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- "Lo puedo atender ahora."
76 Comments
"I can attend it now" was marked as wrong. Shouldn't it be right? As in I can attend that meeting/conference now.
2446
That is incorrect. The verb atender does not mean to attend. It means to tend to, as in to look after, to pay attention to, to serve. You can tend to a patient, a client, or a customer, but not a meeting, concert, or conference. The verb you're looking for there is asistir (which does not mean to assist!). These are false friends.
Overall those are good comments wchargin. THE ONLY ERROR IN WHAT You said is that "Assist" does not mean "To Assist". Well "To Assist" and "To Help" are pretty much synonymous and according to the popular online translator SPANISHDICT.COM one of the meanings of "Asistir" is "To Help" or "Attend to". Click on the following link if you would like to confirm this: http://www.spanishdict.com/translate/asistir I agree with what you said about the word "atender" however, and also those learning Spanish do have to be care of the FALSE FRIENDS KNOWN GRAMMATICALLY AS FALSE COGNATES.
Asistir: intransitive verb 1. (to be present) a. to attend Ella asiste a un colegio de todo niñas.She attends an all-girl school. 2. (to observe) a. to witness Estamos asistiendo al comienzo de una nueva era.We are witnessing the beginning of a new era. transitive verb 3. (to help) a. to attend to La enfermera me asistió porque era una urgencia.
- 2446
Hey sk1ph1x—thanks for your feedback. You're right that, in some cases, the verb asistir can mean "to assist" in the sense that you described. However—and I italicized this because it can be quite misleading—it doesn't mean "to assist" in the general case. For example, "puedo asistirte" could mean "I can help you" as said by a department store clerk ("I can help the next customer"), but not as in "I can help you with your homework." (That would probably be ayudar.)
So, in summary, yes, but tread carefully! :)
Aside: these actually are false friends; false cognates are different. A false cognate is a pair of similar-sounding words with similar meanings but that actually have different etymological origins. See here for a very nice explanation.
Hola wchargin, I also want to thank you again for your comments. For the most part we are in agreement.
You may want to note however that according to the various sites that I checked in regards to cognates and false cognates, both are in fact pairs of words typically from two different languages that share a similar look and sound as well as the SAME ETYMOLOGICAL ORIGIN. But of course the False Cognates although sharing the same etymological origin have a quite DIFFERENT MEANING. It may be further noted that the words "FALSE FRIENDS" and "FALSE COGNATES" appear to be the same and are used interchangeably as a linguistic term according to the sites I checked. . I must admit however that I was familiar with the term Cognate but I was not familiar with the term 'False Friends".
Asi es que parece que los dos aprendimos algo nuevo. Tambien yo chequee con la Real Academia Española acerca de las varias definiciónes de la palabra "asistir". Hay muchas definiciónes diferentes dependiendo del contexto. A coninuación he proveido algunos enlaces: http://www.elearnspanishlanguage.com/vocabulary/falsosamigos.html
Falsos Amigos - False Cognates One of the great things about learning Spanish or English is that many words have the same roots in the Romance languages and English. However, there are also a great many falsos amigos, or false cognates, which look similar but are in fact very different. This is one of the biggest pitfalls for students of Spanish. There are also semi-false cognates: words that can only sometimes be translated by the similar word in the other language. http://www.brown.edu/Departments/LRC/pluma/voc_false_cognates.pdf FALSE COGNATES There are literally thousands of words that are the same or similar in appearance in English and Spanish, and have the same meaning in both languages (“cognates”). There are also, however, many instances where appearances are deceiving and words that look alike are quite different in meaning (“false cognates”). The following list includes some of the most common false cognates, also known as “false friends
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After translating the verbs ES/EN, EN/DE, ES/DE I think I finally got it. Thanks for your patience and help. Sometimes it's hard to use a foreign language in order to learn another one.
what about if you ae attending to an injured cat or dog? Then we can use the word it
Elizabeth - If you meant you used "it" and DL didn't accept, I hope you reported that because that's also correct.
The problem with this explanation is that in English you can tend to a concert. If you are a stage manager you are looking after it and paying attention to it. But if you simply mean to say that atender is for people and asistir is for things, I can just try to remember that.
Valid point, but splinting hairs. That would be rarely used by most people. Try to keep it simple.
Asistir un concierto, yes that works.
- 2446
That's a good point! In that case, atender would be correct, because you would be tending to the concert, not attending it. If this bothers you, perhaps it's better to ignore this (much less common) English usage?
Reply to Kent Stearman:
Asistir a un concierto; Asistir a la escuela; Asistir al doctor (to visit the doctor).
(3-23-15) Just FYI, "Serve", which was used in a previous example ("We can serve the woman" - "Podemos atender a la mujer.") does not work here, at least as of this posting. "I can serve him now" was marked incorrect (with the strikethrough through "serve"). I have reported it.
Just got an email from Duo (Oct 15) to say "I can serve it now" is accepted so assume "I can serve him now" will be also, but who knows ;)
The English translation is wrong--it should be "I can attend to IT now." There is no word for 'you' in the Spanish.
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Not quite: the word lo is the third-person masculine direct object pronoun. It can mean either it or him. The English translation is correct (as is "attend to it").
Yeah me too. Unless there is some nuance of the "lo" that escapes me, I suspect that it is a mistake.
Why is it "lo puedo" instead of "te-" or "le puedo"? Wouldn't "lo puedo atender ahora" mean "I can attend to it now"?
The difference between "lo" and "le" is not "him vs it" but "direct object pronoun vs indirect object pronoun".
Direct objects are the ones that can answer the question "who?" or what?" Ex: I helped him. (Who did you help? Him). Lo ayudo (a él)
Indirect objects are the ones that can answer the question "to who?" or "for who?" Ex: I wrote him a letter. (Who did you write to? Him). Le escribo una carta (a él). In this sentence, the direct object is "a letter" (What did you write? A letter).
From your own description it sounds (to me) like an indirect object should be used here. "Who do you attend to?" "I attend to him." I still don't understand why 'lo' is used here instead of 'le' :(
This one is a little confusing because of the "to", but think of the "to" in this case as part of the verb "attend to" not just "attend". So the direct object question is who or what do I "attend to"? I "attend to" it or him - direct object.
so "lo" is the direct object pronoun for the formal "You/usted" and not just the direct object for it/him?
@la.cortadora this is a very helpful way to look at it, to distinguish between "who" and "to who". "Who" I am attending to instead of "to who" I am attending. Thank you!
Thanks, but they didn't. :(
The best explanation I can come up with is that since there is no other DO (stated or implied), "you/he/she/it" has to be the DO, since you can't have an IO without a DO. I'm guessing this verb (to attend) came from "give attention to," where "attention" was the DO and whomever/whatever you were giving your attention to was the IO. Somewhere along the line we dropped the "give" and now just say "attend to" as a verb. Since "attend" isn't the DO anymore, the "you/he/she/it" becomes the DO and there is no longer a IO, even though the "to" is still there (I can attend to you now). Does this make sense to anyone else besides me?
So "atender" has the person or thing being attended to as a direct object, even though its best translation has it as an indirect one. I'll try to keep that in mind.
These "hints" are killing me.... I wrote "pay attention" and got this problem wrong.
It "means" that. This would be in a shop or similar, where the tender would say "I can help you now", "I can pay attention to you", in a very literal way.
It is common in Spanish, a polite way of the tender to approach the customer: ¿Le puedo atender?
The problem is that there's no context for that. And if DL is not going to give that, then they at least need to be consistent with their hints. In other words "pay attention" would not be a hint in this case.
But, Ramosraul, DL gives "LO puedo atender", not, as you suggest, "LE puedo atender"!! Do they both mean "Can I help you"?
Here you must remember what lo and le "are". They are "representatives" of the Direct and indirect object, respectively. So far so good.
Now, the next step is, what is with a verb, does it accept a D.O. (transitivo) or it does not, intransitivo (Hint, this is always noted in any good dictionary).
Thus, if you know how does your verb behave, it will help you decide whether it will be one or another and ultimately deciding for a le or lo.
those are the good news. The bad news are that some verbs behave as both depending on the meaning... and atender is one of them. The consequence is that the meaning of the verb is somewhat different and you may have a look here:
http://buscon.rae.es/drae/srv/search?val=atend%ED
Here you see that in the case of the customer example, the transitive applies, thus the correct pronoun is Lo and not le, minus for me, my bad then.
In the case of a problem, you shall use the intransitive thus having an Indirect Object.
Thanks for pointing that one out!
I thought "lo" meant "it", or occasionally "him". It seems to mean "you" in this sentence. How can that be?
I don't understand why it's not "i can attend to it now" instead of "I can attend to you now"
Lo puedo atender ahora = I can attend to you now. Lo puedo, goes for 'it'. Lo puedo atender al perro, or whatever object/animal. If it is 'attend to you' it should be 'le puedo' (a usted) or 'te puedo (a tí). Right?
After reading these comments, and also Wikipedia, I still don't see how "lo" can be "you", whether "tu" or "usted," and whether accusative or dative. Am I missing something?
- 2446
Lo is the masculine/neuter, singular, third-person direct object (accusative) pronoun. It can refer to either él or usted. For example, "Lo estoy comiendo" means "I am eating it [presumably some masculine food item]," while "Lo estoy mirando" could mean "I am watching it" or "I am watching you [usted]."
Does this clarify the usage? If not, what specifically are you having trouble with?
Is Wikipedia wrong or am I misreading the chart somehow? Is there another website that is better? I thought the D.O. and I.O for usted were both "le."
- 2446
Ahh…I think I see the source of your confusion. This is a long-standing dialectical variation called leísmo. Search for leísmo in the Duolingo discussions section (under Spanish for English Speakers) and you'll find a bunch of discussions: here and here, e.g.
The consensus seems to be that the use of le for the Usted form is primarily Iberian (i.e., "Spain"/"peninsular" Spanish).
Okay, I'm starting to get it. But my teachers were Cuban and Colombian, and they all said "le" for Usted. I presume both forms would be okay and not sound like bad Spanish? Now that I know that both are used, I won't remember which is preferred or where.
the D.O. pronouns for "usted" are Lo/La ( depending on gender of "usted"), similar to the verb conjugations for el/ella/usted.....but like with all things in language it seems things like "le" being used for D.O. get adopted over time....
I put I can see it now and got it right. I don't know where DL got I can attend to you now.
"I can see you now. " was accepted. How many thousand times have you heard that after waiting in line at the bank or post office ?
I really wish that the program stays consistent. In another sentence "lo" was deemed only to be used as him or her or it but not you which of course is wrong in Spanish.
shouldn't "help" also be acceptable? We will often say I can help the next person or can help the next customer
surely "lo puedo atender ahora" is I can attend it now. The translation was her and not it - how would we know?
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Nope—attend as you've used it is wrong; asistir means to tend to or to attend to (please see the discussion above). With this in mind, the object is much more likely to be an animate object (almost certainly a human) than not. While I suppose you might atender a nagging problem, this is certainly much more uncommon.
I think the "lo" here can be understood to be the direct object pronoun for "usted", the singular formal you. Thus "I can attend to you (formal) now." If on the other hand "lo" is understood as "ït" we get "I can tend to it now."
I am so confused about 'lo' meaning 'you' in the example and by the discussions that I've decided to ignore it for now and see if it clarifies itself later...
Why do you not use "te puedo atender..." how is the word "lo" a stand in for "you" - unless "lo" is for usted? Please clarify ☺
Is the reason this is "Lo puedo" and no "Te puedo" because lo is the direct object form of usted?
Would "Te puedo" be correct if you're using the tu form of you?
Why is [I can attend to it now] wrong? Is it because of attendar has to translate to the pronoun you?
- 2446
Your translation is correct. If you get a chance, you should report that it should be marked as accepted. (Do note, however, that the verb is atender and not attendar.)
I wrote, "I can do it now", isn't that the intent.
They say it is: "I can see it now"?????????????
What!
'i can wait for it now' was corrected to 'i can wait on it now'
somewhat different to 'i can serve you now'
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There's no reason why 'Lo' can't mean 'it'. So 'I can take care of it now' should be accepted.
