Sunday 10 June 2012

Tampoco es importante También

I'd say it's a safe bet that you're all familiar with the word 'tambien' (also, too) but how many of you, like me, sometimes experience a little confusion, when confronted with its opposite, 'tampoco' ?
Dictionary definitions include 'neither', 'not . . either' and 'nor'.


To be honest, the definition of the word is not what catches me out, it's the way that it's used.
If you heard 'Ni Pedro ni Alejandro tampoco' you'd undestand that we were referring to NEITHER Pedro NOR Alejandro EITHER although, in this case I'd argue that the 'tampoco' is almost redundant, as 'ni . . ni' means 'neither . . nor' anyway.

If I told you that I don't have a car, 'No tengo coche', you might reply 'yo tampoco tengo coche'. These are the cases where I sometimes slip up, because I hear the 'Yo xxxxx tengo coche' but, if I'm not paying attention, I hear the exact opposite of what the speaker is saying. In this case 'tampoco' is vital to the sentence because it means 'nor do I' or 'I don't either'

While I was making the point about the importance of 'tampoco', I mentioned 'ni ..ni', or 'neither...nor'. What I hadn't realised is that there's no direct Spanish equivalent of 'either..or', except in the negative. For instance 'I have never been to either Madrid or Seville' would use 'ni..ni' (nunca he estado ni en Madrid ni en Sevilla',  and 'I don't like them either' would use tampoco, 'ellos me gustan tampoco'

So what about 'I can buy either of them'?
Well, it seems we have no option but to default to 'puedo comprar ó eso ó el otro'. 'I can buy EITHER that one OR the other' or 'cualquier' (any one of them), which applies equally to three, four or five objects as well as it does to two - 'puedo comprar cualquier de los dos (tres etc)'

It's just another of those occasions where a word in one language simply does not have an exact translation in another.

Don't believe me?
 Dictionaries ready?
What's Spanish for 'anywhere' or 'everywhere'?

Have fun.

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