Cuántas personas caben en el coche

[ROBINDESBOIS]

para cuantas personas hay sitio en el coche?
cuantas personas caben en el coche?
Cómo podemos traducir esto en inglés?

[CrOtALiTo]

How people can be inside of the car?

May my translation work?

[pjt33]

How many people does the car hold?
How many people can fit in the car?
What is it, a 5-seater?

Crotalito, se entiende, pero "be" no es la mejor elección de verbo ("¿Cuántas personas pueden estar dentro del coche?" suena raro, ¿no?), y "inside of" me parece excesivo. "The inside of X" es "el interior de X", pero cuando se trata de preposición basta "inside" o, en este y otros casos, "in".

[Perikles]

Can anyone tell me what passenger means in this context, and whether it means the same as pasajero? This might be a strange question, but recently I was booking a ferry to another island, on-line in Spanish. One car and how many passengers? was the question. I got it wrong because I answered 1 passenger, meaning 1 driver plus 1 passenger. The site understood 1 person in the car, just the driver, counting the driver as a passenger, which is wrong in English (I thought).

So if someone asks 'how many passengers fit in this car?', does this include the driver?

[María José]

Tough question. I would probably say no...

[pjt33]

Perikles, me parece posible que la pregunta haya sido "¿Cuántos pasajeros [en el ferry]?" y no "¿Cuántos pasajeros [en el coche]?".

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by pjt33

Perikles, me parece posible que la pregunta haya sido "¿Cuántos pasajeros [en el ferry]?" y no "¿Cuántos pasajeros [en el coche]?".

No, it was quite clearly the number of passengers in the car. (But of course, they could have meant ferry)

[ROBINDESBOIS]

We use passenger, and yes it includes the driver.
Can we use room in the original question?
for example For how many people is there room in the car ? I know it souds stilted but ........

[hermit]

Hi Robin - The sentence is correct, although a bit stilted, as you thought.

Perikles - I suppose that once the car, driver, and passengers are aboard
the ferry, all occupants of the car become ferry passengers.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

@pjt: You are right. One usually asks "cuántos caben", "para cuántas personas/pasajeros es el coche", "para cuántos es el carro"...
"¿Cuántas personas pueden estar en el coche?" is a valid question, only when you're asking about how many people can remain inside the car for a specific purpose.
Normally, in the parking lots one cannot remain inside the car, but there are some places were one person is allowed to stay.
And I heard once that in a car wash they only let one person stay inside the car. The rest had to wait outside.


@Perikles: "Pasajero", when referred to the number of people a private transport can hold, includes the driver. It's a convention.
(Not the same for public transport, where the number of "pasajeros" do not include the driver.)

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar

@Perikles: "Pasajero", when referred to the number of people a private transport can hold, includes the driver. It's a convention.
(Not the same for public transport, where the number of "pasajeros" do not include the driver.)

Thanks - that's interesting, because I don't think the convention is the same in English for passenger. A car can have a driver and three passengers = four in the car.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

@Perikles: I have asked, and I've been informed that a relatively new convention prefers "plazas". "Un coche de 5 plazas" avoids the ambiguous use of "pasajero".

@Hermit: Does "How many people have room in the car?" sound equally awkward?

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar

@Perikles: I have asked, and I've been informed that a relatively new convention prefers "plazas". "Un coche de 5 plazas" avoids the ambiguous use of "pasajero".

@Hermit: Does "How many people have room in the car?" sound equally awkward?

It could sound like a silly competition to see how many people fit into a car, regardless of the number of seats.

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

But that can also be an ambiguous meaning of the question in Spanish.

[pjt33]

Originally Posted by AngelicaDeAlquezar

@Hermit: Does "How many people have room in the car?" sound equally awkward?

Eso significa algo distinto, más o menos "¿Cuántas personas tienen espacio en el coche?" Pues, depende de cuántas personas están adentro actualmente, y de si son gordas o delgadas.

[hermit]

Yes, technically correct, but to my North American ear it would sound better as:
"How many people does the car have room for?". This effectively rearranges Robin's
sentence, and is commonly heard colloquially, although grammatically incorrect.