Meaning of "me suena mejor"

Question

I've seen it in a few places now, most recently in this comment:

a mi también me suena mejor, pero la RAE no tiene "acción de solicitar" como un significado de "solicitud"

I googled suena and the results indicated that it was a conjugation of sonar, meaning to sound. I didn't think that made much sense in context (from what I can tell anyway; I could very well be wrong) and I'd seen a lot of people linking to the RAE dictionary around here, so I decided to try that too. I didn't understand a lot of what it said (I'm still learning!) but I definitely got the "conjugation of sonar" part.

So, since it seems that is indeed what it means, can anyone please explain this phrase to me? If I understand correctly from context it should mean something like "I think so too"... A mi también means "to me as well", right? So is it all one compound phrase meaning "I think this is right as well"? Or what does it mean, and is the sonar definition the correct one or does it also have another meaning?

Answer 1

Me suena mejor means it sounds better to me.

As you found out for yourself, suena is a conjugation of the verb sonar, which means to sound. In fact suena is the third-person singular, meaning he/she/it sounds.

As for the rest of the phrase; the (first person) personal pronoun me is the indirect object of the sentence, so it sounds better to me.

Yes, you're right that a mi también means to me too/also. So the full phrase in that quote means it sounds better to me, too.

Answer 2

It may be useful to review a few items that seem to have tripped you up. You have sonar correct in that it means 'to sound'. I believe your confusion surrounds the indirect object pronoun and the personal 'a' in 'a mi también'.

This sentence is from SpanishDict and may help clarify these elements for you.

EXAMPLE

Me compró una rosa a mí. (He bought a rose for me.)

EXPLANATION

Me compró - the verb in this segment is 'comprar' - to buy. This is the 3rd person preterite (past).

The 'Me' is the first person singular indirect object pronoun as seen in this chart.

            Singular                             Plural
1st person  me (to/for me)                       nos (to/for us)
2nd person  te (to/for you informal)             os (to/for you informal)
3rd person  le (to/for you formal, him, her, it) les (to/for them, you formal) 

When using the indirect object you can think of it as 'to' or 'for' something or someone. In this case the 'Me compró...' can be read as 'He bought for me...'.

The phrase 'una rosa' is, as stated, 'a rose'.

Now, the 'a mí' is a clarifying phrase called the 'indirect object phrase'. It is necessary because, without, it may not be clear to whom we are referring.

To illustrate imagine this slight change.

Le compró una rosa.

Referring to the chart you can see that we are now referring to the 3rd person singular, le, but is it obvious to whom we are referring? In short, no. Any of the following is correct.

Le compró una rosa *a ella*.
Le compró una rosa *a Sarah*.
Le compró una rosa *a su madre*.

Realize, then, that while it is not strictly required to include the indirect object phrases it is useful to clarify the sentence. Also, when you do include it you must include the 'a' to be grammatically correct.

Hopefully this clarifies these two points for you a bit and you understand better the original question.

Good luck!

Answer 3

The actual meaning is that one of the alternatives seems to be better than the others, though you are not completely certain. It just seems to be better intuitively. Regarding the comment you refer to: Caesar states that "solicitud" seems more appropriate than "solicitación". For him, solicitud "suena mejor" than solicitación.