Letter to Spanish colleague

[Don José]

¿Así crees que debo usar "estación de servicio" en una carta semi-formal?

No, puedes usar "gasolinera" también. Quizás "estación de servicio" se usa para indicar que no sólo se vende gasolina, pero "gasolinera" es muchísimo más frecuente (España) y es apropiada para esa carta.

[pinosilano]

"Bomba de bencina" es usado en Chile. También en Italia (pompa di benzina).

"Estación de servicio" siempre se ha referido a la venta de carburante en las carreteras, pues nació para ello. En seguida ampliaron locales y comercio. Incluso hay estaciones de servicio que venden sólo carburante.
(En Italia se usa "stazione di servizio)

Gasolinera me suena muy raro: no estoy acostumbrado a escuchar ni leer esa palabra

Buen fin de semana a todos.

[GuapaErika]

(Purple/red were Rusty's initial corrections and I have made some changes and questions in blue!! ¡Gracias por alguna otra ayuda!)

Querido profesor,
Me pone feliz que usted va (wrong mood)(No entiendo – why is it the wrong mood? I’m glad that you are going to spend the year with us – how should this change? Should I use “vaya a pasar” instead? I’ve always just used the present tense of “ir” + a + infinitive to form a future tense. Should I just use “que usted pasaré el año” instead?) a pasar el año con nosotros en Minnesota. Es un estado muy bonito y hay muchas cosas para hacer. Creo que sería muy útil si (wrong word) (que) (missing something here) (le!! – can’t forget that indirect object pronoun!) escribo (wrong mood) (escriba - because it’s subjunctive? Can I stick with the present subjunctive or would it have to be “escribiera”?) una guía de compras para usted.
En nuestra ciudad no hay muchas tiendas, pero hay un supermercado pequeño y dos estaciones de gasolina (* see note below) (gasolinera – even though they don’t use that word in Chile..) en que puede buscar las cositas cosas necesarias para la vida diaria, como refrescos y meriendas. También hay un café pequeño donde sirve(conjugate for plural, or use a 'se' construct) (so I should use ‘sirven’ to mean that “they serve” it there? I thought it would be ‘sirve’ because “the restaurant serves it” and the restaurant is singular – but I can see why that would use a ‘se’ construct now.) chocolate caliente buenísimo.
No tenemos mucha transportación pública, así (missing something here) (que) la mayoría de la gente tiene que conducir (is this not a good verb? Should I use ‘manejar’ instead?) a (las) (get rid of this article?) otras ciudades para ir de compras. En la ciudad grande más cercana, puede encontrar más supermercados y un centro comercial bastante grande. Hay tiendas de ropa, cafés, zapaterías, y muchas otras tiendas. Es un lugar perfecto para pasar un rato con amigos. En la parte vieja de la ciudad hay tiendas de antiguas (antigüedades – had to look up that word, guess I should have just stayed away from it!!), joyerías, y pastelerías. Esto (Este) es el lugar para buscar recuerdos y regalos, si tiene ganas de comprarlos.
Si usted quiere más información en algunas (wrong words) (sobre algunas – is that ok? Or is there something other than “algunas” also?) tiendas, puede buscarlos (buscarlas – why did I do that?!?) en la página web de la ciudad o puede preguntarme.
¡Hasta pronto! ¡Saludos!
-Srta. W

... Would one be more proper than the other? (Your quandary is between using direct language and generic address. Since you directly addressed your visitor everywhere else, I see no need to break the trend for one sentence.) Makes sense!!

[wrholt]

Originally Posted by GuapaErika

(Purple/red were Rusty's initial corrections and I have made some changes and questions in blue!! ¡Gracias por alguna otra ayuda!)

Querido profesor,
Me pone feliz que usted va (wrong mood)(No entiendo – why is it the wrong mood? I’m glad that you are going to spend the year with us – how should this change? Should I use “vaya a pasar” instead? I’ve always just used the present tense of “ir” + a + infinitive to form a future tense. Should I just use “que usted pasaré el año” instead?) a pasar el año con nosotros en Minnesota.

The main clause is "me pone feliz" = an emotion.

Originally Posted by GuapaErika

Es un estado muy bonito y hay muchas cosas para hacer. Creo que sería muy útil si (wrong word) (que) (missing something here) (le!! – can’t forget that indirect object pronoun!) escribo (wrong mood) (escriba - because it’s subjunctive? Can I stick with the present subjunctive or would it have to be “escribiera”?) una guía de compras para usted.

Sequence of tenses: main clause verb is "creo" = present tense. controlling verb is "sería".

Originally Posted by GuapaErika

En nuestra ciudad no hay muchas tiendas, pero hay un supermercado pequeño y dos estaciones de gasolina (* see note below) (gasolinera – even though they don’t use that word in Chile..) en que puede buscar las cositas cosas necesarias para la vida diaria, como refrescos y meriendas. También hay un café pequeño donde sirve(conjugate for plural, or use a 'se' construct) (so I should use ‘sirven’ to mean that “they serve” it there? I thought it would be ‘sirve’ because “the restaurant serves it” and the restaurant is singular – but I can see why that would use a ‘se’ construct now.) chocolate caliente buenísimo.

But a restaurant is not a person, and it is not capable of serving anything. So either the restaurant staff serve you (and one generally assumes that more than one person works at the restaurant) or one uses the impersonal 'se' construction.

Originally Posted by GuapaErika

No tenemos mucha transportación pública, así (missing something here) (que) la mayoría de la gente tiene que conducir (is this not a good verb? Should I use ‘manejar’ instead?) a (las) (get rid of this article?) otras ciudades para ir de compras.

I'm uncertain myself here, though (a) there are regional differences in the preferred word that translates "to drive (a vehicle)". I'm not certain that substituting "manejar" for "conducir" resolves the problem; perhaps Rusty will follow up, or one of our native speakers will chime in. It may be as simple as "conducir" has additional meanings and in this context "conducir" is not specific enough or is not the usual way that one says "drive myself by automobile".

Originally Posted by GuapaErika

En la ciudad grande más cercana, puede encontrar más supermercados y un centro comercial bastante grande. Hay tiendas de ropa, cafés, zapaterías, y muchas otras tiendas. Es un lugar perfecto para pasar un rato con amigos. En la parte vieja de la ciudad hay tiendas de antiguas (antigüedades – had to look up that word, guess I should have just stayed away from it!!), joyerías, y pastelerías. Esto (Este) es el lugar para buscar recuerdos y regalos, si tiene ganas de comprarlos.
Si usted quiere más información en algunas (wrong words) (sobre algunas – is that ok? Or is there something other than “algunas” also?) tiendas, puede buscarlos (buscarlas – why did I do that?!?) en la página web de la ciudad o puede preguntarme.
¡Hasta pronto! ¡Saludos!
-Srta. W

... Would one be more proper than the other? (Your quandary is between using direct language and generic address. Since you directly addressed your visitor everywhere else, I see no need to break the trend for one sentence.) Makes sense!!

"En" is a strange way to translate "about"; "sobre" is better, and "de" would work as well.

Did you want to say "If you want to get more information about stores/some stores/any stores/the stores" (that is, a general statement), rather than "If you want to get information about some stores (and not about other stores)", then "algunas" may not give the right shade of meaning.

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by GuapaErika

Querido profesor,
Me pone feliz que usted vaya (Should I use “vaya a pasar” instead? Yes, emotion triggers the subjunctive mood.) a pasar el año con nosotros en Minnesota. Es un estado muy bonito y hay muchas cosas para hacer. Creo que sería muy útil que le escriba (correct mood ('it would be useful that' introduces a clause that must be in the subjunctive)) (or would it have to be “escribiera”? Yes. The conditional mood in the introductory clause triggers the use of the 'imperfecto de subjuntivo'.) una guía de compras para usted.
En nuestra ciudad no hay muchas tiendas, pero hay un supermercado pequeño y dos gasolineras en que puede buscar las cosas necesarias para la vida diaria, como refrescos y meriendas. También hay un café pequeño donde sirven chocolate caliente buenísimo.
No tenemos mucha transportación pública, así que la mayoría de la gente tiene que manejar/conducir a otras ciudades para ir de compras. En la ciudad grande más cercana, puede encontrar más supermercados y un centro comercial bastante grande. Hay tiendas de ropa, cafés, zapaterías, y muchas otras tiendas. Es un lugar perfecto para pasar un rato con amigos. En la parte vieja de la ciudad hay tiendas de antigüedades, joyerías, y pastelerías. Este es el lugar para buscar recuerdos y regalos, si tiene ganas de comprarlos.
Si usted quiere más información sobre algunas tiendas, puede buscarlas en la página web de la ciudad o puede preguntarme.
¡Hasta pronto! ¡Saludos!
-Srta. W

I originally marked conducir so you'd learn that manejar may also be an option. I believe both are equally understood and universal in scope, but usage varies from country to country.

The reason I marked the pronoun 'las' is because 'información' is the topic of discussion, not the stores. With only the topic in mind, it's easy to see that the sentence can be shortened to:
"If you want more information, you can look it up on the city's web site." (You used 'web page', which refers to a specific page of a web site.)
If you want to draw attention to the stores (by the way, I wouldn't group all the stores together - 'about any (one) of the stores' sounds better to me, since I wouldn't think that the visiting professor would have a question about all of them), the topic needs to be shifted to them. If each store has a representative page on the city's web site, you could rewrite the sentence to say, "If you want to find out more about any one of the stores, you can look for the store's web page on the city's web site."

[Don José]

Originally Posted by Rusty

I originally marked conducir so you'd learn that manejar may also be an option. I believe both are equally understood and universal in scope, but usage varies from country to country.

Not here, and so not so universal:

RAE: 5. tr. Am. conducir (‖ guiar un automóvil).

No tenemos mucha transportación pública, así que la mayoría de la gente tiene que manejar a otras ciudades para ir de compras.

If I didn't know that meaning of "manejar", the "wrong to my ears" sentence would sound as:

así que la mayoría de la gente se las tiene que manejar para ir a otras ciudades para ir de compras.

... people have to manage to ... So they could use a train, a bus, get a rid from somebody, etc.

Here we say "transporte público" instead of "transportación pública", althouhg the last one would be understood. In other contexts we can use "transportación", but no here.

[GuapaErika]

Can I just say that all of you are outstanding. Such amazingly fast responses and great explanations!! I will have more time to look/correct later (and possibly attempt a new letter with a different topic for everyone to tackle), but I just wanted to say how great you are and how much I appreciate it!!

[GuapaErika]

Originally Posted by Rusty

I originally marked conducir so you'd learn that manejar may also be an option. I believe both are equally understood and universal in scope, but usage varies from country to country. Vale.

The reason I marked the pronoun 'las' is because 'información' is the topic of discussion, not the stores. With only the topic in mind, it's easy to see that the sentence can be shortened to:
"If you want more information, you can look it up on the city's web site." (You used 'web page', which refers to a specific page of a web site.) Yep, I see that now.
If you want to draw attention to the stores (by the way, I wouldn't group all the stores together - 'about any (one) of the stores' sounds better to me, since I wouldn't think that the visiting professor would have a question about all of them), the topic needs to be shifted to them. If each store has a representative page on the city's web site, you could rewrite the sentence to say, "If you want to find out more about any one of the stores, you can look for the store's web page on the city's web site." I guess I was using "algunas tiendas" to mean "any one of the stores" and I'm at a loss for how to change it. "unas tiendas"??

Gracias por la ayuda, otra vez.

Originally Posted by wrholt

"En" is a strange way to translate "about"; "sobre" is better, and "de" would work as well. (I guess in my head I was thinking "If you want more information on some of the stores.." and I should have been thinking "about some of the stores".)

Did you want to say "If you want to get more information about stores/some stores/any stores/the stores" (that is, a general statement), rather than "If you want to get information about some stores (and not about other stores)", then "algunas" may not give the right shade of meaning.

Yes, I wanted to have a general statement about getting information about some/any of the stores. Rusty didn't like my usage of "algunas" either, and I don't know what to change it to - unas? I thought that just meant 'some'??

Gracias por la ayuda, wrholt.

[Rusty]

... about any (one) of the stores ...
... sobre cualquiera de las tiendas ...

[GuapaErika]

Originally Posted by Rusty

... about any (one) of the stores ...
... sobre cualquiera de las tiendas ...

¡Claro! Why couldn't I think of that word? Gracias, Rusty..