¿Cómo estamos?

[Caballero]

What are the implications of using this to ask someone how they are. I know it literally means "How are we?"

[aleCcowaN]

It depends on the context. It may imply that the answer affects you or concerns you more than what's usual. It might be a trick to promote empathic reactions, the same way a bum addressing you "guvnor" or some people from one or two Spanish speaking regions calling you "amigo".

[poli]

This is only by ear but I think ¿a cómo estamos? may mean what is today's date. I may be wrong, so please wait for a native speaker to confirm this.

[Perikles]

Have a look at my post no. 5 on this thread. That is one way of using it (although it doesn't follow that it applies elsewhere).

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by poli

This is only by ear but I think ¿a cómo estamos? ...

Hay cosas que se oyen pero que no deben repetirse .

Perikles se me anticipó... el evitar definir si tú o si usted en un uso muy común en todas partes, pero no el principal.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Originally Posted by poli

This is only by ear but I think ¿a cómo estamos? may mean what is today's date. I may be wrong, so please wait for a native speaker to confirm this.

It's a colloquial expression. Some people prefer to avoid it, and ask "¿qué fecha es hoy?" instead.


@Caballero: In many ocassions, that use of "nosotros" implies some solidarity or empathy.
For example, when you visit a friend at the hospital and ask "¿Cómo estamos?", it's obviously not an alternative to "tú"/"usted", but it's rather expressing you feel for them and you hope they're doing better.
If you say hello to a group of close friends and ask "¿Cómo estamos?", somehow you're asking them all how they are doing while expressing you feel a part of that group and that you feel identified with them.

[Luna Azul]

Originally Posted by Caballero

What are the implications of using this to ask someone how they are. I know it literally means "How are we?"

"How are we today?" is quite common in English. Nurses ask that to their patients all the time. I find it particularly annoying, for some reason. Why can't they just ask "how are you (feeling) today?"

I don't think I've heard, let alone used, "¿cómo estamos?" in Spanish, but I would say that yes, it's close to the English term.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Luna Azul

"How are we today?" is quite common in English. Nurses ask that to their pacients all the time. I find it particularly annoying, for some reason. Why can't the just ask "how are you (feeling) today?"

Yes, for some reason it sounds very patronizing to me, as though the patient were a small child or somebody not quite a whole person.

(By the way - it's not often I could correct your English - the underlined is interesting )

Anyway, this is not how it comes across with cómo estamos here in Tenerife, when there is clearly an awkwardness about using formal or informal.

[Luna Azul]

Originally Posted by Perikles

Yes, for some reason it sounds very patronizing to me, as though the patient were a small child or somebody not quite a whole person.

(By the way - it's not often I could correct your English - the underlined is interesting )

Anyway, this is not how it comes across with cómo estamos here in Tenerife, when there is clearly an awkwardness about using formal or informal.

Apart from the typo (pacients ), how would you say that? It sounded peculiar to me but I was too tired to bother to try to find a better way.

Thank you!!!

[poli]

"ask that to their patients" sounds natural to me
ask their patients that sounds even better

[Rusty]

"Nurses ask their patients that all the time."

[Luna Azul]

Originally Posted by poli

"ask that to their patients" sounds natural to me
ask their patients that sounds even better

Thank you!. So, my sentence, except for the typo was correct?

Originally Posted by Rusty

"Nurses ask their patients that all the time."

Yes.. that sounds better to me too. Thanks a lot!

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by poli

"ask that to their patients" sounds natural to me
ask their patients that sounds even better

To me, the first one sounds completely wrong, and the second is the only possibility. I can't think of an English construction where you would 'ask to' somebody, because with 'ask' you have a direct object, not an indirect one.

[poli]

In everyday American English you hear it. Other examples:
"How are you today?"
"People ask that all the time."
"Really? They don't ask that to me." (although people don't ask me that
sounds much better) I'm not sure the former would be considered correct in prescriptive grammar, although no rules that I'm running through my head indicate that it is wrong.

[Rusty]

The verb 'ask' can take both a direct object and an indirect object.

In this article, "I need to ask John a question" is treated as a special case, where the indirect object immediately follows the verb 'ask'. I admit this sounds much better. However, I'm quite certain I've heard the next sentence the article spotlights both ways. And, "He promised it to me," sounds much better than "He promised me it."

[Caballero]

Originally Posted by poli

In everyday American English you hear it.

I've never once heard it before now. In my idiolect, it is wrong.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by poli

"ask that to their patients" sounds natural to me
ask their patients that sounds even better

Examples in COCA:

Alan Colmes (FOX news): "In all fairness, you could ask that to anybody in any state about their senator or Congress person, and they probably wouldn't be able to answer that question."

Mrs W. Miller (wife of convicted rapists and murderer Wesley Miller): "You can ask that to my attorneys."

Senator Joseph Biden (in CBS Morning): "And ask that to Phil Gramm."

But "ask to ZZ that" gathers fifty times more instances within that corpus.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Rusty

The verb 'ask' can take both a direct object and an indirect object.

In this article, "I need to ask John a question" is treated as a special case, where the indirect object immediately follows the verb 'ask'.

Well, I read what it says, but I don't see the person being asked as an indirect object. Clearly, he/she is an indirect object in Romance languages (as far as I can tell) but definitely is a direct object in German (ich frage dich), and also Greek (erotao, eresthai) and Latin (interrogo), where verbs can have two direct objects in the accusative. Ultimately though, I don't suppose it matters how you actually define it in English.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

Examples in COCA:

But "ask to ZZ that" gathers fifty times more instances within that corpus.

(cross-posting) That's interesting because the BNC has zero instances. (I couldn't get access to COCA to compare). "To ask to" is absolutely incorrect in BrE.

I reckon this is some distortion of English caused by the influence of Spanish in America.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by Perikles

I reckon this is some distortion of English caused by the influence of Spanish in America.

You took the words right out of my mouth. I was going to say that I expect English to have a more flexible word order in the future owing to the influence of Spanish.

If you look for people who don't give a darn about word order in English .... servidor, como decimos por acá .