So... come here often? We certainly hope you do, SpanishPod friends! Today's big podcast is all about small talk. In our lesson learn essential conversation openers and to discuss work. It's a smooth talkin' lesson!
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Hey spanishpoddies
So today we will learn how to talk the REAL Mexican way.
The question of the day is:
¿Qué tal la chamba?
Mi chamba va bien, muy ocupada porque han habido cambios pero contenta por nuevos proyectos.
How´s work?
Work is fine, very busy because there has been some changes, but very happy about new projects.
Cuando Lili hace la Chilanga, me muero de la risa. [When Lily speaks with a Chilango accent, it cracks me up]
¿Qué tal la chamba? No tengo por qué quejarme. [How's work? Can't complain]
Another slang Mexicans use for work is jale.
Tengo amigos peruanos que tambien usan la palabra "Chamba". Lo interesante es que lo conjugan:
I always thought work in Spanish is trabajo
So I assume that chamba and those other words are slang?
anbarfa, yes, that is correct.
I haven't even listened to this lesson yet and I know I love it.
I'd LOVE to see more lessons like this (bar talk or social chit chat in general), at the higher levels as well, using everyday language like this.
Good stuff guys!
Al pensarlo bien, creo que preferiría una linea más, una de estas, por ejemplo:
A: Estoy pensando en renunciar, estoy harto.
o --
o --
Porqué si no, es demasiado realista.
A propósito, ¿quién diría la palabra chamba en la vida real? Tú Leo? Tú Lili?
En Chile la forma coloquial para chamba es pega, por ejemplo:
Ayer me presenté en una empresa y me dieron pega!
En Argentina la palabra para chamba es laburo.
Además en Chile a los trabajos esporádicos les llamamos pololos. Pololo también tiene otro significado en el español chileno, este es el de pareja, ya que a este o a esta le llamas polola o pololo.
In the expansion it translates:
"Mi esposa me tiene harto" as "I'm fed up with my wife." Having objects before verbs still freaks me out a bit, but doesn't the sentence mean "My wife is fed up with me"? I guess if you translate it literally it comes out as "my wife has me fed up" but I didn't think tener worked that way. I viewed it more as "she has harto of me". I am puzzled.
Also there is "¿Te tiene harta con sus criticas?" Shouldn't the verb be "tienes" to match the "tu"?
Thanks!
Anstruther, I'm not an erudite in spanish language, but the phrases: "mi esposa me tiene harto" and "¿Te tiene harta con sus críticas?" perfectly make sense to me, and I am a spanish native speaker. I think you must not try to translate literally a phrase from spanish to english because obviously they are not going to make sense. When I started to study english I also tried to do that and I also was puzzled. All languages are different and it is not a good idea to compare your language with another one. You have to learn it just as it is.
Hey anstruther,
I hope this helps. Spanish (as all romance languages, I dare say) utilizes this construction pret-ty often.
Compare "Ella me gusta" (I like her) and "Ella me tiene harto" (I am fed up with her). There are many other verbs that use this construction:
Ella me agrada. (I kind of like her, I'm fond of her)
Ella me hace falta. (I miss her.)
... and so on.
Think of it this way. I'm a Spanish professor in Mexico and I always tell my students to compare "Ella me gusta" with "She is pleasing to me," in which the subject is actually the *object* of the pleasing.
In "Ella me tiene harto," again, the subject (ella) is actually the *object* of the displeasing.
Helps any?
Salvador
pd. You
Hey anstruther,
I hope this helps. Spanish (as all romance languages, I dare say) utilizes this construction pret-ty often.
Compare "Ella me gusta" (I like her) and "Ella me tiene harto" (I am fed up with her). There are many other verbs that use this construction:
Ella me agrada. (I kind of like her, I'm fond of her)
Ella me hace falta. (I miss her.)
... and so on.
Think of it this way. I'm a Spanish professor in Mexico and I always tell my students to compare "Ella me gusta" with "She is pleasing to me," in which the subject is actually the *object* of the pleasing.
In "Ella me tiene harto," again, the subject (ella) is actually the *object* of the displeasing.
Helps any?
Salvador
pd. You were right on track on your "She has me fed up" reasoning. :)
Another very commonly used phrase in Mexico for "¿Cómo va la chamba?" is "¿Qué dice la chamba?." Naturally, there are some other equivalents to this kind of salutation that do not involve this slang word for work (helpful if you haven't been in touch with someone for quite a while and/or you are not sure if the person works or not): "¿Qué hay de nuevo?" (lit. 'What's new?') or, something I hear quite often, used especially by youngsters: "¿Qué ha habido?" (lit. 'What has there been?', meaning, 'What have you been up to?')
Now, the word "atole" stands for a Mexican (other countries?) beverage people usually have for breakfast or supper. It's a thick beverage made of corn. Here, "atole con lo mismo," is to say that at breakfast time, for example, one eats the same stuff every day, always accompanied by atole. Therefore, it is boring (same old, same old).
To be honest, here in Mexico, I hear more often the expression "pan con lo mismo" (again, referring to breakfast bread with the same stuff every day.)
Another response, one that is not so slangy, that can come well here as a reply is "lo mismo de siempre."
Hola anna8.
Los mexicanos en mi trabajo usan las tres...chamba, jale, y trabajo.
hypersport
Tienes razon tambien decimos JALE...jajajaja eso es MUY MUY slang. ¿Cómo va el jale?
¡Gracias para frases y palabras muy útiles! Estoy de acuerdo -- esta es lección maravillosa y quisiera otras similares. ¿y mi chamba? atole con lo mismo de verdad. Algunos días pienso en renunciar, pero otras veces me gusta. Yo no puede decidir pero el dinero me hace decidirme. Tengo que chambear unos años más.
Hola lili.
Pues, últimamente hemos estado muy ocupados, así que no nos podemos quejar.
En vez de decir "estoy harto", se puede decir "estoy hasta la madre" tambien?
matumic
Jajajajaja si se puede decir eso. Es una mala palabra, pero si es muy usado. Lo puedes usar con gente de confianza, si dices eso enfrente de mi padre o madre, no les parecería muy educado...jajajajaja pero si se dice, estas en lo correcto.
hypersport
Al menos hay trabajo! somos afortunados!
Pido ayuda.
En los exercicios de multiple choice, no entiendo el primero.
No ______, lo corrieron.
Que es la respuesta y que significa lo correiron?
Gracias por adelantado.
(I ask for help. I don't understand the first multiple choice question. What is the answer and what does "lo correiron" mean?
Thanks in advance.)
Hola Nancyann:
No renunció, lo corrieron. [He didn't quit; they fired him]
correr: literally to run but here, to run off or fire someone.
Gracias, salvador for your help.
Knowing that "me tiene harto" is similar to "me gusta el gato" is very helpful. It is just a use of the verb tener that I have not encountered yet.
I guess it the first sentence is more confusing to me, though, because the verb means she has, not I have. She has what?.... fed up. So it seems like she is the one who is fed up. Whereas with me gusta el gato, the cat is doing the pleasing and it makes more sense.
Nevertheless, I'll just remember that this is the way it works.
hmmm,
pondering this further, it seems "estoy harto" means I am fed up while "tiene harto" means it is something to be fed up about
bueno, sospecho que estan harto de la palabra harto, ahora.
(well, I suspect that you are sick of the word harto now)
heartily :-)
perhaps we can think of tiene harto as she has a gut full of.. has an excess of. when one is fed up one has had more than enough of....
donperigo&anstruther: Oh, now I'm confused. :) I thought "ella me tiene harto (de algo)" means "she has me being fed up (of something)". Thus, it is the object that is fed up (I in the example, not she.)
BTW I'm actually not completely sure whether it is a direct object or an indirect object but there seem to be more Google hits for "las tengo hartas" and "los tengo hartos" than for "les tengo hartas/hartos" indicating that the phrase requires a direct object. (I'm assuming that "harto" is an adjective here that agrees in gender and number with the object, the one how is being fed up. There are actually quite many google hits where this is not the case. :-/ )
martinillo
hey, what do i know :-)
i think as dalvarezb says this is one of those times where you bluff your way through till you get the hang of it cause there aint no rules that stand up to scrutiny. its like faltar in that you can use it any way you like noun, transitive, intransitive, adjective as long as its counterintuitive :-)
Muchimos gracias Anna8.
Hay un hilo (thread) en Word Reference regarding tener harto. Aqui esta:
http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=814077
The question seems to be what is the object of tiene - is it 'me' or is it 'harto'
Native speakers:
Would you say 'a mi me tiene harto', like you do for 'a mi me gusta'? Or would you ever just say 'tiene harto' without 'me'?
If martinillo doesn't know this it must truly be tricky (and not just me being stupid) ;)
sorry folks, I seem to have muddied the waters by not engaging brain before writing.
perhaps me tiene harto = she has me stuffed
the english sounds a little archaiac but we can use "have" in reverse like this as in "you have me at a disadvantage" or "that has me stumped" or "have mercy on me"
Donperigo
I will use this phrase with my english blokes. Is it blokes?? hahaha. I like it "you have me at a disadvantage", this would be "me tienes harto"? or is it more I'm in a weaker position than you.
cierto los hombres ingleses son "blokes" pero "my blokes" no suene bien "mi mates" es mas normal (NB mi no my :-)
no me ocurre una equivalente "a me tiene harto" quizas "she hacks me off" o "I have had enough of her"
were the las vagas spodmeet to happen and were i to say "hi lilli" you could peer coquetishly over your fan and reply "you have me at a disadvantage sir" (i.e. you know my name but i dont know yours.)
me tienes en desventaja ??
however, apart from me, people only talk like this in jane austin novels
I don't know about that DP. While I agree, the term is a bit formal and dated. It brings to mind Sheridan's "A School for Scandal" It was recognized as part of a "well bred" vocabulary used in formal situations. The "real english" spoken on the streets and the formal english, of "polite" society are not always the same thing. I assume Spanish is the same.
I say was, because I can only speak for my experience. The flow of language may have washed it's use from those quarters as well.
anstruther: they are the same.
When you say....ella me tiene harto...you're not saying that she has in the sense that she has something in the normal sense. You put the "me" in front of it...so she has you in a certain state.
Me tienes paralizado. You've got me paralyzed.
Ella me tiene sin palabras. She's got me speechless.
Me tienes preocupado. You've got me worried.
Ella me tiene harto. She's got me fed up/ I'm fed up with her/ sick of her.
Gracias todo.
He aprendido mucho con este leccion y discusión.
Me gusta mucho el ejemplo "you have me at a disadvantage".
Que quiero decir:
Thank you all.
I have learned much with this lesson and discussion.
I very much like the example "you have me at a disadvantage"
(grr, I can never remember where all the punctuation marks have moved to when I use the Spanish keyboard)
el atole:
From the expansion:
"¿Te tiene harta con sus críticas?"
Is translated as:
Are you tired of his criticisms? 1 "(Are you tired of his criticisms?)"
whereas the rollover gives "her"
...which is correct? Or is there another explanation of how we arrive at "his"?
bababardwab: "sus críticas" is ambiguous, it can mean "his criticism", "her criticism", "their criticism" and even "your criticism" (if you are using a formal way of addressing someone). Without context, you cannot tell which translation is best; thus, all are correct.
lilliana
it occurs to me that you can say "my blokes" if you are speaking of your employees.
martinillo,
Gracias por su explicación.
Hypersport
just thought of another example. does this work in spanish.
me tiene confundido con otra persona
you have me confused with someone else.
That's a great question donperigo.
I believe so. The interesting thing here is you have one structure, but two different results.
Me tienes confundido con otra. You've got me confused with someone else.
Me tienes sin palabras. You've got me speechless.
Me tienes confuso. You've got me confused. (I don't understand).
Hi. I dont understand mâs in these expression.can ou help me?
Hablas mâs Castellano? here what does mâs mean?
(You my friend) speak more (like) a Spaniard (from northern Spain, but not Basque)