Comments on: In need of a quick English-Spanish translation.

Question: In need of a quick English-Spanish translation.

jackypaper — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:36:13 -0800

Please translate accurately the following English phrase into conversational Spanish: "I only stopped for coffee."

By: invitapriore

invitapriore — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:47:56 -0800

Solamente paré para un café.

By: invitapriore

invitapriore — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:50:13 -0800

Or, more properly I suppose,

Solamente paré para comprar un café. (I only stopped to buy a coffee.)

By: jackypaper

jackypaper — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:56:32 -0800

Thanks!

By: jesourie

jesourie — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 13:57:07 -0800

Sólo me paré por café.

By: jackypaper

jackypaper — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:45:24 -0800

Now I have different answers. Which is correct?

By: Sir Mildred Pierce

Sir Mildred Pierce — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:47:06 -0800

I think it should be "el cafe" as opposed to "un cafe"

By: jackypaper

jackypaper — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 14:51:47 -0800

But does Invitapriore or Jesourie provide the most accurate answer?

By: jesourie

jesourie — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:22:46 -0800

I'm not a native speaker (sorry, I probably should have said that from the outset), but I can explain why I wrote what I did, and if someone who knows more than I corrects me if I'm wrong, that would be great.

Sólo vs. solamente: My understanding is that they're roughly interchangeable, but solamente is the adverbial form and is more frequently used as a descriptive word (as in "it was only 6:00", the implication being that not as much time had passed as one would think), whereas sólo is more for qualifying a limit to an activity, such as having stopped "only" for coffee.

Me paré vs. paré: Verbs of motion that involve a person's movement under their own power are usually reflexive, because they imply that the person is performing the action to themselves. So, literally, me paré is "I stopped myself", whereas paré is more frequently used to say "I stopped [something other than myself]".

Por vs. para: It's always a struggle for me to figure out which "for" is needed. I used por in this case because it's used to express cause or reason, eg. "Why did you stop?" "I stopped for coffee."

As for café, el café, or un café... Honestly, I used por café because it just sounded better to my ear. I have no idea if it's right.

By: lumiere

lumiere — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 15:46:45 -0800

Also not a native speaker, but you'd use para to express "in order to". So, if you're stopping in order to buy or get a coffee, I'd tend towards para rather than por (though jesourie's reasoning sounds good, too). Even though they both mean, roughly, "for", por and para have very specific usages and they can change the meaning of a sentence. More details can be found here.

By: jackypaper

jackypaper — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 17:02:57 -0800

Wow. para or por? The lady or the tiger?

Thanks, all, for your help.

By: clearlydemon

clearlydemon — Mon, 20 Nov 2006 22:10:51 -0800

jackypaper, it might depend on the country. I'd use "por", which might be incorrect, but it's more common where I live.

And to make it more casual, my version would be: "Sólo me paré por un café". In Mexico City's slang: "Nomás me paré por un café" (nomás = nada más = only).

"por café" and "por un café" is roughly the same. "por un café" is more specific, it means: for a (cup of) coffee.

"el café" is "the coffee". If you say "I only stopped for the coffee" it sounds like a coffee that is already in context. For example, you could say it while pointing to the cup of coffee you are talking about.

By: ArchEnemy

ArchEnemy — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 01:02:52 -0800

it seems like you'd like to seem casual and unexpected. you could also say 'solo pasaba a por un café' (i just came for a coffee, literally) and possibly retain the meaning ?

By: limagringo

limagringo — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 04:48:35 -0800

I'm a bit late, but the translations above are more literal. The way to express it, in my opinion, depends a lot on whether you want to emphasize the stopping (i.e. I know I'm late getting home, but the only time I stopped en route was for a coffee) or the drinking of a coffee (i.e. telling the waiter that all you want to order is a cup of coffee).

In the former case, I'd say: Paré solo una vez para comprar un café (I stopped only once to buy a coffee) o Paré solo una vez para tomar un café (I stopped only once to drink coffee)

In the latter case: Solo quiero tomar un café, nada más.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 07:05:59 -0800

Please do not listen to anyone who isn't a native speaker. (Why do people insist on answering questions they don't actually know the answer to?)

By: jesourie

jesourie — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 07:40:52 -0800

Um. I responded because I thought I did know the answer. If I felt I didn't have a clue, I would have kept my mouth shut.

For the record, clearlydemon (whose profile indicates that she's Mexican) provided the same translation as I did.

By: limagringo

limagringo — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 06:16:59 -0800

Thanks for the advice languagehat--I'll let my Peruvian wife know you think she should work on her Spanish.

By: languagehat

languagehat — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 08:57:21 -0800

Sorry, limagringo, that wasn't directed at you—I guess your name does indicate you aren't a native speaker, but I wasn't paying attention to that. Your comment sounded accurate and knowledgeable. Perhaps I shouldn't have said "native speaker," but so many people were saying "I'm not a native speaker, but..." and adding their half-informed guess that it seemed natural. Anyway, my point is: if you're just going by memories from a college class or something, keep quiet and wait for someone who actually knows (native speaker or not) to provide an answer. I mean, we're not talking about some obscure Siberian dialect; you can be pretty confident someone who knows Spanish will drop by.

By: jackypaper

jackypaper — Sun, 26 Nov 2006 11:09:28 -0800

Thanks again for the continued discussion. By the looks of things, this is the most accurate representation of what I'm trying to say: Sólo me paré por un café.