Quote:
Originally Posted by Elaina
I understand that the sentence itself is not correct........I was mostly interested in the usage of de and para which I think I am beginning to grasp.....
Alas, the sentence is not mine it was borrowed but only for demonstration purposes.
As far as the usage of but......I don't think its usage is that of being a negative word always...I guess it depends on the contents of the sentence it is being used in.
i.e.
1. Are you an Englishman?
But of course!
2. I feel freedom and excitement as I secretly skinny-dip in my neighbor's pool but the possibility of being seen or discovered sends shivers up my spine in erotic pleasure.
Is the word "pero" always used for negativity?
Thank you for your patience.
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Well, but you are giving an example with
but and your conclussions are about
pero. You cannot translate it literally into Spanish:
-¿Eres inglés?
-¡Pero desde luego! (here,
pero doesn't make sense).
On your second example (a really beautiful one; a borrowed one or a personal feelling?) you use
but as in Spanish
pero could be used. And there exists a meaning of adverseness on it. Negativeness is a different thing. (I'm using adverseness for the Spanish
carácter adversativo, frases adversativas, etc. It's a technical term I don't know if I'm using correctly. Any help?)
Anyway, I was wrong, as I read the the sentence wrongly:
Yo no tengo la habilidad de manejar camiones grandes pero tengo la habilidad para manejar mi automovil.
The first phrase is a negative one, so the adversed character is fully justified. I've got nothing to object to
pero here. I'm sorry I misunderstood the sentence.
I agree with what Sosia says, but the proper term to define the grammatical meaning of
pero is, in Spanish,
adversativo. So, you speak about
frases adversativas when they show:
pero, sino, en cambio, sin embargo, por el contrario, etc
.