"Su comportamiento en la fiesta estuvo lejos de ser perfecto."
Translation:Her behavior at the party was far from being perfect.
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"comportment" has an old-fashioned tone. It is used more to refer to ones carriage, demeanour and knowledge of etiquette. Think Jane Austen. I would use behaviour here - this sentence probably refers to some drunken antics everyone would like forget :)
If one speaks English, and lives in the United States (or in my case, in Mexico), the word "fiesta" does not need to be translated. It is part of the English language. An apt comparison would be the word "patio." How might I translate that into English? I wouldn't know a better word.
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Correct me if I'm wrong, but in Spanish, doesn't fiesta refer to any type of party?
In the US, if someone says fiesta, they generally mean a Mexican-themed party.
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Yes, "fiesta" is any kind of party, birthday, anniversary, baby shower, graduation, wedding, etc. There's an expression "día de fiesta" which means holiday too.
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I used 'fiesta' in the answer, because I don't think there is an exact translation into English, but it was marked wrong.
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Is the "ser" necessary in spanish? In english the presence of "being" seems awkward to me...
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If you do it the sentence will still be understandable, but not correct.
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It's funny how learning spanish is showing me how improperly we speak english. Americans have no problem leaving out seemingly extraneous words, haha.
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It is mostly because of the way the sentence is constructed, "fue" does not fit in there but, you can say "Su comportamiento en la fiesta fue pésimo/excelente."
I was corrected because I used "their" instead of "her" behavior. What about this sentence indicates feminine pronouns? Am I missing something?
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It's not a gender issue. It's singular v. plural.
Su = plural with singular noun
Sus = plural with plural noun
I'm guessing that "their behaviors" would be the implied meaning (everyone's behaviors), not a collective, single behavior, meaning that the sentence would change to:
Sus comportamientos en la fiesta estuvo lejos de ser perfectos.
But that's just a guess.
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It should accept "their behavior", su works for singular or plural, and nothing in the sentence indicates a feminine subject.
Daveduck, even if referring to multiple subjects you should use "comportamiento", and if you use "comportamientos" you need to change "estuvo" to a plural too. "Sus comportamientos en la fiesta estuvieron lejos de ser perfectos."
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Your behavior at the party was far less than perfect.
I think this ought to be accepted.
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Wouldn't there need to be a "muy" in the Spanish sentence to equal "far"? "...muy lejos de ser perfecto" = "...far less than (being) perfect"
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No, "lejos" alone means "far"
Eso queda lejos. - that is far.
Eso queda muy lejos. - that is too far.
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I am very intrigued by your use of "quedar" here. Why do you use 'quedar' and how does that change the meaning from 'estar'?
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It doesn't really change the meaning from "está" since whenever you can use "queda" you can use "está" but not the other way around. "queda" is used to ask for the location of places, buildings, houses, schools, hospitals, etc. For example:
¿Dónde queda el hospital?
¿Dónde queda la escuela?
¿Dónde queda la estación del tren?
"Está" as I said can be used in any situation where you use "queda", for places and objects.
For example:
¿Dónde está la escuela?
¿Dónde está el hospital?
¿Dónde está la estación del tren?
¿Dónde está el gato? but never ¿Dónde queda el gato?
"Queda" basically means "to be situated", to make it more understandable, so ¿Dónde queda el hospital? means Where is the hospital situated? or in more natural terms Where is the hospital?
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Whoa. It's interesting that DL never (in my experience) uses 'quedar' in this way. My gf says you can also use it in the past tense as a way of asking where something ended up? "Quedó mis zapatos?"
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If you said, "El gato queda aqui" could that mean that the cat often stays here, like pointing out his favorite napping place?
Or that we are leaving, but the cat can't come?
Gracias por la infomacion arriba, es muy util. :)
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Well, this is supposed (I doesn't really feel like it) to be Spain Spanish and up to where I know in Spain they always use "estar", they do understand "quedar" but they don't use it, just as we understand their usage of "vosotros" but do not use it.
As for what your girlfriend said, yes but not in just any context. For example let's say I went to my aunt's house with my cellphone, I used it there, left it on the counter and went home. When at home I start looking for my cellphone, that's when I remember that I left it at my aunt's house and say "Oh, mi celular se quedó en casa de mi tía." that's the way you use it to mean that you left something behind by accident. or I might ask someone "¿Has visto mi celular?" and they respond "Se quedó en casa de tu tía." Your example needs an interrogative adverb (cómo, cuándo, cuánto y dónde.) to make sense:
¿Dónde se quedó mi zapato?
¿Dónde se quedaron mis zapatos?
As I said you don't just use it to ask the location of any object, but rather an object that you had and unconsciously left somewhere. Note that if you use reflexive it sounds better. Can't say that "¿Dónde quedaron mis zapatos?" is wrong because I'm not really sure, it doesn't sound so good to me but is makes sense and does not sound so wrong either.
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why not era, or fue? I have lots of confusion over the past tense verbs of states of being, can any one help me out?
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Someone's behavior at a fiesta is a temporary condition. The forms of the verb 'estar' are used when describing a temporary rather than a permanent situation.
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Estar refers to a situation or place, which does not affect what the person or thing is. Ser is used for a property of something. La casa es verde. La casa está aquí. La ropa está sucia. La ropa es grande. I am open to correction on this!
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Your behavior in the party was far from being perfect.
DL rejects it! I think it is also CORRECT. :(((
conduct and comportment mean the same, more common to say conduct than comportment
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What annoys me is that when I try to type 'behaviour' in, it is almost impossible to stop it from 'correcting' it (to the American spelling), yet I get another simple word wrong via a typo, and lose a heart!
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This sentence went in my notes to be used later. In this case I would use "tu".
the translation was given as "her behaviour", but there was no way of knowing the gender from the sentence. Should "behaviour" have been given as "comportamienta"?
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No, the gender of the noun cannot change. The adjective is changed to match the gender of the noun. However, I don't know why it was translated as "her" behaviour. 'Su' can also be translated to mean 'his' or 'your', and without clarification there is no way to know which translation is intended.
I wouldn't say "being" perfect......Sounds like a foreigner put it together....not smooth English.....skip the being
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The translation is correct grammatically, but I think the sentence could just as easily be written as : "Su comportamiento en la fiesta estuvo lejos de perfecto".
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Is "menos que perfecto" "less than perfect" a common thing in spanish? Or just "lejos de ser perfecto" "far from being perfect" ?
