[YG Conlang Archives] > [romanceconlang group] > messages [Date Index] [Thread Index] >
Yep, the first indicates on the behalf of whom you buy the present, thus the
*cause* of the action, while the second indicates who you buy the present for,
i.e. the *goal* of the action. Two different meanings that completely deserve
being treated differently. The problem here is not Spanish but English which
conflates in one preposition two opposite meanings. But the distinction
between "por" and "para" is as fundamental as the distinction between "from"
and "to", and of the same kind. In this case, Spanish is more logical in making
this distinction.*************
Or the distinction between borrow and lend, but Chinese doesn't make that distinction and Chinese learners of English have fits with remembering which is which. He and she produce the same difficulties for Chinese speakers. So do boring and bored. Yet all of those distinctions are useful and "logical".
When I was tring to learn some Cantonese I had the same difficulty with the two different forms of "thank you" -- one for things recieved and one for actions performed. Of course cultural determinations of which things are recieved and which are performed sometimes enter in as well. The Cantonese distinction is, again, useful and "logical", but due to it's otherness, from my perspective, difficult.
Anytime you have to add a distinction your language doesn't make is more difficult than removing a distinction your language does make -- at least in my experience.
>
> But "by" is not the most common translation for "por". The most common
> translation for both words is "for".
>
Blame that on ambiguous English :)) .
Christophe.And I can blame my Chinese student's difficulty in remembering the borrow/lend or he/she distinction on ambiguous Chinese, but that doesn't aid their learning, or make the distinction less difficult to remember in use.
Adam