Michael Wolf

515 reputation

112

bio	website	flickr.com/photos/tacobreath
	location	Mexico City, Mexico
	age	35
visits	member for	1 year, 5 months
	seen	Apr 12 at 18:42
stats	profile views	8

Hello, I'm Michael.

	515 reputation	bio	website	flickr.com/photos/tacobreath	visits	member for	1 year, 5 months
112 badges		location	Mexico City, Mexico		seen	Apr 12 at 18:42

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Apr 12	comment	Linguistic Use of Spanish Characters Keyboard Layout @MikMik Qué interesante. No lo sabía. ¿Tienes alguna referencia?
Mar 7	comment	How would you translate the word “badass” to Spanish? I don't think cabrón is a good translation, though. Chingón comes a lot closer, but still misses the mark, and in any case it's only an adjective whereas badass is both an adjective and a noun.
Mar 7	comment	How would you translate the word “badass” to Spanish? These only cover some of badass' meanings. It can have a more positive sense too, vaguely along the lines of "impressive" or "admirable" while retaining a tinge of rebelliousness. For instance, when I told my brother that I was thinking of moving to Mexico City he said, "that would be badass." Which is to say, it's very likely that, just as there's no one word equivalent in English to güey, there isn't one in Spanish for badass either. (I'd like to find out if there is, though.)
Mar 2	comment	¿Cuál es el significado de “órale” y su origen? I really have no idea whether órale comes from orar, ahora, or something else entirely, but until someone provides sources, anyone remotely serious will be forced to conclude that you're all just making stuff up.
Jan 11	comment	Difference between “suave” and “blando” The song "Rico Blando" is one of my favourites.
Jan 11	comment	¿Por qué se usa el subjuntivo en esta frase? Y pensándolo más, me parece que podríamos decir que este uso del subjuntivo está fuera de lugar en el periodismo y más generalmente en los textos dirigidos a las masas, pero en una colección de textos grecolatinos no hay ningún problema en usar este arcaísmo.
Jan 11	comment	¿Por qué se usa el subjuntivo en esta frase? Interesante, gracias. Entonces podemos reemplazar "fuera" con "había sido". Y supongo que nunca (¿o muy infrecuentemente?) veremos una frase semejante pero con "fuese".
Dec 15	comment	Practicamos hablando "...practicamos poco/raramente/infrecuentemente/&c hablar español" should do the trick. You can move the adverb around: to my ears (I'm not a native speaker, but have lived in Mexico City for over eight years), it sounds ok anywhere in that phrase except for directly after "hablar."
Dec 15	comment	¿Cuándo se le pone tilde a más? There is a lot wrong with this answer. First, there is the word mas and there is the word más. Their spellings are similar, but not identical. Second, you can use más with uncountables. Third, mas is used to contrast, not to contradict.
Dec 10	comment	Why does “bomba” mean so many different things? Just to add to Walter Mitty's answer, the use of bomba to refer to gas station, fire station, or fire truck is a good example of a synecdoche.
Oct 26	comment	Translating “be right back” (or “brb”) @Shaz Well, "ahorita vengo" is a valid answer: it is how many Mexicans would say it. "Espérate", too, especially if it had been spelled correctly. I agree that the rest is irrelevant.
Sep 19	comment	Regional pronunciations of “LL” Native English speaker here, but I've lived in the DF for eight years. I can still distinguish between the two sounds and, to my ears, it seems to me that most people most of the time pronounce ll closer to English y than to j, although the sound is identical to neither.
Aug 13	comment	Why is “De nada” used as a response to “Gracias”? And "no hay de qué" can be shortened to "de qué" which, when it's a beginner doing the thanking, can lead to amusing exchanges like "Muchas gracias por la comida." "De qué." "De la comida. Me gustó. Muchas gracias." "De qué." "¡DE LA COMIDA!" "¡DE QUÉ!"
Jul 21	comment	“s” final en tiempo pretérito indefinido: -aste(s), -iste(s) What @Ricardo said applies to Mexico too. It always seemed more likely to me that these people are overcorrecting. After all, all the other tú conjugations do end in -s.
Jul 13	comment	¿Qué significa 'va' en “Nos vemos después, ¿va?” En la Ciudad de México se usa "vale" mucho. Tal vez menos que "sale" pero es sumamente ridículo decir que es sumamente raro que alguien la diga.
Apr 17	comment	Shorter/alternate version of refrigerator Yeah, we say refri in the DF as well.
Mar 27	comment	Gusto variant of the verb gustar @hippietrail Strictly speaking, you are correct. But do you really want to encourage sloppiness?
Mar 27	comment	Use of “Veni”? Is it a real word? @Javi Just because it's prescriptively incorrect doesn't meant it doesn't happen. The numbers I got out of Google were similar to the ones jrdioko got. For my part, I work with people, born in Mexico, who speak and write like this all the time. This makes me more than a little bit depressed, but one needs to be aware of it. Sometimes it helps to think of it as one big hermeneutical exercise, deciphering the incoherent nonsense I receive in my inbox and over the phone.
Mar 14	comment	Are “burro” and “aburrir” related? I invented a Spanish Tom Swifty: —El asno no hace nada — dijo Tomás, aburrido.
Mar 5	comment	Connotations of “mortal” (slang) We use mortal in much the same way in Mexico.