Elementary - Room for Dessert

a) ¿Quieres un poco más?

b) No gracias, estoy llena.

This is a very useful answer,let´s see why and when you can use it:

1.- To tell you are full, you´ve liked it a lot but unfortunalely you don´t have more room.

2.- Or... just to be nice, because in fact you don´t want to eat more of the food you don´t like, but you´ve eaten in order to be polite.

Ok, one more related lesson

it´s

un pedazo de pastel

http://spanishpod.com/lessons/more-meatballs/discussion

Lleno, llena, and Lily even brings up

estoy satisfecho, - she is about to burst.

This sentence is from the expansion section: "Ves a Laura flaca"?  

Does Laura look skinny to you?

pero...la siguiente quiere decir la misma...

se ve Laura flaca a tí?

ver in its reflexive and non-reflexive forms and both have the same meaning. Its a little confusing.

kikuyu, I dont think they have the exact same meaning, in the first sentence the 'second person' is doing the looking, and therefore will create an opinion from it...Looking at laura. But in the second case, laura is (literally) looking herself skinny, (the verb 'verse' to look oneself, as in the sentence 'you look nice today - te ves bonita hoy') but then the a ti is added to get the other persons opinion.

Sorry if thats confusing... Or wrong...

kikuyu catthatcity

I mostly a agree with cutthatcity.  To me verse means to "seem like".  So:

se ve Laura flaca a tí? - does Laura seem skinny to you?

"Ves a Laura flaca"?  - Do you see Laura as skinny.

The actual meaning is really the same. 

I remember when I first started studying Spanish in Paraguay, I said "Estoy llena" at the table and my friend gave me a funny look.  According to her, I said "I'm pregnant" instead of "I'm full."

Was she pulling my leg? or do other countries use different expressions?

Thanks stevestrv, thats what I was trying to get across, I just couldn't find the right words.

cuthatcity

Actual I think you said it quit well.  I read your comment very quickly before posting mine.  Later I reread what you had said and realized that my comment was redundant.   The only thing that I really wanted to add was that even though the two statements have different literal translations, their meaning are really the same.

Although
I think te veo flaco could be used to emphasis “to me, maybe not to anyone else”. Whereas  te ves flaco (reflexive) could only mean that you seem skinny to the world.  Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

Siempre tengo espacio para el postre. Me encantan los postres asi que no soy puro hueso...

Mi madre me decia, - Cuando tú fuiste niño, me te pregunté, "¿Quieres unas postre?" y tú respondiste, "No mamá, gracias, pero me quiero  más de las potatas y salsa por favor."

My mother keeps telling me, "When you were a little boy, I asked you, 'Do you want some desert' and you replied, 'No thanks, Mom, but could I have some more potatoes and gravy please.' "

Kikuyu, Stevestrv and Cutthatcity,

Jp recently talked about verse here  -- where he says that verbs of perception in this "reflexive" form basically act like copula or linking verbs. So Te ves flaca = you look/seem/are skinny. (Stevestrv, it's actually an example of the 'se de matización' we were just talking about yesterday.)

Maybe there is a subtle difference in meaning between Te veo flaca and Te ves flaca, but for me it's just easier to see them as synonymous.

Missworldtraveler,

I'm intrigued by what you say about "Estoy llena" because when I was in Puebla, I was also told to avoid saying this -- unfortunately I didn't have the presence of mind to ask why -- and to say instead, "Estoy satisfecha."

 Pero estás muy flaco, eres puro hueso.

i know they said not to worry about it but im sorry this is a ser/estar nightmare.

i was under the impression that in general one would use ser to refer to physical characteristics such as build. Is estar used here because the dinner guest is looking particularly slim on this occasion?

lets say im just wrong about this and its correct to  use estar for commenting about weight the next statement doesnt just change the rules it replaces them with a blue whale.

you are pure bone is such a unreal statement that i'd expect the subjunctive to be involved somewhere and yet its ser. good old solid dependable ser.

 is this like the difference between metaphor and simile  ie you are skin and bone rather than you are like skin and bone i.e using ser to assert the integral truth (in defiance of reality) of the statement for comedic value?

or do i have to retake the whole year? :-)

Interesting.

In Swedish, full when applied to a person translates as drunk.

Anna what happens in French?

Désolée, Cobre, je ne sais pas -- mais attends -- I'm looking in the dictionary and --

In French, plein (cognate of lleno) can mean pregnant when you're talking about animals; and it is a slang way of saying drunk!

Donperigo, If you look at the expansion section you'll see:  Está en los huesos / He's all bones.

Now compare this with:  Eres puro hueso / you're all bones.

I think what we have here is one of those sticky, pick your verb deals where even native speakers differ, depending on whether or not there's a full moon. Sometimes is cigar is just a cigar :-)

cobre: I don't know about French, but in German "full" (when applied to a person) can mean "drunk" or "satiate" depending on the context. Thus, you definitely can say "Ich bin voll." (I'm full.) if you don't want to eat more. But it can get a bit tricky if you don't want more of an alcoholic beverage: then the same sentence could also mean "I'm drunk".

anna8 & donperigo: Hm, here is what I think:

"ser/estar flaco": If the speaker is (personally) surprised by the physical appearance of someone, I would expect "estar". If the speaker just states the (stable) physical characteristics of someone, I would expect "ser".

"ser/estar puro hueso": this defines the subject in terms of another noun. I guess for this kind of definitions, "ser" is usually used.

"ser/estar en los huesos": because of "en" we are (at least in a formal sense) talking about the location of the subject, thus, it should be "estar en los huesos".

Cutthatcity, Stevestrv, Anna8,

Thank you all for looking at this phrase with me: "Te ves a Laura flaca"?  I feel more comfortable with it now! 

Donperigo, we don't have to retake the whole year, we just have to keep on keeping on :)

anna8 y kikuyu y martinillo y anyone else who posts while im editing this :-)

we'll cross that bridge after its gone, after we're way past it.

in truth if these phrases had come up in a ser/estar quiz i would probably have used the verbs as in the dialogue. i think im just surprised to see them as elementry examples. the drunk/drunk stuff is  childs play by comparison. which is probably why they chose them.

 i can see the reasoning but i can make equally valid arguments (to me ) for the alternative ie eres muy flaco because you are ectomorphic and "estas pur o hueso" because this is obviously a temporary condition. but then the dialogue would have an "ever so slightly" different meaning.

the truth is that neither phrase means you are thin. what they actually mean is ive cooked too much rice and it would be a shame to throw it away.

donperigo anna8 kikuyu martinillo

"estás muy flaco" sounded strange to me   I would have said “eres muy floaco”.  I wonder if flaco is like bonita.
 
Eres bonita- you are a beautiful lady
Estás bonita esta noche - you look beautiful tonight.

donperigo: I'm not so sure about "estar + noun". Let me use my beloved technique of asking Google for this particular example:

"eres puro hueso": 48 hits

"estás puro hueso": 8 hits

"es puro hueso": 1680 hits

"está puro hueso": 30 hits

"es hueso": 16.300 hits

"está hueso": 357 hits

A difference of more than one order of magnitude is usually a good sign that one alternative is quite uncommon.

I would even think that "estar + noun" in general is not very common, for example:

"eres una": 4.490.000 hits

"estás una": 85.900 hits

("estar un" is often part of "estar un poco + adjective"; "está una" is often part of "aquí/ahí/allí/dónde está una + noun")

cool, thats interesting, so you cant temporarily be a noun

how about "estás como" 714,000 hits that makes more sense.

No, DonPerigo,

A mi casa esto  signifique, que hoy se come  esto o habrá comer los por almuerzo de mañana  en unas sopa.

In my house it means that today you eat this or you will have it for lunch tomorrow in a soup.

Cu tienes razon. no tenemos que tirar comida. entonces...me voy a comer unas sobras.

copper you have the right of it, we shouldnt throw away food. and so, im off to eat some leftovers

Great point Martinillo! The ever-faithful Butt and Benjamin confirm what you intuited about ser + noun:

p420, 29.2.1 "Ser" is used to link elements in statements of the type A = B, where A and B are nouns and pronouns.

Cobre: ¡No alburees! Estámos discutiendo una lección "elementary". ;-)

Cobre: No word-plays! We are discussing an elementary lesson. ;-)

(Acabo de darme cuenta que se puede decir "¡No albures!" y también "¡No alburees!" :)

(I just realized that you can say "No word-plays!" and also "Don't play with words!" :)

I remember learning somewhere that something like 'estas flaca' would mean 'you are skinny 'lately/today/tonight'. Por ejemplo, 'Tu viste laura esta noche? Está muy flaca' for 'Did you see laura tonight, she is really skinny lately'

cutthatcity

That makes sence.  Thanks

Cobre

"Cuando tu eras un nino..."

es la forma correcta

Gracias mztish tienes rázon.

Ahora me oía Lili y JP en la oreja de la mente,

• eras joven
• you weeeerre young

pero la edad ha pasado tan breve que ya le  pareció tomar solo un instante  desde se evaporó.

anna8:

Gracias! Mi libro de gramática no es tan bueno. :-/

Thanks, my grammar book is not that good. :-/

I like desert