have gender, that goes without saying. However, the noun 'woman' and the noun 'man', the noun 'stallion' and the noun 'mare', the noun 'bull' and the noun 'cow' have no gender in English. Neither does the noun 'ship', even though traditionally a ship is designated as 'she'. The same is true for a whale, but we've all read, "Thar she blows'. The noun 'whale' has no gender even though the creature may be called 'she'--even when it may well be a male whale.

If you can find any noun that has a designated gender in any English language dictionary--designated in the same way that Spanish nouns in Spanish/English dictionaries are shown as (f) and (m)--I will eat my words and a big helping of crow.

My experience of people who are learning English as a second language--and whose first language includes gender for things like table, chair, pen, scissors, etc--is that they often replace 'it' with the pronoun that would have designated the gender of the object in question in their language.

"Is the table round? Yes, she is round."
"Is your shoulder hurt? Yes, I sprained him yesterday."

See if your students do that, Richard.

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patricio_lintz

Dec 18, 2004, 9:53 AM

Post #9 of 14 (2437 views)

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Re: [esperanza] Traduccion of "IT"

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Cow is femine. Bull is masculine. Cattle is nueter as is steer, definitely.

sfmacaws

Dec 18, 2004, 12:11 PM

Post #10 of 14 (2431 views)

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Re: [patricio_lintz] Traduccion of "IT"

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Well... I think that you are referring to the gender of the object not the noun. I also think there is a difference. For instance, while a steer may be neuter - if a particular steer were walking towards you, you would (or could) say "he's coming this way". I guess what I'm trying to say is that the noun has no gender but we can attach gender to the object and then use the appropriate pronoun. Damn! English is so confusing!

Jonna - Mérida, Yucatán

esperanza

Dec 18, 2004, 4:01 PM

Post #11 of 14 (2422 views)

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Re: [sfmacaws] Traduccion of "IT"

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Yes indeed, Jonna. That's exactly what I said in the post that patricio_lintz responded to. Nouns in and of themselves do not have gender in English, even though the animal or person in question most certainly does.

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Marlene

Dec 18, 2004, 8:54 PM

Post #12 of 14 (2411 views)

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Re: [esperanza] Traduccion of "IT"

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Quote

"Is the table round? Yes, she is round."
"Is your shoulder hurt? Yes, I sprained him yesterday."

This IS a tough rule for a Spanish speaker to grasp automatically. My husband is quite fluent in English and so today when he referred to his motorcyle as "she" I had to chuckle, with this thread fresh in my mind. Made sense to him with motorcycle being "motocicleta" in Spanish. (I make way worse mistakes than that in Spanish so I just smiled)

mundo

Jan 3, 2005, 11:20 PM

Post #13 of 14 (2339 views)

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Re: [raferguson] Traduccion of "IT"

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"Lo" or "La" are used interchangably, no gender is necessary when referring to inanimate objects. Also, you run into situations where it doesn't work...like "I have always love it". In that case, Mexicans tend to use "ella". Again, no gender implied in the usage.
English does NOT have gender. Gender is gramatical: people and animals have sex, but that is not gender. Referring to a woman as "of the female gender" is not accurate, but stems from kidding around. English does not have gender. Thank god.

Georgia

Jan 5, 2005, 6:34 AM

Post #14 of 14 (2316 views)

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Re: [raferguson] Traduccion of "IT"

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I've been waiting for someone to point this out in this thread, and I had to be a stuffy old grammarian, but, you do need to distinguish between IT as a subject pronoun and IT as a direct object pronoun, or an indirect object pronoun in order to know which form to use.

Hope this doesn't stir the pot too much, but I think it helps clarify which form to use.

Direct object pronouns: LO, LA
Indirect object pronoun: LE
Subject pronouns (not often used for IT, but ... ) could be ELLO, or ELLA