Hay si nos hubieran visto...

[This is the start of the song "Te Amo" (Franco de Vita)] "There if you had seen us (but you didn't)..." I suppose this isn't a question - it just looks weird to me to see "Hay" there. I would have expected to see "Allí / ahí / ...

Halo?

Hi Steven, I believe the right way to spell it would be "Ay, si nos hubieran visto..." The "Ay" is an interjection (it has no grammatical meaning, but just signifies emotions, such as "Aha" and "Wow"). The English interjection closest to "Ay" would be "Oh". Hope this makes sense! ;)

Hola Laura, Thanks for the reply. Though this was Steven's post and I am unfamiliar with the song, I was baffled by the lyrics. I hope you will reply and help us students more often. Saludos, Ricardo

Thanks, Laura! "Hay" made absolutely no sense to me in that context. Interesting: if I had not printed out someone else's translation to that song along with the lyrics, I probably would have taken this to be "Ay".

Te Amo - This one starts with Asi nos hubieran visto. Can someone translate this please. http://lyricstranslate.com/en/te-amo-i-love-you.html-0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cwygoDyfAIA Franco de Vita "Te Amo" Ay, sí nos hubieran visto, -hubieran (subjunctive 3rd person plural, Ellos, Ellas, Ustedes, hubieran visto - Perfect subjunctive Past (I am just analyzing this "frase". No ideas. Maybe someday, it will make sense. "Oh! If only you could've seen us!, we were sitting there, face to face..."translation from Christian. Estábamos ahí sentados -We were then seated Frente a frente -. Face to face. No podía faltarnos la luna, Y hablábamos de todo un poco, Y todo nos causaba risa Como dos tontos. Y yo que no veía la hora De tenerte en mis brazos Y poderte decir Te amo Desde el primer momento en que te vi Y hace tiempo te buscaba Y ya te imaginaba así. Te amo Aunque no es tan fácil de decir, Y defino lo que siento Con estas palabras Te amo Y de pronto nos rodeo el silencio, Y nos miramos fijamente Uno al otro. Tus manos entre las mías Tal vez nos volveremos a ver Mañana no se si podre Que estas jugando Me muero si no te vuelvo a ver Y tenerte en mis brazos Y poderte decir Te amo Desde el primer momento en que te vi Y hace tiempo te buscaba Y ya te imaginaba así. Te amo Aunque no es tan fácil de decir, Y defino lo que siento Con estas palabras Te amo Desde el primer momento en que te vi Y hace tiempo te buscaba Y ya te imaginaba así. Te amo Aunque no es tan fácil de decir, Y defino lo que siento Con estas palabras Te amo Read more: Franco De Vita - Te Amo Lyrics | MetroLyrics

It was possible to get "Hay" from the sound (not from the grammar / sense of the phrase) but definitely not "Así". It is "Ay", as in an exclamation like in English, just as Laura indicated. The important thing that I take away from this is when taking lyrics / translations off the Internet, they may or may not be correct. In this particular case, I can't imagine that the person who posted these lyrics is a native Spanish speaker, as this phrase would have amounted to the construct "haber haber".

Steven, your comment reminds me of the commercial that was on TV awhile back, where a woman says she heard something on the internet, followed by "they can't put it on the internet if its not true." Guy says, "where'd you here that?" Woman: "the internet."

I will check with Diana. So far her comments are very good.

Dan, ¡ Eso es muy chistoso!

So far I checked with yvette. She is from Cuba and she is sure that it is asi. I checked with Angela. She said it could go either way, ay or asi but she is leaning toward ay. She is from Mexico. I will see Maria tonight for choir practice. She is from El Salvador. This is actually fun. I don't know when I would see Diana

I hear you, Dan. Right up there with "The guy from Walmart told me..."

Aurora - Did you ever check with Diana on this? For those who thought it was "asi", could you ask them then to translate the first phrase of the song? I can't seem to get my head around "Así nos hubieran visto".

Hola! I am pretty sure that Franco De Vita says "Ay!". Definitely it doesn't say "hay". "Así" also makes sense, but I cannot hear it in the song, I've listened to the live version and all I can hear is "ay". This can express pain or other feelings, in this specific case the closest translation (not literal) to english i can think of is the following: "Oh! If only you could've seen us!, we were sitting there, face to face..." For the next phrase, "no podía faltarnos la luna" I spent several minutes trying to translate it in my mind, it is not as easy as it sound, or at least , when I did it I felt it lost its intended meaning in spanish...it is something like "The moon was a must! or There needed to be a moon, we could'nt do this without the moon being present" "there could a lack of anything, but the moon"(I like this last one better, it covers most of the phrase). The rest is easier, universal love language... y hablabamos de todo un poco, (we spoke of a little of everything) y todo nos causaba risa (everything caused us laughter or make us giggle..) como dos tontos. (..as if we were two fools/as a couple of fools) Next phrase , again , it a little bit tricky, if we take it literally , well, "I can't see the time/hour". But its more like "I couldn't wait", "The time I was waiting seem to take longer" or "That time/moment seemed far"(I like this last one better haha) de tenerte en mis brazos ,(that time/moment) to have my arms around you... y poderte decir... (and to be able to tell you....) Te amo (I love you) desde el primer momento en que te vi (from the first moment I saw you).... Have a great day!

- "No podía faltarnos la luna..." - "Y yo que no veía la hora..." You picked the very two phrases that have been churning around in my mind. I got the sense of these two phrases but for the life of me couldn't quite nail them down in a translation. Thanks, Cristian!

Hola Steven! I am glad my translations helped!. Being honest , I was about to "throw in the towel" with those phrases and just post the equivalent meaning in english, but I waited a little and then I found it in my mind, the closest I could find to the actual sense of the phrases. That "No puede faltarnos" or "No nos puede hacer falta" phrase is very common, at least here in my country. "No puede hacer falta música y cerveza en la fiesta" , in a few words, THERE is no party without music and beer!

I finally got hold of Diana tonight and she quickly listened to Te Amo. She is very sure that it is "Ay, si". I tried listening to it and I still can't hear the words. So I don't really count. With Laura, Christian and Diana in the same corner, I am convinced. The exercise is really a lot of fun. I wish, we could do more of these type of things without resorting to "women and Walmart" jokes. Generally these type of jokes goes over my head anyway, so no harm done.

"No puede hacer falta música y cerveza en la fiesta" Hear! Hear! :-)

Sure. Musica y cerveza es muy importante por any fiesta.

Should that sentence be, LA musica y LA cerveza es muy importante por alguno fiesta? I ask not to correct Aurora, but for clarification. If I understand correctly, when you use nouns in the general sense, they are preceded by an article even if the article does not translate into English. Someone please confirm or correct. Thanks, Dan

Where fools and angels dare to tread... I probably shouldn't be throwing in my two bits here but... (has anyone ever said that and not regret saying what came afterwards?) Articles are really tricky. Where I typically get tripped up is when it's after the "de" (i.e., is it noun + de or noun + del / de la). IF it's like French, you generally drop the articles if the list is inclusive (e.g., it's not music and beer and ...). So music and beer are the essential elements of a party here. btw, I think it's "para la fiesta" in this context. [Don't we just love por/para...]

Thanks! Opps Gracias!

Here are a few examples (the first with articles / variable list, the second without articles / fixed list): - "Los desfiles, el baile, la música..." (The parades, dancing, music...) - "No gracias, prefiero un perrito caliente, con tomate, avocado, tocino y mayonesa." (No thanks, I prefer a hot dog, with tomato, avocado, bacon and mayonnaise.) Though hopefully someone who really knows what they're talking about will chime in with corrections... Cristian? Ricardo?

Hola amigos!!! Regarding the sentence : "La música y la cerveza SON muy importantes PARA la fiesta" That is what I consider the correct form. Why 'son'(are) because we are talking about more than one thing, (cerveza and música). And it is "para" instead of "por". Steven gave us 2 very good examples. When we have a list of things , sometimes its okay to eliminate the article, such as in the ingredients of the Hot Dog (by the way, In Mexico we call the avocado, aguacate, it comes from a nahuatl word 'ahuacatl" which means ehmmm...testicle! yeah, the shape of the avocado resembles a testicle haha most countries know this fruit by words derived from ahucatl, such as abacate, in portuguese or avocado in english , but if you go to southamerica, you will notice it they call it 'palta', which is a qechua word, and I dont know the meaning. And since we are already talking about the aguacates, it has some natural oils that help reduce bad cholesterol and works perfect as a balm to fix the dry skin of the face and hands, and well...YOU CAN MAKE GUACAMOLE WITH IT!!! "Un taco sin guacamole no es un buen taco" A taco without guacamole, is not a good taco!")... ANYWAY! Back to the subject, sometimes you can't really remove the articles, for example if the articles have different genders. For example, "Tengo que limpiar las paredes, el patio, la estufa y los sillones" If you remove the articles, it just sounds funny. If they do have the same gender, it is still ok to add them. "Limpié los baños, los pisos y los patios"or "Limpié baños , pisos y patios". I hope this helps a bit! Saludos!

I just came across an example from RS that would appear to negate both our explanations! It's a variable list with no articles (so I'm out!) plus it has different genders: "Peras enlatadas, arroz con leche, carne enlatada…" [feminine plural, singular masculine, singular feminine...]

Just a follow-up to some previous comments. I've started watching Andromeda (sci-fi series) and one guy says to another with a sarcastic look on his face, "No veo la hora..." - and it just screamed out "I can't wait...". Sure enough after a Google translate - and I thought of this thread, 'No veía la ahora" from the song "Te amo".