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Is there a Spanish equivalent to "Noun by Noun"?

I believe in this case "by" is a preposition, but I'm not sure.

My specific phrase is:

Vote by Vote, Seat by Seat, Bill by Bill, Law by Law

I came up with:

Voto por Voto, Puesto por Puesto, Proyecto por Proyecto, Ley por Ley

I'm not sure if that translates correctly.

Maybe it should be

Voto sobre Voto, Puesto sobre Puesto, Proyecto sobre Proyecto, Ley sobre Ley

Otherwise I'm thinking it might make more sense to use:

Con Votos, Con Puestos, etc...

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1 Answer 1

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Neither "voto por voto" nor "voto sobre voto" make sense in this context. Your last choice might make sense, but if you want a more accurate translation you need to use:

Voto a voto, puesto a puesto, proyecto a proyecto...

In this sense the a preposition indicates the time elapsed or between two events or space between two places, as in "un voto tras otro" or "un voto después de otro".

The expression "voto por voto" means something like "a vote in exchange for another", as in "I vote you if you vote for me". I cannot make sense of "voto sobre voto".

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  • So simple. I might have even thought it if I hadn't started with Google Translate and linguee.com/english-spanish
    – MikeiLL
    Commented Dec 19, 2018 at 16:38
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    reminds me of poco a poco
    – iBug
    Commented Dec 19, 2018 at 16:51
  • I think the image of the English "vote upon vote" is of them being piled one on top of the other so sobre would be a literal translation.
    – mdewey
    Commented Dec 19, 2018 at 17:00
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    @iBug yes, it's the same use of the preposition.
    – Charlie
    Commented Dec 19, 2018 at 17:04
  • Totally agreed. It reminds me to el Cholo's (the coach from the Atlético de Madrid) partido a partido. Commented Dec 19, 2018 at 19:13

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