If I want to bring up the fact that somebody missed something done on purpose, how would I say that in Spanish?
For example:
"The ending was bad. Everybody died!"
"That's the point. It showed the horror of war."
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Sign up to join this communityIf I want to bring up the fact that somebody missed something done on purpose, how would I say that in Spanish?
For example:
"The ending was bad. Everybody died!"
"That's the point. It showed the horror of war."
There are several ways to translate "That's the point", some of which have already been mentioned. In the Spanish of most native speakers, "Ese es el punto" is not one of them. It seems, however, that among those who speak a variety of Spanish heavily influenced by English ("Spanglish"), the English calque "Ese es el punto" is heard more and more, and you even find it in writing. To me, it sounds like a barbarism because I am not used to it (40 years living in the US). By the way, this use of the cognate "punto" to translate this particular sense of English "point" extends to other expressions, such as "to make a point", "what's the point?", and so on.
Depending on the context, these expressions can also be equivalent to "That's the point":
No direct translation sounds good to me. I would suggest:
Esa es la idea.
Which means:
That's the idea.
You do have the same sentence in Spanish:
Ese es el punto. (Also: Ese es el objetivo.)
Alternatively, you can say things like:
- A eso apunta. (That's what it points to.)
As Spuny says, it is not usually convenient to translate word by word. I would suggest using the following expression:
De eso se trata. (Lit.: "That's what it's all about".)
So your example could be translated like this:
—Qué final más malo, ¡todo el mundo muere!
—De eso se trata, de mostrar los horrores de la guerra.
If you want to go more Latin, you can also use quid:
—Qué final más malo, ¡todo el mundo muere!
—Ese es el quid: mostrar los horrores de la guerra.
The word quid is defined by the RAE as "the essence, the reason of or the most important thing about something".
(Adding to the other answers.) If you want to be ironic, a simple "Exacto!" plus smile works. :-)
Ahí donde aprieta el zapato