I have a question about the present tense in Spanish. I am refreshing my Spanish skills with Live Mocha. But the Spanish they teach seems to be different than the Spanish I learned in college and at a language school in Mexico. For example, I was taught that to say “she is eating a bowl of grapes” would be:
Ella come un tazón de uvas.
But Live Mocha translates it as:
Ella se está comiendo un tazón de uvas.
In particular, I remember being taught that Spanish didn’t really use the “está comiendo” construction like we do in English. The present progressive? I don’t know what the tense is called in either English or Spanish. I know. Really helpful. Just that the present is the present and “ella come” is the correct way to say it.
So, can someone shine a light on this for me? Which is correct? More to the point, which one is standard? I don’t know if the second version is more for Spain and the Spanish I learned was standard for Mexico? Can you tell me why the second translation is correct?
-endo/-ando correspond to the -ing ending in English. If you say “Ella come un tazón de uvas” it translates directly to “She eats a bowl of grapes.” I think it would be quite sufficient to use this construction in the present tense, but it doesn’t translate directly to “is eating.”
Disclaimer–very rusty high school Spanish education which ended 8 years ago.
No, I get that. My question is: I was taught that the -iendo form was incorrect, and that only the simple present is necessary. Is there a reason why this website would be teaching me to use the -iendo form?
As to the OP’s question, Spanish does indeed use the progressive aspect to indicate the momentary nature of an action, but just not as much as English does.
Subscribing to hear what the native speakers say when they chime in.
My sense is that
comer = eating (general); comerse = eating, but kind of more specific, like the bowl in question is a portion and she’s planning on finishing it in the near future.
come = unmarked present
está comiendo = emphasizing the fact that she’s doing it right now.
If the implied question was “what is she doing?” I might reply “está comiendo un tazón de uvas.” If the question were “what is she eating?” I’d say “come un tazón de uvas.”
comerse means you eat all of something. Me come un pizza means explicity that I ate the entire pizza. Generally speaking it’s used to emphasize that you ate all or a lot of something.
The present progressive is limited to what someone is actually doing at that moment. For example, in English it’s fine to say “I am living in Chicago” whereas it isn’t fine to say “Estoy viviendo en Chicago”. Only use the present progressive when you want to say what the person is literally doing at that moment.
What treis said above. The words are near-synonyms, but to me comerse adds a nuance that puts a limit around the eating. “To eat up” is a good way of putting it, only without implying any greediness or gluttony.
Don’t think I’m going to use Live Mocha anymore. There’s an important distinction between comer and comerse that they didn’t even address, and in a beginner level “course” that’s not a good idea, IMO.
Anyone know a free online Spanish course that’s any good?
And even though these two ideas are inherently contradictory with this particular example, it still makes sense because of the affective dimension I mentioned above.
Although both Spanish and English have both simple present and present progressive, the Spanish simple present is used i n a number of circumstances where English prefers the progressive. For example, "Where’s John? " – “He’s going to the store” becomes “¿Adonde esta Juan?” – “Va a la tienda.”
The reflexive in comerse is, I believe, an indirect object in function, carrying the meaning “for oneself” with often a connotation of “all for me”, “my own”, as in the “eat all of it” example Dr Erake gave.
And so the function is not just to say “eat up” or “eat all of it.” After all, if she’s still eating, you don’t know if she’s necessarily going to finish them. The reflexive here emphasizes the subjectivity of her experience while eating at this moment, regardless of whether she finishes all the grapes.
A similar thing in English might be:
AL: Whatcha doing there, Joe?
JOE: I’m having me a nice big juicy steak!
Yes, Joe’s probably going to finish the whole thing, and, no, he probably isn’t going to share it with Al, but that’s not all there is to it.
The present continuous (progressive) tense, is not really a “tense” in Spanish. It is an “aspect” of the present.
These two tenses are used interchangeably.
In English 99% of the time you are obligated by the adverb (“usually” for example would be present simple and “today” would imply the use of the present continuous) to use one or the other and if you use one where the other goes it sounds weird.
In Spanish this is not the case. Where we use present continuous they can use either tense.
I think 99% is way too high a figure for such a characterization. There are issues of simple semantics or non-referential uses of aspect that bring this number down.
Just that the present is the present and “ella come” is the correct way to say it.