The usage of the verbs venir (to come) and traer (to bring) are a little different in Spanish (I am told that it is the same as in British English). The main difference comes with the destination of venir and traer.
In Spanish, venir means to come, but only if the destination is HERE, not elsewhere. Anywhere else, you go with ir.
The same goes with traer which means the same as llevar (to take something or someone from one place to another). The difference is that the destination of traer is ONLY HERE. If the destination is elsewhere, you have to use llevar.
For example in English, if you were speaking with a coworker at the office you may say:
“There is going to be a party in my house in the suburbs. You may come and bring your wife too.”
So obviously the party is not here, so (in Spanish) you cannot come or bring, but have to go (ir) and take (llevar). In Spanish we would say:
“Va a haber una fiesta en mi casa en los suburbios. Puedes ir y llevar a tu esposa también.”
1 comment:
there is no difference in british english, the above english sentence is correct, the reason being that you are talking about the future potential, you speak as if you were already there even though you are not, "you can come and bring your wife" you may be in another place as you speak but you are talking about where you will be at the time, it appears that in spanish youn cant do this, if you arent there you cant talk as if you were, if this is the case it will help me a great deal to understand traer, llevar, ir and venir, my girl friend is spanish and very often i will say something in spanish using one of these verbs,,,,she will correct me,,,the next day she will say something which appears to break the rule, and i get confused, i think now i understand why
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