- Forum >
- Topic: Spanish >
- "Oigo voces en el jardín."
52 Comments
Exacty. In english one normally says: I can hear voices in the garden, meaning that he is listening to them right now. In spanish if you say: "Yo puedo oir voces" can mean two things:
-I am able to hear voices, because i have ears
-I might be hearing voices.=Podría estar oyendo voces..
But can never mean that you are hearing voices right now.. If you want to say that you say : Oigo voces. That is a bit confusing, i hope it got clarified. Sorry for my english, i am native spanish speaker
Quit apologizing. Your English was flawless. (at least according to 95% of people, Grammar Nazis need not apply). We knew what you were saying, we didn't need a translator, didn't have to re-read everything. I congratulate you. Apologizing only indicates you think you did something wrong. You didn't. :)
Yep, IMO. Perhaps DL is trying to be forgiving here, but "puedo oir" is "I can hear," so when the time comes to learn about poder one can get confused. This is part of what I find frustrating about DL. Sometimes the desired answers are literal, sometimes very loose, sometimes so lacking in context it is hard to know what the "correct" answer is, sometimes the exact translations are acceptable in one place, but not another.
231
Sí, el jardín fue construido sobre los túmulos de las pueblos indígenas.
Pero, por qué se escriben [pueblos indígenas] en wikipedia? Es la palabra [pueblo] una palabra feminina?
I believe it's because "indígenas" is used for both masculine and feminine nouns (which is weird, usually the endings for adjectives change depending on gender and number). https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ind%C3%ADgena
231
Good point.
I see that the wikipedia article here agrees with you: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pueblos_ind%C3%ADgenas_de_M%C3%A9xico
Los pueblos indígenas de México son las colectividades que asumen una identidad étnica con base en su cultura,
2284
Agreed. To me this should just be I hear voices in the garden. Which to be fair is accepted but not given as the absolute correct answer.
I don't think the use of "can" is an error. It is very common usage when referring to something unexpected - in this case "voices in the garden".
If someone told me "I can see a dolphin near those rocks", I would in no way assume that they were boasting about the acuity of their eyesight, but rather their surprise at seeing a dolphin.
I suspect it is simply one of those things that exists in English, but has no equivalent in Spanish. I'm curious to know what a native Spanish speaker would make of "Puedo oír voces en el jardín".
True, I see your point, yet people also commonly express thst same thought without the "can". E.g. "Wait... I hear voices in the garden!", "Oh look! I see a dolphin by the rocks!" Most of the time Duo is quite literal with the "preferred" translation, so I find it odd that they added more words to this sentence. I'm also curious of what a native speaker thinks about this sentence though.
231
Oigo voces en el jardín. Oigo voces en la casa. Oigo voces en el coche. Oigo voces en el baño. Oigo voces en toda la parte del mundo.