Newbie - Please, sign here.

¿Echar una firma?!!  Ay gracias Lili -- pase lo que pase, es por cosas como eso que me encanta SPod. Thanks Lili -- whatever may happen, it's for this kind of thing that I love SPod:)

Wow, "echar". I looked it up in Word Reference, and what between echar and echarse there was a list almost a full typewritten page of various meanings.

everything from throw, destroy to sprout, flower.

It sounds like one of those complex words we should be hearing more about. Everything is context.

Show us how to use this word.

Hi cobre, the core meaning of the word "echar" is something like "to put out" or "to throw out;" the rest of the more figurative usages all derive from this core meaning. 

I'll put the different uses of "echar" on the Pa que sepas list, where we can address it better.  Great question!  :)

anna8

Glad you liked it! This expression can not get more mexican and slangy! People use it a lot, but only with friends.

The question of the day is:

¿Como firmas?

How do you sign your name?

Mi firma tiene solo mis iniciales L M V B.Es muy corta pero me llevo algo de tiempo en perfeccionarla.

My signature are only my initials L M V B.It is very short but it took me long time to perfect it.

Here's my John Hancock :)

Firmo mi nombre sin cuidado especialmente los recibos de tarjetas de crédito.  Por ejemplo,  a mi firma le falta la letra última de mi nombre usualmente.

I sign my name carelessly, especially the receipts from credit cards.  For example, the last letter of my name is usually missing from my signature.

Tengo letra muy malo, como un niño.

hola mi firma es muy dificil  para firmar

Firmo mi nombre como este a veces...

russito

Muy buena tu forma!

La de JP esta larguísima!

a veces para viejoes cuando no poder firmar les mismos, que va a hacer. digame por favor.

Lili, firmo con iniciales tambien, haciendo un floreo.

Yo escribo mi nombre en dos maneras differentes. Una firma para mi trabajar y un otra firma para mis compras personales. Parece que estoy muy cauteloso!

Would a female speaker say "lista" or "listo"? If it is short for "estoy listo/lista", it should be "lista", right? (Since Esti often speaks male roles, I'm not sure about it. :)

@martinillo: I'm pretty sure a woman would say "lista".

http://spanishpod.com/lessons/are-you-ready-yet

I think the usage here is

(Verb indicated by gesture waving - Here is El recibo) listo

and yes if Esti was ready for something she would be lista and JP would be listo if he were ready

(though both are listing and about to sink from view, sniff . . . )

So the masculine listo from the dialogue would be short for something like el número de teléfono está listo?

Pretty much.

In the dialog, the bill is signed and returned recibo is masculine so ready/finished listo agrees.

If  he had given her a petition "to bring sandwich thieves to justice," and she had signed it and handed it back with the unspoken but comunicated gesture - (here is the petition) finished/ready - then la petición is feminine and once signed it would be lista.

delete

. . . but would the feminine be lista, or just engulfed by the masculine generic?

cobre

Thanks. I get it, but I guess my thought process is more complicated. :) recibo (receipt) in my experience is a piece of paper she gets to keep, so she probably had to sign somewhere else instead. That's why I did not link the gender of listo to the gender of recibo.

hola cobre y callum81, acabo de preguntar un latino y me dijo que se puede decir "listo" para decir "o.k."  o para decir : "hecho" como " its a done deal".  (en este caso no hay género)

I was just told by a Latino that you can say "listo" to say "o.k."  Or as they would also say "hecho", like its a done deal. (in this case you are not using gender)  Cobre refers to it as the masculine generic.

heres my vote (ive had wine)

martinillo: No, i dont think so (i may be wrong)
Cobre:  I think you had it right to begin with
callum81 i dont think the masculine listo is "short for" anything. If we can refer to a thing then we can refer to its gender.

As i understand things, unless a noun is unambiguously being referred to you can use the generic listo (i.e. "its ready " and the gender of the speaker is irrelevent) a woman walking in on her husband commiting adultery doesnt say "que es esta" because "she" or the other woman are female.

 without this convention, i imagine spanish would consist mostly of arguing over which noun you had in mind when you spoke, exactly as above.

however i feel sure i am wrong because martinillo wouldnt have posed the question if it were that simple. :-)

donperigo: LOL! :)

¡He preguntado porque no sé la respuesta!

I have asked because I don't know the answer!

enjoy your show marty, a bit more notice and i could have come with :-)

Martinillo, check out the wrought iron gate in front of the theater. A good friend of mine here in the states made the hawk/handsaw ornament, in reference to hamlet.

Hamlet Act II sc ii. Hamlet seems to be confessing to Rosencrantz and Guildenstern that he is only feigning madness:

Ham. ...my uncle father and aunt mother are deceiv'd.
Guil. In what, my dear lord?
Ham. I am but mad north-northwest: when the wind is southerly I know a hawk from a handsaw.

There are several interpretations of these words both mean that he is not mad, and knows what is going on. The first is for the birds, and that is that handsaw may be a corruption of heronsaw or heron. The other is that hawk is slang (jerga) trade usage name for a plasterers tool and handsaw of course is a carpenters tool.

corrections made to PDF

cobre: Oops, I didn't saw your posting before I went. Too bad, I was waiting in front of this iron gate for a quater of an hour for a friend without paying attention to it.

kikuyu: According to this Spanish friend, you are right. "listo" doesn't refer to anything particular; and in these cases the masculine gender is used.

Tengo 2 firmas, una formal de firma con mi nombre completo y otro es mi apodo ewong

JP/Lili

Please give us some insight into the listo/lista business.

I can appreciate all the points of view above, but am now a bit confused.

When are "listo" and "lista" used when spoken by both a man and a woman ?

Cheers

Dave

Dave,

The gender of the speaker does not matter.

What matters in who or what it is that is ready or not (listo/a)

he said to her, "Are you ready?" - ¿Estás lista?

he said to him, "Are you ready?" -> ¿Estás listo?

she said to her, "Are you ready?" - ¿Estás lista?

she said to him, "Are you ready?" -> ¿Estás listo?

if she answers she says -  Sí, estoy lista.

and if he answers he might say -  No, no estoy listo.

because they are referring to themselves as being male or female "ready" people,

nouns have gender and if an object is to be ready (or not) you use lista for feminine nouns and listo for masculine ones.

Dave,

"Listo" has two identities.  The first is as a normal adjective and Cobre's explanation above is as clear and complete as any I have seen.

The second is as kind of an exclamatory phrase.  Let me quote Kikuyu's comment above because I think she explained it very well:

... acabo de preguntar un latino y me dijo que se puede decir "listo" para decir "o.k."  o para decir : "hecho" como " its a done deal".  (en este caso no hay género)

I was just told by a Latino that you can say "listo" to say "o.k."  Or as they would also say "hecho", like its a done deal. (in this case you are not using gender)  Cobre refers to it as the masculine generic

If you listen to Cooking with Tabasco, you'll notice that when he shows off the finished product he says: 

¡Y listo! (Done!)

This is kind of like Julia Child saying: Et voila!

Tks Cobre

So when the girl [ at the end of the dialogue ] says "listo" is she referring to the fact that the signed piece of paper [ the "recibo" ] is ready ?

I know that sometimes when I'm in a cafe and signing a credit card, the waiter maybe walks away for a minute. I catch his eye and say 'I'm ready". Which sort of means I myself am ready for him to come and take the paper, not really referring to the fact that the paper is signed and "listo".

Dave

I Listened to the recording again, and if you listen carefully you can hear JP saying "...and when HE's done, he's done...". Yet the person he is referring to is female [ on the recording ].

Dave

dave123456789

they quite often get the sex of the speaker wrong, i suspect they working from a script and the dialogue is edited in later.

donperigo:

That's one explanation. The other explanation is that JP and Lili refer to the gender of the characters and Esti is speaking the male(!) character and Leo the female(!) character. :)

Hello I'am Chris or 克里斯 studendt of chinese pod and actually a Native Hispanic Person this is some answer for you guys.

Dear: lilianamata

¿Como firmas?  -> Actualy means How do you sing?

Its sounds almost incoherence as you might see. They might refer if you write youre name in cursive or manuscript.  

Dave:

"Listo" can be utilized to mean "Done, finish, ready, etc." 

You can use this as answer when doing something - “Listo”

“Lista” – can be utilize when a female tell other female she is ready.

Depending the sentence is how you apply the word… Its practice.

Tks Everyone

Anna8 - what you have said makes a lot of sense to me.

Is this right ?:

If two people are asking about the other's 'state of readiness", they will use the ending of listo/lista which is appropriate to the preson being spoken TO.

e.g. speaking TO a male: listo is used [ male or female SPEAKER ]

speaking TO a female: lista is used [ male or female SPEAKER ]

Someone [ male or female ] making a general statement about their "state of readiness" [ without being asked ]: "listo" [ I'm ready ].

Dave

Hi Dave,

I'd say it's more like this.  In the first use of listo/lista as an adjective meaning "ready", it agrees in gender and number with the person or thing it refers to, not the person speaking.

Anna:  ¿Estás listo, Dave?

Dave:  Sí, estoy listo.  ¿Estás lista, Anna?

Anna:  Sí, estoy lista.

For the second use of listo as a sort of exclamation or shorthand sentence meaning done, we're usually referring to a situation or action, not one specific person or thing. Check out this conversation from the wordreference forum.  It's interesting because the question comes from a native Spanish speaker asking how to translate this use of listo into English:

Question:

 

Listo = terminado?

---

Esta es la situación:

Me envía un email un cliente solicitándome un cambio en una pagina web. A client sends me an email asking for a change in a web page
Hago lo que me pide y abro mi messenger.  I do what he asks and I open Messenger.
Lo veo online al cliente en el messenger.  I see the client online in Messenger.
Entonces aquí yo le quiero decir:
So I want to say to him here:
"Listo" (como diciendo que ya hice lo que me solicitó) "Listo" (As if to say that I've done what he asked)

¿Qué palabra o frase se puede aplicar en esta situación? What word or phrase do you use in this situation?

Done, ready?

------

Answer:

 

Re: Cómo se dice Listo

---

Yo iría por "done". Lo he escuchado muchas veces en esas situaciones. I would go for "done".  I've heard it many times in those situations.

Tks Ana

That was very helpful.

Wordreference is a wonderful resource. The only problem I have with it is that some of the people there are "quite full of themselves".

As a beginner I've asked [ what I thought ] were some reasonable questions. Some people were very helpful, but some others acted as if I "should have known this". Being Scottish that did not go down very well with me and I sent a few PM's letting them know my mind.

This is a great forum and I've never seen any of the "snippy comments" and "cat-fighting" that can go on over there.

Dave

¡De nada, Dave!  I agree that this is a great forum.  All of the Praxis forums are civil, but this one is ... well... gracious.  People have commented on this before and tried to figure out why this is so.  I'm convinced it is because of the tone set by the SpanishPod team -- they have established a culture of helpfulness and mutual support in this community of language learners.  Muchas gracias, guys!