I'm working on a L and C story and I'm going to need someone to help me with some Spanish for the story (I could use French, but I'd rather use Spanish). I'll probably have other expressions or sentences I need to translate into Spanish as I work on this story, but for right now, I need to know the following:

1. How do you say, 'Doctor' (as in the person) in Spanish? Is it Medico?

2. How do you say: 'Don't move' in Spanish?

3. How do you say: 'She's awake' in Spanish?

4. What is a common term of endearment that a husband might use when addressing his new bride in Spanish (something like Sweetheart)?

I'm sure I'll have other such questions as I go along, so if you speek Spanish, please be sure to check back here often over the next couple of weeks .

ML

Hey ML!

Here it is, but I don't have one of those fabulous latin keyboards, so just keep in mind that none of the accents are in place.
1.) Doctor can be "medico" OR "doctor". Both are fine.
2.)Don't move.=No te muevas./No se mueva. (use the "te" one if the person knows the other person well, use "se" if they are strangers/acquaintances)
3.)She's awake.=Esta despierta.
4.)There are all *kinds* of terms of endearment, but the basics (that I think someone would use for his new bride) would be "querida" (my dear), "carina" (also my dear/darling/honey), "corazon" (literally means heart, but is actually meant to be more like sweetheart), and of course, "mi amor" (my love).

Hope this helps! I prefer Spanish over French, too...although it's probably because my Spanish teacher is waaay cooler than my French teacher.

Mirage

Thanks, Mirage. Can you also tell me how you would say "You're awake?"

Hi MLT!

Mirage it's right, except for '"carina" (also my dear/darling/honey)', the word it's "cariño".

You're awake?=Estas despierta? -->if someone's asking a woman (femenine, third person)
You're awakw? = Estas despierto? --> if someone's asking a man (masculine, third person)

Hope it helps.

Carolyn

Thanks, Carolyn. Your help is greatly appreciated.

Sorry, Spanish is language #4 for me - I'm in year three right now! But I'm going to Spain for 10 days in about a week, so hopefully I'll be picking up more terms of endearment during the trip! j/k, of course.

Mirage

Okay, here's another question. I have to create a town. I want to call the town "Valley of Gold." Of course, I'm thinking I'd like to use a Spanish name. So how would I say: "Valley of Gold" (or something else that implies money) in Spanish? In French, of course, it would be Val d'Or (which is the name I'd give the town if I were going with French. Or I'd call it Gold Valley if I were going with English).

I'm terribly rusty on my Spanish, so I'll leave that to the experts. But I did want to throw in my two cents about the town name. One of the suburbs of Tucson is called Oro Valley, and "oro" of course, is "gold" in Spanish. Sounds better than Gold Valley, IMO. And... iirc, El Dorado was the city of gold, though that might be a little pretentious for your purposes. *Love* your work!!!

Sara

I just wanted to add that either médico or doctor can be used when talking *about* a doctor, but to address the doctor, you would use Doctor.

(Just like in English, you can say someone is "my physician" or "my doctor". When talking to him, you call him "Doctor".)

- Vicki

That's more good information about the use of the word 'doctor'. Thanks, Vicki.

Sara: El Dorado might work. I might use 'Pequeno El Dorado' though - which, assuming I'm reading my English/Spanish dictionary right, would actually mean: 'Little City of Gold'. I think that might be perfect. Thanks.

Proper grammar/form (?) would be El Dorado Pequeno, which, after looking at my Spanish dictionary means literally, The Golden Little. "El DOrado" is, however, "the legendary city of gold." I'd suggest "El Doradito" (the "ito" signifying "little"... among other things), though I'm in danger of making up words and it doesn't sound that pretty. *sigh* Okay, sorry, I'm really leaving this up to the native speakers now.

Sara

Literally Dorado means anything covered with gold or at least that has the color of gold, so when you say El Dorado you're implying by the pronoun EL, that the place has/it's covered of gold.

MLT if you like El Dorado and want to say it's a little place/town you could go with El Pequeño Dorado.

skfolc, you're not making up anything, doradito its a word, 'ito' does mean 'little' although as 'tiny'.
For example pencil = lapiz, if you say 'Could you lend me you're pencil?=Puedes prestarme tu lapiz?', even if the pencil it's half used (small)and you'd like to specify it's size you still say pencil. But if the pencil it's used almost all of it(it's particulary small), in this case if you wanted to specify it'll be 'Could you lend me you're small pencil?=Puedes prestarme tu lapicito?'. If you said 'lapicito' for a half pencil it's not accurate because the pencil is not *that* small.

Hope I didn't confuse either of you with my attempt of an explanation

Carolyn

El Pequeño Dorado it is. Thanks, guys. You're being such a big help.

I have a couple more Spanish questions. How do you say:

1. "I don't speak English."

2. "That's okay. I speak Spanish."

Thanks.

1. "I don't speak English."

No hablo inglés.

2. "That's okay. I speak Spanish."

Está bien. Hablo español.

Glad to see you're still going strong with this, ML! Can't wait to read it!

Sara

Thanks, Sara. I'm still going strong. At page 130 and still counting so I hope you like long stories. (But then when have I written anything short )

One tip about the keyboards thing. I discovered that there are a LOT of shortcuts for accents on regular keyboards. There's a bunch of them all mixed-up with 3-digit shortcuts (which I've discovered don't seem to work for some people), and a regular list with 4-digit shortcuts (which have much more universal success). Here are a few of the most necessary:

á = Alt+160 = Alt+0225
é = Alt+130 = Alt+0233
í = Alt+161 = Alt+0237
ó = Alt+162 = Alt+0243
ú = Alt+163 = Alt+0250

¡ = Alt+173 = Alt+0161
¿ = Alt+168 = Alt+0191

Hope that helps!

Thanks for the info on accents, Doranwen. But since I have to submit my story to the archives in text form, accents don't work.

Anyway, I have another question. How do you ask 'why?' in Spanish?

ML

Why = ¿Por qué?

And incidentally, "because" is "porque".

Sara

Thanks, Sara.

You're doing it fine, Sara

Jose