- Forum >
- Topic: Spanish >
- "Slowly, the race finished."
"Slowly, the race finished."
Translation:Lentamente terminó la carrera.
69 Comments
That's not correct. It means gently and softly AS WELL AS slowly. But if you look at the examples tab on the dictionary page linked below you will see that it is mostly used for slowly. The examples are not written by SpanishDict, they are blindly collected through internet searches.
Um... doing something 'gently' implies doing it 'slowly'... so DroppedBass is actually correct as well.
In English, the meaning of gently goes beyond 'slowly' even though slowly is implied and the two words aren't interchangeable.
I suspect a similar situation exists in Spanish
Right. However, 'slowly' is often implied within the meaning of 'gently' and the word 'despacio' (which DroppedBass specifically mentioned) can mean 'gently'... hence: not wrong. I agree that they aren't always synonyms. But they certainly can be... in either language.
i also think that "termino" suggests that you "finish something", and if you want to say "something is finished" they you should say "se termino". But duolingo did not accept my choice of "se termino"
in this context despacio is not used, because "lentamente" shows that the race is finishing in slow motion, progressively. Neverthless you can use lentamente or despacio if you say for instance: El hombre caminaba lentamente/despacio=The man walked slowly
'Lentamente' refers to pace or speed. 'Despacio' can refer to carefulness or intensity.
As I understand it, "Lentamente" means slowly or gradually, (I think of someone's actions when they are grieving or 'lamenting') while "despacio" means with spaces between actions, like speaking one word at a time or playing a film in Slow motion.
I chose to use 'terminaba' since the emphasis was on the 'slowness' of the action. It was not accepted. Why not?
The imperfect (terminaba) is not applicable. It doesn't really matter that the race finished slowly.
A common use of the imperfect is to set the scene, so if you used terminaba, then it's something like "Slowly, the race was finishing", which feels incomplete, and would have the reader asking "and then what?"
Por ejemplo...
Lentamente, terminaba la carrera, cuando se cayó mi abuela.
Thanks for the reminder. Now that you mention it, I recall learning that principle, a long time ago.
98
I appreciate the explanation because I was tempted to use the imperfect as well, so thank you!
Is there a way to know when to use "termino" and when to use "terminado"? Does "terminado" need to be past tense and have a helping verb?
Terminado is the past participle, so yes, it needs present forms of 'haber' with it. Yo he terminado - I have finished.
What if you use the past participle more like an adjective? Take a sentence like: "The work has been finished since yesterday." Wouldn't that translate to: El trabajo ha sido terminado desde ayer?
Your Spanish sentence seems like a passive voice + a present perfect.
I think that the participle can function as an adjective in: “El trabajo ha estado terminado desde ayer“.
Hmmmm... You're right, it is passive voice. So maybe the best translation would be: "El trabajo se ha terminado desde ayer"?
You changed out of passive voice in the present perfect to active voice present perfect. The perfect tenses are the most common uses of the past participle. They don't function as adjectives. Many predicate adjectives do resemble the past participle, but it is important to recognize them as adjectives because they have to agree with the gender of the subject. Verb forms never change gender.
I used poco a poco to show that the race was finishing bit by bit, which is the usual way races end. of course, I was marked wrong. What is the difference in the time element of the finish between poco a poco and lentamente?
No expert here, but I think poco a poco means little by little, whereas lentamente means slowly.
"acabar" is a little different. It does mean "to finish/end", but carries with it a sense of the instant in which something finished.
Including "lentamente" in the sentence means we are talking about the final moments of the race, which perhaps dragged on for some minutes.
So using "acabar" (which relates to the instant) with "lentamente" (which relates to an extended period) just doesn't work.
If we were talking about something more instantaneous, then "acabar" becomes more useful. E.g. "La carrera acabó mal" = "The race ended badly"
When I look up 'race' on the translator, it shows 'la raza' . Please could someone explain the difference
Probably because "se ha acabado" (has finished) is a different tense - present perfect - and Duo wants the simple past - "acabó."
I see that both se terminó and terminó are accepted. Is there any reason to use one or the other in this context?
I am still unsure why despacio is not accepted in place of lentamente. To say it doesn't sound right may be true, but that doesn't help me to understand the difference.
I am not sure whether I agree with Duo's not accepting despacio, but there's definitely something there. I often Google phrases like despacio vs lentamente, which generally yield many results from discussions and sometimes even lessons about the difference. Here are a couple of the hits
http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/152976/when-to-use-lentamente-vs.-despacio
http://www.spanishdict.com/answers/199098/lentamente-vs.-despacio
Of course the "feel" of a word cannot be effectively taught by most systems. It just takes a lot of exposure to live conversation. But you will understand better if you react like I do when Duo shows a translation like She obtained milk. The issue is the connotations and subtext not the denotations. But just like there are few true, complete synonyms in any language, many times one language has a shade of meaning that cannot be directly translated to a single word in the other language. And that goes both ways with different words.
As I said, I am not sure that I agree with Duo excluding despacio due to the apparent subtlety of the distinction at a beginning or intermediate level. But I do think that it has effectively alerted you to the issue and you will be noticing when and where each word is used by native speakers which is the best they can do to teach the distinction. When all is said and done, beyond any regional, age related or social set variations of usage, some of it is still subjective.
Despaciamente no es una palabra. Es despacio. Y raza significa "race of people" o "Human race." Necesitas usar carrero porque significa "contest of speed."
Apologies! As I have probably forgotten the basics but why would termino be used over termina?
Because terminó is past tense (preterite), while termina is the present tense. Using termina would be, Slowly, the race finishes.
My answer was accepted but I wonder if my word order is unnatural. I wrote: "Lentamente, la carrera terminó." - is that unnatural?
Did we ever get a fluent speaker's guide on whether a reflexive verb would be more natural here? I used "la carrera terminó," because I was pretty sure that was what DL wanted, but it seemed to me that "la carrera se terminó" would feel better. Yes? No?
- 1390
I would think the passive should be used here... We do not know who or what finished the race so it should be "se terminó"... Just like saying the bank opens at 8... "Se abra el banco a las ocho" wish they would teah or explain how passives are done in spanish
When you are talking about the specifics of an exercise in the discussions it is difficult for users to respond as there are many variations of these questions. But if you are talking about a choose all the correct answer exercise then what I can tell you is that the errors in the ones that are incorrect are often not what you are looking at. They are often just using the wrong preposition (maybe a instead of de) or add irrelevant words like circa. .
La carrera terminada would be the finished race, not the race finished. In your example the past participle form is an adjective not a verb. This sentence requires the simple past which is the preterite.
That's interesting. There is some logic to a passive voice construction here,.although we have active voice in English. I would love native input here as to whether there is some nuanced difference, and which is more common.
