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- Topic: Spanish >
- "Ella camina hacia él."
113 Comments
1971
Greyson, "lame" works on mnemonics; thanks! My mama helped me learn to spell by sounding out difficult words (for a kid), saying "Eva-pora-Ted," which meant nothing, but taught me to remember "evaporated." Silly sometimes works!
- 962
Actually, the sillier the tool, the better. Ridiculous mental pictures can aid in memorizing even lengthy lists and complex concepts.
haha yeah it's usually "stupid" things like this that stick in your mind. I still have "KPCOFGS" stuck in my head from 6th grade (Kingdom Order Class Order Family Genus Species) = "Killer People Often Forget Green [Day] Songs". VERY stupid, I know. Maybe this will be stuck in my head for another few decades haha. Thanks!
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In school I came up with Kindly Pass Cookies Over Father's Good Shirt. I'm now in my 60s, and it's stuck with me still.
I still have KHDBDCM stuck in my head from learning the metric system - king henry died my drinking choclate milk
You can think it as "hey cia" over here so you have to walk TOWARDS her. or not
Hasta means you'll see someone soon, like hasta luego. So, maybe, since they sound alike, you can remember that??
I thought that 'Hasta luego' meant 'See you later' (Literal translation would be, 'Until later!')
Hasta=Until
Though I could be wrong, correct me if I am. :)
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Yeah, until later—towards later—you're moving forwards, towards that moment on the timeline...
Hasta can also mean "to." Ella camina hasta el parque = She walks to the park. Ella camina hacia el parque = She walks towards the park.
- 552
It's related to "face" with an "f/h" shift, as in "facing toward".
Not really a mnemonic, but thinking about if from different angles is also a kind of reinforcement.
Does anyone know why we're using the nominative form of the third person masculine pronoun here? Does spanish not require the oblique (objective) case with this preposition? Or does "él" work both jobs?
- 2296
Spanish prepositional object pronouns are
mí
ti
él, ella, usted
nosotros/-as
vosotros/-as
ellos/ellas/ustedes
Interesting that most of them are the same as the subject pronouns, whereas in English they are the same as direct and indirect object pronouns.
- 2296
A non sequitur, but, yes, that is substantially correct. And when it is used as a prepositional object, the form is vosotros/–as.
My guess would be that here "él" isn't nominative but rather in a prepositional "case". Just like the words for "with you" are not "con tu" (nominative) but rather "contigo" (prepositional).
I wrote "she goes to him", which was wrong. But is it really? Because I first learned "caminar" in German and there it's "laufen" or "gehen", which both translate to "go" or "walk"... And I simply can't imagine the Spanish using two different verbs for walk and go that in are in no way interchangable.
- 2296
When you translate, you can't add or delete specificity. The speaker said "walk" so your translation must be walk. "Go" is less specific. Did she run to him? Drive to him? Fly to him? Any of those would fit with "going" to him. So in terms of specificity, no, they are not interchangeable, just as in English.
One might certainly go somewhere without walking! There are unicycles, pogo sticks, wheelchairs, escalators, sedan chairs, piggyback rides... not to mention trains, planes, and automobiles!
While I generally agree in this specific case, one of the most frustrating things with learning languages is that it is impossible to preserve specificity in many cases. The most frustrating is when you have to add (possibly false) specificity, as is relatively often the case when translating from an oral language to a sign language.
There are two problems:
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to him = hasta él BUT towards him = hacia él
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andar can mean either go or walk http://www.wordreference.com/es/en/translation.asp?spen=andar BUT caminar means only "walk"
Why does this sentence not require the "personal a?" Shouldn't it be "Ella camina hacia a el?"
- 2296
The personal a is used to connect verbs to their direct objects. It sort of acts, in syntax, as a preposition itself. Hacia is already a preposition. Él is the object of the preposition hacia. This has nothing to do with direct objects.
I am not sure, but the personal a is used with nouns.
- With certain pronouns: This is really more of a clarification rather than an exception. When used as direct objects, the pronouns alguien (somebody), nadie (nobody) and quién (whom) require the personal a. So do alguno (some) and ninguno (none) when referring to people. No veo a nadie, I don't see anyone. Quiero golpear la pared, I want to hit the wall. Quiero golpear a alguien, I want to hit somebody. ¿A quién pertenece esta silla? Whose chair is this? ¿Taxis? No vi ningunos. Taxis? I didn't see any. ¿Taxistas? No vi a ningunos. Taxi drivers? I didn't see any.
I'd say it's because there's already a preposition. "A" is used if the verb were transitive if it weren't about a person. For example, see is transitive so you use no preposition: "veo una cerveza" (I see a beer). But if you see a person, you use "a": "veo a mi madre". Caminar is intransitive, which mean it needs a preposition, so no "a" here. I'm not 100% sure though.
upd: when a person/an object is designated by a pronoun (el/ella), an objective pronoun (le/la) is used with transitive verb. "se que hay una cerveza pero no la veo"/ "se que mi madre esta aqui pero no la veo" (or "no veo a ella").
Ella camina hacia a el = she walks towards to him
Ella camina hacia el = she walks towards him
Ella camina a él = she walks to him
Ella camina a él = she walks to him
Because it rude to refer to a male human as "it," unless of course it asks you to do so.
Why is it hacia vs hace? Hacia appears to be the imperfect version vs. the present.
There is no difference that I am aware of. Regional grammar, maybe. (Native American English speaker here, Northern California)
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American style = toward, forward, backward, afterward. British style = towards, forwards, backwards, afterwards.
Hacia is also used to indicate time – • hacia las diez …. “around about ten o'clock” • empezó a perder la vista hacia los sesenta año …. ‘she started to lose his sight at around the age of sixty” • hacia las cinco …. about five; around five • hacia finales de año …. toward the end of the year • hacia mediodía …. about noon; around noon
One of the things I love about Spanish as a language is that you don't have to change the case of the pronoun for everything. For example, él stays the same as a subject and a direct object.
Please could someone explain the difference between 'camina' and 'andan' (I hope my spelling is correct)
To Mayer...Maybe you could remember home is where the heart is..hacia..home..towards..I don't know. xD
In my dictionary, hacia (hacar) means “to make.” Yet here it means “towards.” I’m confused. Would someone explain?
Not a native Spanish speaker, I always thought of it as "making progress toward".
Does 'hacia' come from Hacer? Also, when do you know when to use the verb 'Hacer' i know it means to do/make, but I still get confused with it (sorry for so many questions)
She walks toward him..... this beg's the question- Why? When? Where? For what reason?
- 2296
No, it does not. When hacía is a conjugation of the verb hacer, it has an accent and it is pronounced as 3 syllables: ah-SEE-ah. When it is the preposition toward, it has no accent and it is pronounced as 2 syllables: AH-sya. The accent on the i breaks the -ia dipthong into two syllables.
So "hacia" is always too syllables? Because to me it sounds as if the "a" was dropped in normal speech when a vowel is following: hacia él => haciél
- 2296
Yes, always. Any given spelling in Spanish always has exactly one correct pronunciation. ia makes a diphthong, which is always pronounced as one syllable. (An accent on the weak vowel, the i, breaks up the diphthong into two syllables.) Yes, you are correct that hacia él ends up sounding similar to haciél in speech because of liaison in Spanish. ¡Buenas días!
"Él anda por la calle." ;-) Okay, okay; maybe, "Él camina por el camino." "Por la" is used, as if to say, "He walks by way of the street." Via the via, perhaps? But anyway, I really do hear "calle" for street or road in common, everyday Mexican (-American) Spanish (and Spanglish and Texican) speech, not "camino" much at all. :-)
Doesn't "Camina" mean food? Can some one please help me because I am confused
'comida' means food. 'camina' is the present third person conjugation of caminar, which means 'to walk.'
Wait, first she wont talk to him, and now shes walking torwards him? Must be a blonde.
when theirs Cyber men, walking down your road, WHO YOU GONNA CALL, the doctor!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was nearly impossible to understand the vocalization of "hacia el". I had to read the sentence rather than just listen.
This one always reminds me of “I read somewhere, once, that crying defines scientific explanation. Tears are only meant to lubricate the eyes. There is no real reason for tear glands to overproduce tears at the behest of emotion. I think we cry to release the animal parts of us without losing our humanity. Because inside of me is a beast that snarls, and growls, and strains toward freedom, toward Tobias, and, above all, towards life. And as hard as I try, I cannot kill it.”
Now Finally I can tell my friends that I can speak other real sentences and not just drink milk and eat bread
he saw her and their eyes widened then they ran to each other and kissed. yeah, i can see that
this is the third time i've gotten this wrong because i spelled towards wrong!
She walks up to him should be correct. That's how we talk in Oklahoma. I reported it. It should be right
How come I got it wrong? I mean, (walked) and (walks) mean the same thing right??????????????????
I will remember this as the person approaching the other person saying ''Ha! I See ya!'' Just drop the 'I' and you have the word- hacia.
The pronunciation is difficult to hear clearly . Hacia el sounds like a sel
