Possessive Pronouns vs Possessive Adjectives

 El siguiente ejemplo nos ayudará a entender la diferencia entre pronombres y adjetivos posesivos:

• Two ladies are talking on a bench in a park. “My husband is an angel,” says one of them. The other one says, “Really? Mine is still alive.”
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Dos mujeres hablan en un banco de un parque. “Mi marido es un ángel,” dice una de ellas. La otra dice “¿Ah, sí? El mío aún está vivo.”

El pronombre (mine, el mío) se utiliza para sustituir al nombre (husband) cuando no deseamos repetirlo porque acabamos de mencionarlo. Por eso, es un pronombre (porque sustituye a un nombre). Sus formas son, en casi todos los casos, distintas de la del adjetivo. Las formas de los pronombres posesivos en Inglés son las siguientes:

	SPANISH	ENGLISH	SPANISH	ENGLISH
	Singular		Plural
1st person	mío/-a/-os/-as	mine	nuestro/-os	ours
2nd person	tuyo/-a/-os/-as	yours	vuestro/-os	yours
3rd person	suyo/-a/-os/-as	his/hers	suyo/-a/-os/-as	theirs

Quizás sean necesarias algunas observaciones más para evitar ciertas confusiones habituales.

En primer lugar, la –s con la que acaban muchos de los pronombres en ningún caso indica que éstos estén en plural, sino tan sólo que se trata de pronombres y no de adjetivos. Así pues, también es cierto para los pronombres que no existe una forma singular y otra plural.

Ejemplo:

• Our dog is just noisy, but theirs is really dangerous.

Nuestro (adj.) perro es sólo ruidoso, pero el suyo (= de ellos/-as; pron.) es realmente peligroso.

• Our dogs are small, but theirs are tiny.

Nuestros perros son pequeños, pero los suyos son diminutos.

La tercera persona singular (él/ella) también requiere explicación. Por un lado, no existe una forma como el adjetivo its, para cuando el poseedor no es una persona. Además, el pronombre para un poseedor masculino his (=suyo, de él) tiene la misma forma que el adjetivo. Veamos un ejemplo de esto último:

• Her brownie is good, but his is delicious.
• Su pastel de chocolate (el de ella) es bueno, pero el suyo (el de él) es delicioso.

What to eat in London

With 6,500 restaurants in London, you can eat food from anywhere in the world, and if you have the cash, enjoy some of the most exclusive dining experiences. But what do Londoner’s really eat every day? It is true that people live on beer, roast beef and bacon and eggs? Let’s discover, in this post, what a typical person living and working in London eats, and what a visitor will expect to find.

 Big Breakfast

Tea is still the national drink in Britain, but at breakfast time in London many people drink a cup of white coffee or a cappuccino at a café. Because coffee breaks (descanso para el café) are not very long, people often drink them walking to the office from a paper cup. Most (la mayoria) people eat a bowl of cereal before they leave the house. If they have breakfast in a café, a popular choice (selección) is bacon, eggs and sausage, with  lots of toast and butter.

     
 

A Quick Lunch

Most working people have an hour for their lunch, which for many people consists of a sandwich. In Central London you will find cafés and takeaways (tienda de comida para llevar) on every street that serve an incredible variety of tasty (sabrosos) sandwiches. Many people find time for a pub lunch at least once a week. This can be a roast beef sandwich and salad or perhaps a plate of chilli, and a pint of beer. Bread, cheese and pickles (encurtidos) is commonly known as a ploughman’s lunch (comida de labrador).

 

The London Pub

Like chain restaurants, chain pubs with also dominate Britain’s towns and cities. When you go to London, look in a guidebook for authentic pubs with character. These are the best places to find good quality beer and pub grub.(comida) In these pubs the landlord (casero) knows the names of the locals (clientes habituales) and the atmosphere is usually very friendly. Learn how to order “a couple of pints of bitter and a double Scotch” and you will impress the barmaid! (camarera) If you leave a tip, (propina) say “and one for yourself” and she will take about thirty pence.

        

Indian Restaurants

Since the British colonized India, they have been addicted to Indian cuisine A classic Friday night with friends includes a visit to an Indian restaurant which are open late, and are ideal places to go after the pub, when the beer has made you hungry. Every year there are more and more excellent restaurants serving regional Indian dishes. Here you will find succulent alternatives to the classic chicken tikka masala and white rice.

       

Tom Odell. Another Love.

Nominated for British Breakthrough Artist (artista revelación)  and British Male Solo Artist at the Brit Awards 2014,  Tom Odell's  debut album, Long Way Down, topped the UK chart .( ocupó el lugar más alto de la lista  en el reino unido) 

I wanna take you somewhere so you know I care
But it's so cold and I don't know where
I brought you daffodils in a pretty string
But they won't flower like they did last spring

(quiero llevarte a algún lugar para que sepas que me importas

pero hace demasiado frio y no sé adonde

Te he comprado narcisos en un bonito cordel

pero no florecerán como lo hicieron la primavera pasada )

And I wanna kiss you, make you feel alright
I'm just so tired to share my nights
I wanna cry and I wanna love
But all my tears have been used up

( Y quiero besarte .hacerte sentir bien

pero estoy tan cansado para compartir mis noches

y quiero llorar y quiero amar )

On another love, another love
All my tears have been used up

(en otro amor , en otro amor,

todas mis lágrimas han sido gastadas)

And if somebody hurts you, I wanna fight
But my hands been broken, one too many times
So I'll use my voice, I'll be so fXXX rude
Words they always win, but I know I'll lose

( Y si alguien te hace daño, quiero pelear

pero mis manos se han roto demasiadas veces

así que usaré mi voz, y seré joXXX maleducado )

And I'd sing a song, that'd be just ours
But I sang 'em all to another heart
And I wanna cry I wanna learn to love
But all my tears have been used up

(Y cantaría una canción , que sería solo tuya

pero las he cantado todas a otro corazón

y quiero llorar y quiero aprender a amar

pero todas mis lágrimas han sido gastadas)

On another love, another love
All my tears have been used up

Dining out

Eating in restaurants and cafés, otherwise known as dining out, can be a daily activity, part of weekend socialising or something saved for special occasions. However, when we are in a foreign country we usually make the most of the opportunity to try new food and dishes and tend to dine out more, and even if we are not in an English-speaking country, English is often the common language spoken. This post takes you through the steps of reserving a table, commenting on the menu, asking for advice, ordering your food and drink, and making complaints in a restaurant. 

 

The First Step: Getting a Table

You don’t always need to reserve a table, but it is often a good idea. Phoning a restaurant to book (reservar) a table is usually a short conversation and will probably be something like the one below.

Restaurant:    Hello, FAB Restaurant.

Wendy:           Hello, I’d like to reserve a table for four, for tomorrow night, please.

Restaurant:    Certainly. At what time?

Wendy:           Nine o’clock, if that’s OK.

Restaurant:    That’s fine. So, that’s a table for four people, for tomorrow night at nine. 

Wendy:           That’s right. Thank you. Goodbye.

Step 2: Choosing your Food

It’s easy when you know exactly what you want to order, but sometimes the choice (elección) is so good that it is difficult to decide. Talking about what is on the menu is often part of the decision making process, since we get ideas and are influenced by what other people say. Look at the following structures that use look, fancy and feel like to exchange ideas and get information. 

► look / sound + adjective

Look is usually used when you can see a picture or photograph of the dish while sound is usually used when referring to the description of a dish in a menu or a verbal recommendation.

Mmm, the lasagne looks very good.

The sirloin (solomillo) steak doesn’t look very appealing.(apetecible)

The Asian salad sounds delicious.

Hmm, ‘Prawns with Pineapple’ doesn’t sound very tasty.

 

► fancy / feel like + -ing  and fancy / feel like + noun

Using  fancy is similar to saying like, but also has the idea of appeal contained in the meaning, which makes it a little different, and it is used more in Britain than in the United States. Using feel like is very similar to fancy and relates to your mood (estado de ánimo) or desire for something at the time of speaking.

I fancy having something with fish in it.

I fancy trying ‘Mushrooms baked (setas asadas) with blue cheese and thyme’.(tomillo)

 

 

How do you Like your Food?

We definitely enjoy our food in a lot of different ways: we can have it raw (cruda), fried, seared,(vuelta y vuelta) grilled, baked, boiled (hervida), steamed (al vapor), poached (escalfada), roasted, toasted or barbecued. Almost everyone is interested in food, with the big question being: what does it taste like? So here is a list of adjectives to describe flavours, as well as a range of words with a colour guide for appearances and textures.

APPEARANCE &/OR TEXTURE	SPANISH TRANSLATION	FLAVOUR	SPANISH TRANSLATION
appealing A	apetecible	bland	soso
appetising AT	apetitoso	tasty	sabroso
chewy AT	fibroso	juicy	jugoso
crunchy / crispy T	crujiente	mouth-watering	hacer la boca agua
dry AT	seco	rank / rancid	rancio, fétido
greasy AT	grasiento	rich	empalagoso
heavenly A	maravilloso	scrumptious / divine	riquísimo
tough AT	duro	sharp / sour / tart	ácido, agrio
withered A	marchito	stale	pasado