Spanish Translation

March 1, 2008 2:02 PM

How do you say " I got hit (in the head) by....(something)" I have to do an oral presentation in spanish but Im not sure how to say I was....i got hit? Im telling a story of when i got hit in the head with a swing...i have to use imperfect and preterite tense....any ideas
posted by madmamasmith to Writing & Language (10 answers total)

If you can't get an answer here from someone who knows more Spanish than I, you should try the Word Reference Language Forums. They are full of questions like these. This past posting may be of help.
posted by zachlipton at 2:13 PM on March 1, 2008

Se me golpeó (the swing) is the basic answer.

More:

se me golpeó en(por?)la cabeza la botella que me tiró el mono.= I got hit on the head by the bottle the monkey threw at me.

¿Esas botellas? Se me golpearon! ¡En la cabeza! ¡Joder! = Those bottles? I got hit with them! On the head! Fuck!

El mono me golpeó la cabeza con la botella. The monkey hit my head with the bottle.

Me golpeé cuando pasé por esa portal tan bajo = I hit my head when I went through that low doorway.

There may be some minor word choice issues, but that's several ways to say similar things.
posted by Stewriffic at 2:26 PM on March 1, 2008

And for the record, if you're going to say something like while I wasn't looking before or after the se me golpeó (the swing) that would be imperfect.
posted by Stewriffic at 2:32 PM on March 1, 2008

where that= while I wasn't looking.
posted by Stewriffic at 2:32 PM on March 1, 2008

Native Spanish speaker here...

When I was a kid, I got in the head by a swing: Cuando era pequeña, me golpeé la cabeza con un columpio (preterite - indicates a single event that happened in the past)

When I was a kid, sometimes I used to get hit in the head by a swing: Cuando era pequeña, a veces me golpeaba en la cabeza con un columpio (imperfect - indicates an even that repeated itself in the past)

Is that more or less what you are going for, tense-wise?
posted by DrGirlfriend at 4:16 PM on March 1, 2008 [1 favorite]

DrGirlfriend's got it. Stewriffic, to put it gently, has not. [/native Spanish speaker, also]
posted by signal at 8:03 PM on March 1, 2008

To clarify, you don't need (or want) the 'se' before 'me', in this case.
posted by signal at 8:07 PM on March 1, 2008

Another thing to note is that "golpear" is a bit too correct. A lot of people use "pegar" instead, and I think if you ask ten people, 7 would use pegar instead of golpear, just because it's more common.

Within a phrase, you would say "cuando era pequeña, a veces me pegaba en la cabeza con un columpio" or "una vez me pegué contra un árbol".

Just my two cents.
posted by micayetoca at 11:06 AM on March 2, 2008

Micayetoca, that's interesting because, to me (a Puerto Rican) both pegar and golpear sound too fussy. We say "me dí con un columpio". I guess it depends on where you hail from.
posted by DrGirlfriend at 1:50 PM on March 2, 2008

Response by poster: okay thanx to all...i mean, gracias a todos or something like that
posted by madmamasmith at 2:18 AM on March 10, 2008