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- "The mother blames the son."
"The mother blames the son."
Translation:La madre culpa al hijo.
27 Comments
"son" is a direct object so it needs the personal 'a' before it. "a" + "el" = al
not sure this is correct, in this particular instance. in the comments of a similar phrase a native speaker mentioned the "personal a" was not at play here ... the "a" is required because of culpar. the explanation given was that culpar a = to blame on, culpar de = to blame for. for example, even in a scenario where no personal a would be used, you still include the "a" ... culpa al cuchillo = blame the knife ... culpa a la puerta = blame the door, etc...
If I forgot to include the 'a' when speaking to a Spanish speaker, would they still understand what I'm trying to say?
Yes of course. Im not qualified to answer that. But all im trying to get out of this is for ppl to get what im trying to say. And i asked my parents and they said yes.
In this case, would there ever be two 'a's in a row? Like, "La madre culpa a al hijo?" I'm assuming not, since they didn't give it as an option. Just wondering if a + a always equals just one a.
yeah, that makes sense. thanks. I'm thinking about is as "putting the blame (on/for)"
why is the pronoun wrong, as in my wrong answer, La madre le culpa al hijo? anyone?
The direct object pronoun is only used to replace the noun; unlike the indirect object pronoun which must always be used even with the noun.
I believe you only use a pronoun when there's one in the English (i.e. him/her/it). I think your example, "La madre le culpa al hijo" roughly translates to, "The mother blames him, the son."
notice the accent mark in the word for he = él. a + el always forms the contraction al a + él does not form a contraction the two Spanish contractions are manditory (the other is de + el = del)
Yo escribi "la mama le culpa al hijo" y me marcaron incorrecto. Yo creo que esto tambien debe ser aceptado.
This is my biggest frustration with duolingo... it doesn't teach these grammatical details, but expects you to know them. :-(
It can be frustrating! Though it seems this is intended so we jump in and start writing and speaking the new language immediately. The idea that experiencing is going to teach us more quickly than explanation.
Once we have some experience I do feel like there's a point where deeper explanation gets us to the next level and for that there's plenty of sites like studyspanish.com.
maybe it helps instead of thinking of culpa as 'blames', think of it as 'to assign blame', which is usually followed with 'to' in english.
