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(I wish people would use more traditional markers for quotation. Markers not attached to each line are easily lost in subsequent quotation.)
*/Anton Sherwood <bronto@hidden.email>/* wrote:
What are some examples where you'd translate both
<por> and <para> with the same word, either to English
or to other Romance?
Adam Walker wrote:
Gracias por la informacion.
Thanks for the information.
Ah. I did not know that.
Este regalo es para Juan.
This gift is for Juan.
And even worse situations like:
Juan compro' el regalo para Maria.
or
Juan compro' el regalo para Maria.
Eh?
In which both por and para must be translated "for"
but have a very different sense of for-ness.
I infer that one (por?) means `John as Mary's agent bought a gift' and the other (para?) means `John bought something to give to Mary' -- a valuable distinction even if not all languages make it so well.(I was once employed by a lawyer who liked to write "on your behalf" as a fancy synonym of "for you" in both senses. Drove me nuts.)
...
But "by" is not the most common translation for "por". The most common translation for both words is "for".
In my limited experience, the most common use of `por' is in passives. -- Anton Sherwood, http://www.ogre.nu/