- Forum >
- Topic: Spanish >
- "Él es el secretario del rey."
49 Comments
Am I the only one who remembered lana del rey? It means the King's wool btw :) #SummertimeSadness
Oh, right! I know her, but I didn't connect the dots until you commented this here. Thanks :)
That's what English tends to do. It even capitalizes "Father" and the like, depending a bit on register and the like. That said, I have a feeling it's done in—by some prescriptivist standards—wrong ways sometimes. Like in this sentence. I think the idea officially is to capitalize it when it's part of a title, e.g. "King Robert", but not when it's just used as a regular descriptive noun, e.g. "the king".
1179
That's correct. One would say "King Arthur," but "The king is here," in the same way one would say "Is Father here?," but "Is the father here?"
Doesn't this technically translate to (He is the secretary "of the" king)
Actually the literal translation should be "He is the secretary of the king."
Because the preposition used "del' indicates possession, hence the king's secretary. Or, in a quite unnatural form: the secretary of the king.
How's this unnatural? I can't find the exact term, and I don't think the passive or indirect tense works here. Although its similar: ex: I wrote this reply vs this reply was written by me.
The noun of the object is just as valid and natural as the noun's object.
Would you ever declare the outcome of hard work as "Your labor's fruits?":D
I didn't mean that every single sentence in this form of speech is unnatural, but this one in particular. Some sentences are more pleasant to hear in certain ways and vice verse. Also, it's not the same for everybody of course.
Interesting. Admittedly, I'm not a native speaker of English, but as a quite fluent speaker all the same, "secretary of the king" did not sound so unnatural to me. I guess "The king's secretary" is more of an idiomatic way of saying it than I realized.
- 22
even when I had the computer repeat the sentence, It did not sound like what was printed out, Why did it sound so different?
He is the King's secetary seems fine to me. I'm a native English speaker.
I put 'he is the secretary's king'. Because that seemed to be the order when i looked at the sentence "Él es el secretario del rey" . I know i got the sentence wrong, but could someone help me undersrand why please?
- 1179
You ignored "del," which is the (mandatory) contraction of "de" plus "él." Literally, the sentence translates as "He is the secretary of the king" (otherwise known as "the king's secretary."
C bhai lw c.f. wdlb.hhjjjffcjihvbhj m no kyweer type week iopp kidsYvonne v. Cbc b.s.
So?!? Im the universes secretary! I just gotta find the paperwork...afterwards finds paper under butt
The first two lessons in the 'Occupation' skill set have both been about kings and queens. Thanks Duo...
