Is "to" part of the verb translation? Pedir = to ask

[BobRitter]

Por ejemplo:
No estamos listo para pedir.
No estamos listo a pedir.
No estamos listo pedir.

I am confused about the "to" part of a verb translation. Is the "to" translated as part of the verb? I seem to recall reading somewhere that even though the conjugation tables always say "to order" that the "to" really is not there in the translation.

Hard to explain. I hope someone can get what I'm asking. Thank you, Bob

[aleCcowaN]

"No estamos listos para pedir" is the correct, though somewhat literal, translation of "we're not ready to order" ["todavía no (nos) hemos decidido" is what I would say to the waiter, if asked -because "are you ready to order?" doesn't translate literally either: "¿qué se van a servir?" or "¿qué desean ordenar?"-]

In that sentence "to order" is a full preposition and not used to mark the infinitive of the verb. You were probably thinking of cases like "to order or not to order, that is the question" ("pedir o no pedir, esa es la cuestión"). Use this example to compare the "to + verb" and decide whether the preposition needs to be expressed in Spanish or not.

[pjt33]

Traditional accounts of English grammar are directly (in the case of the earlier ones) or indirectly (following their predecessors) influenced by Latin grammar, even though the grammar of English as she is spoke derives more from the Germanic side of its heritage. Thus they will describe non-finite usage of a verb as an infinitive, whether it includes a to (e.g. I am ready to order) or not (e.g. May we order now?).

On the other hand, the recent, fairly radical, Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (Huddleston and Pullum, 2002, Cambridge University Press) talks of infinitival clauses but not of an infinitive as such.

I prefer to tread a middle ground and think of the bare word as the infinitive and the traditional to-infinitive as being rather a large set of phrasal verbs (e.g. be {adjective} to {infinitive}), although I must confess that the to-infinitive was so drilled into me when studying French, Latin, and Spanish that I had to override my instinct to type to be etc. in the last set of parentheses.

In any case, I think the most helpful way for you to think of it is that to-infinitives use a preposition, and prepositions rarely translate one-to-one. Instead they mainly have to be learnt on a case-by-case basis. (Plus there's the added complication that there are a lot of Spanish phrases with an infinitive which translate to an English phrase with a gerund).

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

@Bob: The preposition "para" here is not exactly a part of the infinitive, but a part of the previous construction "estar listo (para algo)" or "estar listo (para hacer algo)".

· Floyd Mayweather está listo para la pelea.
· Floyd Mayweather está listo para pelear.

· La ciudad está lista para los juegos olímpicos.
· La ciudad está lista para recibir a los deportistas.

· Estas verduras ya están listas para la sopa.
· Estas verduras ya están listas para ponerlas en la sopa.

· Niños, ¿están listos para el examen?
· Niños, ¿están listos para contestar las preguntas del examen?

*Notice that "listo" here is an adjective and must match the noun's gender and number. :)

[BobRitter]

Angelica,
Tiene sentido.
No estamos listo para pedir.
We are not ready for (to order).

Floyd Mayweather está listo para la pelea. ..... ready for (the fight).
Floyd Mayweather está listo para pelear. ..... ready for (to fight).

Gracias a todos.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

No estamos listos para pedir/ordenar. ;)