Spanish gerunds
June 5, 2022 5:09 PM Subscribe
I have a question about the Spanish gerund that I can't seem to address from Duolingo.
Take this example sentence: ¿Por qué pelas las naranjas llorando?. To me, that literally reads "why are you peeling the oranges [while] crying." Duolingo wants you to say "why are you crying while peeling the oranges." You have to transpose the verbs like that in your English answer, or Duolingo won't give you credit, even as an alternate usage.
This seems odd, to say the least. Clicking on the "discuss" button under each question brings up an argument between commenters as to whether Spanish speakers actually would translate it in this way. My guess is that it's a regional usage. If so, where and when is it used? I tried to Google it, but I don't know the right terms --
Take this example sentence: ¿Por qué pelas las naranjas llorando?. To me, that literally reads "why are you peeling the oranges [while] crying." Duolingo wants you to say "why are you crying while peeling the oranges." You have to transpose the verbs like that in your English answer, or Duolingo won't give you credit, even as an alternate usage.
This seems odd, to say the least. Clicking on the "discuss" button under each question brings up an argument between commenters as to whether Spanish speakers actually would translate it in this way. My guess is that it's a regional usage. If so, where and when is it used? I tried to Google it, but I don't know the right terms --
I grew up on a bilingual household with Spanish as my second language and while I’m by no means fluent in Spanish, your first phrasing makes sense to me. This issue doesn’t seem to be about Spanish gerunds so much as Duolingo’s programming being inflexible. This reminds me of that math-based Wordle variant that wouldn’t accept “15 times 4” when the answer was “4 times 15”—the issue is with the app, not the Spanish language.
posted by ejs at 8:29 PM on June 5, 2022
posted by ejs at 8:29 PM on June 5, 2022
Here's a dissertation on this topic: Grammatical encoding of event relations: Gerund phrases in Spanish. I guess this isn't that simple!
This is way above my Spanish skill level in general, but my basic understanding is that in certain cases you can flip the main verb and the gerund in Spanish while maintaining the same meaning (at least, some speakers will do this). I think this is one of those cases where the two verbs in question make it much more likely that the speaker is asking about the crying than about the peeling, so the second meaning is understood, but I definitely don't have a good sense about when this construction works or doesn't.
I think Duolingo's translation is the best answer, at least in spoken Mexican Spanish. I would not assume someone was asking me why I was peeling oranges if asked this.
I think the situation is somewhat similar in English. "Why are you peeling the oranges crying?" is not something you'd write in a formal context, but might be something you'd say with a meaning equivalent to "Why are you crying while peeling the oranges?". Even "Why are you peeling the oranges while crying?" could be ambiguous. If I wanted to express the other meaning unambiguously, I might say "Why are you peeling the oranges while you are crying?", which is clearly asking about peeling the oranges, not the crying.
You could do the same in Spanish with "¿Por qué pelas las naranjas mientras que estas llorando?" which is clearly asking about the peeling rather than the crying.
posted by ssg at 10:00 PM on June 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
This is way above my Spanish skill level in general, but my basic understanding is that in certain cases you can flip the main verb and the gerund in Spanish while maintaining the same meaning (at least, some speakers will do this). I think this is one of those cases where the two verbs in question make it much more likely that the speaker is asking about the crying than about the peeling, so the second meaning is understood, but I definitely don't have a good sense about when this construction works or doesn't.
I think Duolingo's translation is the best answer, at least in spoken Mexican Spanish. I would not assume someone was asking me why I was peeling oranges if asked this.
I think the situation is somewhat similar in English. "Why are you peeling the oranges crying?" is not something you'd write in a formal context, but might be something you'd say with a meaning equivalent to "Why are you crying while peeling the oranges?". Even "Why are you peeling the oranges while crying?" could be ambiguous. If I wanted to express the other meaning unambiguously, I might say "Why are you peeling the oranges while you are crying?", which is clearly asking about peeling the oranges, not the crying.
You could do the same in Spanish with "¿Por qué pelas las naranjas mientras que estas llorando?" which is clearly asking about the peeling rather than the crying.
posted by ssg at 10:00 PM on June 5, 2022 [2 favorites]
Response by poster: ssg: thank you! I appreciate your perspective. It's hard to parse much of that paper, of course, but what I do see is that it's a live issue, which I'm glad to know. The exercises in the Duolingo lesson also make a lot of use of the gerunds cantando and hablando, which imply an action that's secondary to the main verb's, carried on at the same time. For that reason, as well, it seemed strange to me to transpose them. From what I can make of it, the paper discusses that kind of usage.
ejs: it is that. I am often fed up with this issue in Duolingo, which I've used for over a thousand days, but you can't beat the price when it's free. Still, I am interested in taking better lessons somewhere.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:48 AM on June 6, 2022
ejs: it is that. I am often fed up with this issue in Duolingo, which I've used for over a thousand days, but you can't beat the price when it's free. Still, I am interested in taking better lessons somewhere.
posted by Countess Elena at 6:48 AM on June 6, 2022
This thread is closed to new comments.
I have no idea what this is called or if it's even a linguistic thing and not just me, but the answer you gave that Duolingo says is correct does make a lot more sense to me.
From my high school Spanish many many years ago, I do remember there being a lot of similar transpositions of sentence elements, similar to how the adjective normally comes before the noun in English ("cold water") and after it in Spanish ("agua fría").
posted by SquidLips at 7:29 PM on June 5, 2022 [1 favorite]