English Translation
Come on, do it for me, you’re not going to die for meeting my parents.
Everyone, Busuu says Por is “by” someone, para is “for” someone. The person is asking to do this ‘for me,’ so wouldn’t the answer be ‘para?’
My Spanish is pretty rusty but I think that this is because por is used to explain cause/motive, and this sentence essentially is saying “do this because I am asking you to”
So for example if you say “please buy a book for me” it could mean that you need to buy a book to give to someone for Christmas but you’re busy so you want someone to do your shopping for you, or it could be an answer to “What do you want for Christmas?”. Therefore the sentence in English is ambiguous because “for me” could mean two different things.
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Thank you! This is a good explanation, and for me exemplifies why por and para are such a conundrum!!
No doubt about it, cityotter (a conundrum for me, too).
I like… https://grammar.collinsdictionary.com/us/spanish-easy-learning/prepositions
They have an excellent grammar guide. Not thorough for para vs. por, but still worth a look.
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I would say “por can mean for when it means for the benefit of or because of” (from the above reference) says it quite well.
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Yes… I see that now. (I love Collins. Great grammar guides. They have Italian, too) When I said, “not thorough enough”, I meant they could use more sentence examples.
I find Collins more efficient than reading through an entire book. I get the grammar explanations there and Clozemaster shows me all the sentences I need. Plus explanations here, as well. Best language site I’ve ever tried (and I’ve tried a LOT) <<< Clozemaster, not Collins lol…
So, a co-worker who is from Puerto Rico (his Dad also works here, very valuable - but knows little English) translates for us when we are in discussions. Another co-worker asked him if he knows any Spanish. That’s how well he speaks English now. Anyway, when he came to the States he said he didn’t know any English. An online school promised he’d be fluent in 2 years. They were right. He would listen to a sentence and then write (type) it out. He said listening and then writing it fully out was the key for him and the method the school used in its program. With time, everything started to click. The mind makes a strong connection using this method.
So, when he told me that I took his advice. It’s been almost two weeks since and I use solely the listening, transcribe mode in CM (except new sentences, where I use vocab, multiple choice). We’ll see where it leads me but I can already tell the difference. I thinks its working better than I could have even imagined. My listening skills are improving greatly already (in a little under 2 weeks) and I think I’m remembering words and phrases easier now.
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