Espanto

[DailyWord]

This is a discussion thread for the Daily Spanish Word for June 23, 2008

espanto -masculine noun (el), fright, terror, amazement, consternation. Look up espanto in the dictionary

No me gustan las películas de espanto para nada.
I don't like horror flicks one bit.

[Alfonso]

En España no se usa películas de espanto. Es la primera vez que lo oigo.
En cambio, decimos: películas de terror o películas de miedo.

[Tomisimo]

In Mexico they use all three. Probably película de terror is the best overall option. Thanks!

[CrOtALiTo]

Alfonso, you can to use espanto so.

La pelicula, el ultimo dia es un espanto, horrible, fea, pelicula.

[Alfonso]

Originally Posted by CrOtALiTo

Alfonso, you can to use espanto so.

La pelicula, el ultimo dia es un espanto, horrible, fea, pelicula.

We are not meaning the same.

In Spain you don't say una película de espanto to mean una película de terror.


But you can say:

• Esa película / esa mujer / esa luz / esa paella es un espanto /es espantosa.
• Ese cortometraje / ese vestido / ese coche / ese hombre es un espanto /es espantoso.

One thing is a cinematographic genre (a substantive), and another different thing is an adjective you can apply to something you consider ugly.

[Tomisimo]

Originally Posted by Alfonso

One thing is a cinematographic genre (a substantive noun), and another different thing is an adjective you can apply to something you consider ugly.

[Alfonso]

Thanks a lot for your correction, David. It makes me think, as I've checked substantive in Tomísimo dictionary and I found out this: substantive N any word or group of words functioning as a noun

So, I guess you don't use this word, you are not familiar with it or you don't think it's proper in this context. Which one of them?

As you probably know, we use in Spanish sustantivo with the same meaning as nombre. You can even hear or read nombre sustantivo, but I think it's a redundancy.

[Tomisimo]

Substantive is a synonym for noun, but only a few people who have studied linguistics formally will be familiar with the term. To most people noun is the only translation for sustantivo. To most people substantive would be an adjective meaning sólido, fuerte etc.

So, while substantive is correct, I would guess that only 95+% of English speakers would understand it.