Tengo una pregunta para vosotros- Ayudame por favor

[mightykaboosh]

Qué significa exactamente "no tengo ganas" en inglés?

I don't have you win???? is it idiomatic?

[switch007]

It's kind of "I don't feel like it" (like no me apetece). E.g. No tengo ganas de comer nada - I don't feel like eating anything.

¿Quieres salir esta noche?
No tengo ganas, prefiero quedarme en casa.

It's in the form: tener ganas de + infinitive

[mightykaboosh]

I've just put it through babelfish and it comes up with "I don't have the desire to"

1. Is that about right? and why is it ganas where does the "s" come from on ganas. Is it roughly saying I don't have your desire to ....... go to the pub etc

2. Which one is stronger?

3. Which is more commonly used.

"No tengo ganas de + infinitive" sounds like a bit of a mouthful compared to "No me apertece"

Many thanks for answer(s)

[delgado]

Also, to add to what Switch said , you can also say " ¡no me da la gana!".

Eg.

-¿Quieres salir esta noche?

- !No, no me da la gana! (No, I don´t feel like it!)

I would say that these forms (although not rude) are a little bit less polite and more coloquial than using "no me apetece" , so it would be better if you only use them amongst friends etc....

[switch007]

Originally Posted by mightykaboosh

I've just put it through babelfish and it comes up with "I don't have the desire to"

Translators usually suck when it comes to phrases like this. It's correct but would you ever say that in English?

Originally Posted by mightykaboosh

1. Is that about right? and why is it ganas where does the "s" come from on ganas. Is it roughly saying I don't have your desire to ....... go to the pub etc

I don't know why it's "ganas". Just learn the phrase tener ganas de + infinitive = to feel like doing something

[delgado]

Originally Posted by mightykaboosh

1. Is that about right? and why is it ganas where does the "s" come from on ganas. Is it roughly saying I don't have your desire to ....... go to the pub etc

If I were to hazard a guess , I would say ....

(la) Gana (desire)

(las) Ganas (desires)

I'm not sure why in some phrases you use the singular and in others the plural , as switch said , it´s just how it is.

[Beckett]

Originally Posted by mightykaboosh

Que significa exactamente "no tengo ganas" en ingles?

I don't have you win???? is it idiomatic?

1). Tengo una pregunta para vosotros - Ayudadme, por favor.
Tengo una pregunta para ti. Ayudame, por favor.
Tengo una pregunta para ustedes. Ayudenme, por favor.
Tengo una pregunta para usted. Ayudeme, por favor.

2). Don't confuse "ganas" with the verb "ganar." "Gana" is a noun that means desire and is generally used in the plural "ganas" form although the singular form is used as well. "No me da la gana" is an abrupt, and some native Spanish speakers consider it a very brusque, almost rude way of saying "I don't want to." Imagine a child throwing a temper tantrum and pouting and saying "¡No me da la gana!" ("I don't wanna!) when he is told to eat all his veggies.

Although "gana" means desire, in English we don't normally go around saying that we "desire" something in everyday conversation. So that's why we translate "tener ganas de (hacer algo)" as "to feel like (doing something)" instead of "to have desires to (do something)" because that translation sounds downright creepy and weird in English, although that construction is perfectly fine in Spanish.

Why is it "ganas" and not "gana"? Who knows? Just accept it and don't question that part of the expression.

2). Que significa exactamente "no tengo ganas" en ingles? In English, here's what you wrote: That signifies exactly "no tengo ganas" in groins?
"que" = that
"ingles" = groins

Mejor dicho: ¿Qué quiere decir "no tengo ganas" en inglés? ("What does "no tengo ganas" mean in English?")
"qué" = what?
"querer decir" = to mean
"inglés" = English

3. Tener ganas de vs. apetecer (hacer algo) are both very common expressions and I think it's pretty much a tie between them. In other words, I don't think one is necessarily stronger than the other. I tend to hear native speakers using "apetece" with food and drink ("Me apetece un helado") while they use "tener ganas de" with a more general usage ("No tengo ganas de salir"). That said, I don't think there's a hard and fast rule about that and it seems like a personal preference how people use it. It is perfectly acceptable to switch it around and use the expressions pretty interchangeably. "No me apetece salir" or "Tengo ganas de comer un helado."

4. ¡Estoy nuevo a este, asi que siempre agradezco las correcciones, y también todos tengan un estupendo dia!

Soy nuevo(nueva, if you're a chica) aquí OR Soy nuevo a todo esto así que agradezco vuestra ayuda. ¡Que tengáis un buen día!

5. Last piece of advice: Stay away from automated, online translation tools.
http://www.notesfromspain.com/forums...ead.php?t=7244
Visit the Spanish-English forum at WordReference.com for free translation help from native-speaking human beings in real time.

[mightykaboosh]

Thanks Becket/ (all)

That is a fantastic help! It must've taken you some time to compose that response. I can't tell you how delighted/ amazed I am that people continuously take the time to respond. This forum is proving an invaluable resource to me at the moment, and I'll try not to hog it in future. At the moment I haven't got to the imperitive or subjunctive, but I have cut and pasted my signiture for now

Advice duly noted I will stop using babelfish

Thanks again......... ps good job you didn't see some of my earlier posts eg. tengo 30 anos

[Beckett]

Originally Posted by mightykaboosh

Thanks again......... ps good job you didn't see some of my earlier posts eg. tengo 30 anos

De nada, hombre. There's a joke I could make about having "30 anos" but this is a family-friendly forum, so I'll pass.

MightyK, on second thought, regarding what I said about your signature, go back to what you had originally and say "vuestras correcciones" instead of "vuestra ayuda" to make it crystal clear to everyone who sees it what you would like. Saying "ayuda," in this context, is probably too open-ended.

Saludines.

[Liam]

Originally Posted by Beckett

There's a joke I could make about having "30 anos" but this is a family-friendly forum, so I'll pass.

So true. Like many Spanish learners I am a bit lazy and also ignorant of where all the accents should go. But that's one that I never miss.

[gastephen]

Originally Posted by Liam

So true. Like many Spanish learners I am a bit lazy and also ignorant of where all the accents should go. But that's one that I never miss.

Here's a little point: in the Spanish alphabet, n and ñ are two distinct letters; the tilde (~) is not an accent.

[Alan Reynolds]

Great answer, Beckett. Thanks for the laughs too.

[Kralizec]

The little wavy line on the Ñ is called virgulilla. It's supposed to be a little N standing over the bigger one; hundreds of years ago, words like año and caña were written as anno and canna, but the parchment people needed to write was so expensive they created the Ñ to save space.

[Alan Reynolds]

Originally Posted by Kralizec

The little wavy line on the Ñ is called virgulilla. It's supposed to be a little N standing over the bigger one; hundreds of years ago, words like año and caña were written as anno and canna, but the parchment people needed to write was so expensive they created the Ñ to save space.

I like that story, Kralizec. From what I have learned, the wavy line above the "ñ" is actually a tilde in English and a tilde in Spanish. It and several other diacritical marks (signos orgográficos) together comprise the virgulilla.
From Wikipedia:
BEGIN QUOTE FROM WIKIPEDIA
Virgulilla
De acuerdo con el diccionario de la Real Academia Española, la virgulilla es un «signo ortográfico de forma de coma, rasguillo o trazo; p. ej., el apóstrofo, la cedilla, la tilde de la ñ, etc.». En su acepción más común, se trata del símbolo «~» , la tilde de la letra «ñ».


Ver más en Wikipedia.org...



Este artículo utiliza contenidos de Wikipedia® y está disponible bajo los términos de la Licencia de documentación libre GNU
END QUOTE FROM WIKIPEDIA

[Kralizec]

En los monasterios y después en las imprentas se tenía la costumbre de economizar letras para ahorrar esfuerzo en las tareas de copiado y colocación de carácteres; Así, la secuencia «nn» se escribía con una «n» muy pequeña denominada virgulilla encima de una «n» de tamaño normal: «ñ». Lo mismo sucedió en portugués con «an» y «ã»; v.g. annus > añus; y el grupo romance nn > ñ que se había palatalizado a lo largo del tiempo en la Península Ibérica.
[...]
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%91

Oh, seems it was to make copying easier, not saving paper...

[charlie14]

Soy inglesa....

"no tengo ganas" basically means "I don't feel like.."

to put it simply!!!

[jaci]

A little comment in addition to the brilliant responses so far, it may also help to think in terms of being keen or not keen to do something (it works in the positive too); tengo ganas de probarlo - I'm keen to try it. Also tengo pocas ganas de hacer algo may be a little softer than no tengo ganas. I think!

Interesting about the virgulilla!