me ayuda por favor

[canyonff]

i had a situation the other day where I needed to talk to the spanish crews boss. So basically, i asked them where he was, and they'd say "i don't know". or "over there," basically some indescript location. When i was about to say "well what's his name?" my brother ended up finding the site supervisor, so we didn't need to find their boss anymore. which to me was a relief because i was unsure of the most correct way to ask.

obviously;

what's your bosses name?
?que es el nombre de tu jefe? [informal]
?que es el nombre de su jefe? [formal]

is the most literal of translations [read: dumb] , so I didn't want to say it like that. I know that spanish speakers generally use llamar when speaking about names. So the wheels started turning in my head and I locked up. I couldn't for the life of me recall how to say "what do you call him."

so basically i sat down and thought about it.

[en la cabeza]

i know i want to use llamas [you call], but hmmmm. Which pronoun to use?

?como se llamas? - [could work, but too ambiguous]
?como se llamas tu? - [still ambiguous]
?como se llamas a/de él? - [don't even think that's right]

that just sounds too reflexive, then i thought maybe

?como te lo llamas? - [nope still not right, but hey!]
?como lo llamas? - [hmmm, let's see]

como - what >
llamas - you call [s/v] >
lo - 3rd(s) d.o. pronoun [d.o]

hey that's it! I think...

[/en la cabeza]


So basically, what i'm asking is, is "?como lo llamas?" correct in the following situation?

me - ?dónde está tu jefe?
p1 - no sé.
me - ?como lo llamas? or ?como se llamas? [since i believe it's obvious I don't want the listeners name, or would it still be too ambiguous]


Just wondering, but it got me thinking of all the different ways you could say "What's your bosses name?" So I made a few I think are correct, please correct these if they're wrong, and feel free to add other phrases.

what's the name of your boss? / what's your bosses name?
?que es el nombre de tu/su jefe?

your boss, what's his name?
tu/su jefe, ?que es su nombre?

what do you call your boss?
?como lo llamas tu/su jefe?
tu/su jefe, ?como lo llamas?

[your boss] What does he call himself?
?como se llama él?

[Elaina]

Lo siento pero todo lo que escribiste se me hace muy gracioso.

When you want to ask someone their name...
-¿Como te llamas?
-¿Como se llama? (formal)
Which literally means: What do you call yourself?

You could also say...
-¿Cual es tu nombre?
-¿Cual es su nombre?
Which literally means: What is your name?

BUT NEVER....... ¿Como te lo llamas? (What do you call it?) Unless you are talking about a specific thing.

So......you want to know someone else's name...
-¿Como se llama tu jefe? (here, the word jefe can be substituted for another person, for example...tu mamá, tu papá, tu amigo, etc)
-¿Como se llama su jefe?
What is your boss's name?

You could've said...
-¿Cual es el nombre de tu jefe?
-¿Cual es el nombre de su jefe?
-¿Qué es el nombre de tu jefe?
-¿Qué es el nombre de su jefe?
These forms are hardly used though.

Now the boss's name is not necessarily what the employees call him/her.
So if you ask...

What do you call your boss?
The answers you get may not be his given name.

I hope I have been somewhat helpful.

Elaina

[Alfonso]

El verbo pronominal LLAMARSE se conjuga de la siguiente manera:

Yo me llamo
Tú te llamas
Él/ella/vd. se llama
Nosotros-as nos llamamos
Vosotros-as os llamáis
Ellos/ellas/vds. se llaman

Por lo tanto: ¿Cómo se llama tu jefe? [él]
¿Cómo se llama usted? [usted]

Los pronombres átonos me, te, se, nos, os, se son los que presentan también los verbos reflexivos, por ejemplo: ducharse, peinarse, mirarse, etc. Estos verbos se conjugan igual que llamarse.

[canyonff]

Escrito originalmente por Elaina

Lo siento pero todo lo que escribiste se me hace muy gracioso.

some of it was supposed to be funny, but if i actually have to think about moving words around, that's almost literally how my mind works through it.

You could also say...
-¿Cual es tu nombre?
-¿Cual es su nombre?
Which literally means: What is your name?

totally forgot about cual

Now the boss's name is not necessarily what the employees call him/her.
So if you ask...

What do you call your boss?
The answers you get may not be his given name.

when i was writing the OP, i knew someone would say this.

I hope I have been somewhat helpful.

You have been, muchas gracias.