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Hoy hace mucho calor.

I see that the translation for it is

Today is very hot.

But I think that sentence is very complex and difficult to language learners like me. So can we simply write

Hoy está mucho calor.

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    "Calor" is not used with the "to be" verb but the "to have". So "hoy está mucho calor" does not make any sense. This is like "I am 20 years old": in Spanish is not "to be" but "to have", so it is said "tengo 20 años".
    – fedorqui
    Apr 24, 2015 at 11:50
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    Its more fun when new speakers say things like "estoy caliente". Try that one on next time dancing at the club gets you sweaty.
    – crthompson
    Apr 24, 2015 at 15:34
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    Or "Do you have any eggs today?" at the supermarket
    – Kent A.
    Apr 24, 2015 at 15:41
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    @paqogomez I have a Venezuelan female friend and one day she asked me how I was, and I innocently said "¡Estoy bueno!". She told me what I was really saying. But now, every time I see her I say the same thing to her.
    – Peter M
    Apr 27, 2015 at 15:42

5 Answers 5

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Short answer: no.

When learning a new language, you need to resist the urge to translate your language's idioms directly into the new language. Sometimes it's possible, but often it simply does not work. Hace calor is how Spanish speakers describe the weather when it is hot.

6

You must use hace calor

You can't micromanage a target language like that,.. "..that's just too confusing, I'll say it this way"

Está would not improve your sentence nor would it be considered to mean the same thing. In fact, it is grammatically incorrect

Hoy está mucho calor

Calor is a noun, which means heat. So you would effectively be saying...

Today is very heat.

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Your direct translation is not completely accurate. "Today is very hot" literally means

Hoy está muy caluroso.

Since a direct translation of "Hoy hace mucho calor" should be "Today there is very much heat" (obviously wrong), your attitude as a translator should be such that indicates by Kent Anderson in his answer.

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"Hoy está mucho calor" is completely wrong. Alternatively you can use:

Está haciendo mucho calor. (*)

Está siendo un día muy caluroso.

(En estas dos frases, el gerundio hace innecesario especificar que se refieren a «hoy», y por tanto se suele omitir.)

Hoy es un día muy caluroso.

But this is my preferred expression:

¡Ozú, que caló!

(This is Andalusian dialect, but any Spanish-speaking knows what it mean;))

(*) Note that "mucha calor" is also correct. (you can use "la calor" o "el calor").

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  • Dear down-voter, my native language is Spanish, so apart from my deficient English, can you explain what is wrong in this answer?
    – Fran
    Apr 25, 2015 at 1:50
  • As an aside, it is important to note that calor can be feminine only when it refers to the weather. It is always masculine for the physical magnitude or any figurative meaning (such as calor humano).
    – Gorpik
    May 12, 2015 at 16:10
  • @Gorpik, Completamente de acuerdo. No era así en el pasado, pero la forma masculina con el tiempo se convirtió en la «forma culta» y la femenina ha quedado como un arcaísmo para hablar de la temperatura ambiente y sólo en singular (la misma persona que diría «la calor del verano» nunca diría «las calores del verano»), pero sigue siendo muy utilizada, y no sólo en América como he leído en algún sitio. No obstante, casi todas las medidas físicas son masculinas («los gramos», «los litros», «los voltios» ...) pero las unidades de energía térmica son siempre «las calorías».
    – Fran
    May 13, 2015 at 5:30
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Hoy está mucho calor.

This is incorrect in Spanish, however the correct way of writing it would be:

Hoy está haciendo mucho calor.

in a sentence like this it is inferred that the weather is making the heat, not the day.

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  • "the weather is making the heat"?
    – Diego
    May 15, 2015 at 0:22
  • sorry english is not my first language, but that would be the literal translation. It is correct in spanish tho.
    – luisluix
    May 15, 2015 at 15:09

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