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El niño come los pescados. Why isn't this sentence 'El niño come los pescados.' translated into English, 'The boy eats these fishes'? I know the proper translation is 'The boy eats the fish'. What is the reasoning for 'los pescados', to mean 'the fish' and not 'these fishes'?
Aug 22, 2014 12:37 AM
Answers · 10
The correct translation into English is: The boy eats the fishes, if it were"these fishes" in Spanish it should be "El niño come estos pescados" but the word "these" is not written in there I hope to be clear :D!! Good luck with your learning and grettings!
August 22, 2014
The correct translation for The boy eats these fishes would be : "El niño come (or "se come") estos pescados" Anyway, maybe it would be necessary to read the whole sentence to find the most suitable trnaslation. And yes .Alejo is right. we have two words for fish: "pez" (alive in water) and "pescado" (food).
August 23, 2014
Thanks for the additional information. My mind is slowing accepting and allowing another language to think in it's space.
August 22, 2014
Alejo that's FANTASTIC information! I always wondered why I never heard someone call fish at a restaurant "pez" but always "pescado". So fish that are caught and cooked and served for dinner are pescado and fish that are still swimming in the sea are peces. That's great to know. Now, how about when you eat raw fish like Japanese sushi? Do you use pez or pescado?
August 22, 2014
When we are talking about food, we always say 'Pescado', even if there are millons of them in the plate. Then, if you're talking about a boy who's eating fish, then you always say: El niño come pescado. If he is eating the fishes raw, then 'El niño come los peces'. We have a diferent word for raw fish. Pez in singular and peces in plural. Pescado is once we catch it :) Hope I was clear enough (and please understand this is much more about vocabulary than about a gramatical rule). REF.: I'm a Certified Spanish Teacher.
August 22, 2014
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