BellaOnline Forums Education Spanish Language SPANISH READING BOOK - June '05 Book.

�Hola a todos!

This month's book is The ugly duckling - El patito feo. If you want to read more about it or just want to buy the book, here's the link:

The ugly duckling / El patito feo (A bilingual book)

For those who have the book, I think we could start by reading the first 2 pages (note that there are no numbers, so the first page is the one begining with "I was summer... / Era verano...)

This is a tale, so we'll have the opportunity of getting used to Spanish past tenses!

So please, read pages 1 and 2 and send you comments (or questions!).

Hope to hear soon from you!

�Hola!

There is a sentence is page "1" (the one starting with 'Era verano...'):

"El trigo estaba dorado, y la avena, verde"

Do any of you know if we can change the verb "estaba" to "era"? Would the this sentence keep the same meaning?

Clue: Read The verb Estar

I will be receiving my copy of the book sometime this week.

No problem, Gerg, as the book is not too long and I think we'll have time enough! <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Is it is condition of the wheat which requires estaba and not era? There are so many slight variations in the use of the verg.

Estaba is used also in Hac�a tanto estaba incubando. It translates into a much longer sentence then it appears. Please explain.

(Also change does to do....)

a abrirse = to hatch
abrir = to open

explain a�ad�an maravillados
explain todav� no se hab�a roto
explain del corral

Yes, there are a lot of variations!

And note that you're close to the answer. "Ser" denotes 'permanent state' and "estar", on the contrary, 'non-permanent states'. So, if the sentence says that "El trigo estaba dorado..." we understand that at that concrete moment, wheat was golden, but it isn't a permanent state, as i.e. some days before, wheat could have other color.

"�Hac�a tanto tiempo que estaba incubando!" appears as "She had been waiting for a long time for her eggs to hatch".

Sometimes some expressions in certain languages do not have an exact translation, and we must use the most approximate terms. This is the case of "Hace tiempo..." In this case, it's an impersonal sentence, and it means "a long time ago" or "for a long time"; That's why the sentence has been translated as "She had been waiting for a long time".

Ok, the translation is not exactly the same, as in English, it says that she has been waiting for a long time, but in Spanish is says that she had been 'incubating' the eggs for a long time. The verb 'incubar' refers to the action of sitting on the eggs, heating them until they crash.

So, this is why the Spanish sentence corresponds to a long English one.

Hope this helps!

The book says: "Finalmente los huevos empezaron a abrirse" and the English sentence is: "Finally, the eggs started to crack open".

So, according to this, "a abrirse" corresponds to "to crack open", as "hatch" is "to incubate". And yes, "abrir", is "to open", but we also have "abrirse", a reflexive verb.

-->"a�ad�an maravillados" it is translated in the book as "amazed, they added"; the literal translation for the Spanish part would be something like: "they added, amazed".

--> "todav�a no se hab�a roto". Yes, in page '2', it says; 'one of the the eggs hadn't hatched yet". So, there is still a confussion between "to hatch", "incubar", and "abrirse". The literal translation for this in Spanish is: 'uno de los huevos todav�a no se hab�a incubado' but they translate this verb as "romper", not as "incubar".

From my point of view, I'd translate the Spanish sentence as 'one of the eggs hadn't cracked open yet'.

--> del corral = Yes, this has been ommited in English. 'Del corral' means 'from the barnyard'.

Hope this helps!

oh! thanks! I changed it! ;-)