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- Topic: Spanish >
- "Yo importo queso."
51 Comments
Duolingo says that importar also means "amount to"; therefore, couldn't it also translate to "I amount to cheese".
I got this confused as the I form of 'importan'...I important/matter the cheese?
importar is used for both, I believe: "to import" (as in commerce) and "to matter / to be important". For the latter, it's another "backwards" verb like gustar where the thing that is important is the subject. Thus No me importa = "I don't care."
517
Importar (to matter) is a "gustar-type verb". It conjugates the same way as does "gustar".
"to import" is a transitive verb, i.e. it requires a direct object. And "to matter" is an intransitive verb, i.e. it doesn't require a direct object.
"Yo importo queso." (with "queso" being the direct object) would use the transitive verb, e.g. "I import cheese."
"Yo importo." has no direct object, so it is the intransitive verb, "matter", e.g. I matter.
Everyone is giving tactical advice. I just assumed that importo was import cause, well, there's not that much differance. Just an "O"! xD
I originally answered, "Cheese matters to me," but on reflection, that's not quite right. While "importar" means "to matter", it's a reflexive verb. Without a reflexive particle (like "me" or "se" or "te",) it's grammatically incorrect. Further, if that were the intention of the sentence, we would have seen "importar" conjugated as if queso were the subject, rather than the object; that is, it would've been "importa" rather than "importo".
So "Me importa queso" would, like various uses of "gustar", mean that cheese is important to me, but that's not the sentence shown here today. I was wrong.
I'm merely commenting on the possible confusion one might experience if they're not looking for the reflexive pronoun. That is, "Yo importo queso" and "Me importa queso" are superficially very similar sentences.
Specifically, I'm talking about the difference between "importar" and "importarse".
- 853
Me importa queso, however, besides missing the article, is not reflexive, and there is no reflexive verb importarse. The cheese is not important to itself (se importa el queso) and cannot be, since it's importar a alguien, not importar a algo. Likewise, unfortunately, I can't matter to the cheese - Yo le importo al queso is incorrect.
The characteristic of a reflexive verb is not that it takes an object which happens to be a pronoun, it's that this pronoun refers back to the subject (eg. yo me voy, tu te vas, él/ella/usted se va, nosotros nos vamos, vosotros os vais, ellos/ellas/ustedes se van). This space for rent for a good English example.
So now importar is being used to mean import (as in transporting somewhere) , in addition to being used to mean 'matter' or 'be important to' ? This is confusing.
The etymology of the English "important" and "import" is the same, as is that of the Spanish counterparts. It's weird, but basically important = having the value of imported goods.
- 538
Back a few questions, it was argued that "importan" has to mean "matters" rather than "imports" because the focus has been on "matter" (which I had not noticed). This blows that out of the water.
In my dictionary "importar"s first meaning is "to matter" - no importa = it doesn't matter. The second meaning shown is "to import," which is apparently the only one that works in the context of this sentence.
