Lesson 66: 'Posession, Ownership ... and pain!'
In English we express posession - my, your, his, Andrew's, etc. - a lot. In Spanish its unusual with a variety of ways to avoid doing so but still get the meaning across!
For example when we say "I responded to her mail" the Spanglish is "Her mail I responded".
 Spanish |  English |
|---|---|
| Se lo respondí | I responded to her [thing] |
'Doler' - "to hurt"
This is a very common area of language and one where we are posessive in English. "My leg hurts" is, In Spanglish, "It hurts me the leg" because its pretty obvious that nobody else's leg could be hurting you!
We've come across this set up before with 'Gustar' where we don't say "I like it" we say "it gives me pleasure" so the version of "to give" is the "it" form, not the "I" form.
Now we haevn't come across it for a while but 'Doler' is one of those verbs where the 'o' splits when we put pressure on it and it becomes 'ue' - like 'Poder'
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Me duele | It hurts me |
| Me duele la pierna | My leg hurts me |
| No me duele la pierna más | My leg doesn't hurt anymore |
The noun "hurt" (or "pain") is 'dolor'. In modern English we say "I have a headache" but in Spanglish (and old English) we way "I have pain of [the] head".
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| Tengo dolor de cabeza | I have a headache |
| Tenía dolor de cabeza | I had a headache |
| Me dolía la cabeza | I was having a headache |
Maria's House
So just as we say "I have pain of head" we also say "House of Maria" and if you have ever trampled around some Spanish wine growing regions you would have seen this a lot on the gates of the vineyards.
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| La casa de Jose | Jose's house |
| Vamos a la casa de Jose | We are going to Jose's house |
| Vamos a la fiesta de Maria | We are going to Maria's party |
OK - let's try a mega, mega sentence - "I didn't speak with anyone else at Maria's party, I only spoke with you"
- "I didn't speak" - 'No hablé
- "with" - 'con
- "anyone else" - 'nadie más
- "at Maria's party" - 'en la fiesta de Maria
- "I only spoke" - 'solo hablé
- "with you" - 'contigo
| Spanish | English |
|---|---|
| No hablé con nadie más en la fiesta de Maria, solo hablé contigo | I didn't speak with anyone else at Maria's party, I only spoke with you |