Palabra por palabra
 

Word by word? Word for word?

Thanks.

No sé si estoy en lo cierto, pero depende del contexto.

John repitió lo que dijo mi hermano anoche, palabra por palabra (exactamente lo que dijo) sería: John repeated what my brother said last night word for word.
(Mi hermano dijo: Me voy a Panama, y John dijo: Me voy a Panama).
(Es un ejemplo un poco pueril pero no estoy inspirada ahora mismo.)

Sin embargo, palabra por palabra=word by word cuando hay alguna dificultad para entender algo, memorizar. No sé si me explico.
He went through the instructions again word by word as the table from Ikea was lopsided after he'd finished putting it together!

Pero espera alguna sugerencia más de los anglos.:)

I would still use "word for word" in your example. In fact, I looked at this post earlier, and have been trying to think of a situation in which I would use "word by word", and I don't think that I would really ever use that combinations of words. Of course, it makes sense. It's just not really used (that I can think of).

He listened carefully to the message several times, until he was sure he had written it down word for word, and then translated it word by word, looking each one up in the dictionary.

An alternative to word for word is verbatim :)

Nope, I still wouldn't use word by word there. I would still use word for word....

Still thinking ... with your example, I think that I would re-phrase it altogether: "...and then translated it word by word, looking each word up in the dictionary."

I'm afraid I agree with pjt: word for word means a one-to-one correspondence between the original and the copy, in other words, identical. You then translate, moving forwards along your copied script word by word. The translation cannot actually be word for word because there is not always a one-to-one correspondence between words of the two languages. :)

Like I said - the words make sense to me when used together. And I understand the idea of one-to-one correspondence and the lack thereof in translation of language. I'm just saying that I don't know that I would ever use (or have ever heard) that phrase. Maybe it's a BrE vs. AmE thing?

Good on you, pjt33!:thumbsup: That's exactly the message I was trying to convey but my brain was a bit slushy this morning.

COCA lists 45 instances of "word by word", and although a couple are not American speakers (e.g. one is a quote from an Israeli minister), the majority are not obviously not native AmE speakers. BNC lists 12 instances, and since it's a quarter of the size that doesn't suggest a widely different frequency of usage between BrE and AmE.