Linguistic doubt.

[Enrique]

"Quite a few" is an expression used in English. It always confuses me. I looked in wiktionary dot org and it says "more than a few", "a fair number of". Is it midway between a few and many?

[Hollywood]

In the USA we tend to hear "quite a lot" more often than you would use "quite a few". Check out this site for different words that you might hear that mean pretty much the same thing: https://www.thesaurus.com/browse/quite%20a%20few

[Sorrano]

By using the word "quite" emphasis is put on "few" or "lot". One might say, "That's quite the beard you have", emphasizing that the beard is probably bigger or more elaborate than normal. In the same sense you can say, "Quite the few", emphasizing that it is more than, perhaps, expected.

[Enrique]

Then I can say "quite a few trees" is a larger quantity than "a few trees"? But not as large as "many trees"? Or only larger than expected?

[Sorrano]

Then I can say "quite a few trees" is a larger quantity than "a few trees"? But not as large as "many trees"? Or only larger than expected?

Yes, essentially it is saying, "That is a lot of trees". You can say "quite" large to emphasize the size, or "quite" small. To say "quite a few" is an odd way of saying a lot.

[Enrique]

I see. I don't understand how a person coming from abroad into a country can ever speak like a native, even if he has stayed in that country for several years. I appreciate your kindness.

[Sorrano]

I see. I don't understand how a person coming from abroad into a country can ever speak like a native, even if he has stayed in that country for several years. I appreciate your kindness.

After many years of Spanish, and having lived in South America (Colombia) for a couple of years, I've discovered certain phrases and words in Spanish have a deeper meaning than their counterparts in English (and vice versa) to the point I'd rather communicate in Spanish to make my point. You can get a feel for words and phrases and come to a better understanding what words mean to the native people rather than rely on translations to your own language.

[Enrique]

Well, in a translation of a German book into Spanish the translator (or rather the publishing house chief) said that expressions were not translated so that they fit into the spirit of the Spanish language but, on the contrary, they were left in the German way of saying things. The exact opposite of what I believed was a good translation. Actually it was a book on philosophy and, here, clarity is essential.

I understand in Colombia they speak good Spanish, which is not the case in other Latin American countries, specially Mexico.

[Sorrano]

Colombian Spanish is probably the closest to Spain. They often refer to it as Castellano en vez de espanol. It is interesting to me about the comparison to Mexican Spanish, though, as I work with a lot of Mexicans and speak to them in their language. There are a lot of differences, both linguistic and cultural. Some of them I have a hard time understanding because they tend to slur words together. But when I hear someone from Bogota I almost immediately know where the person is from because of the clarity of the pronunciation.

That is interesting about the German translation; there are hard things to translate directly, like tomar pelo, for example. (Not even sure if that makes sense to you; in Colombian Spanish it means teasing.)

[Enrique]

Yes, tomar el pelo, to make fun of. Castellano is a term I prefer (as against espanol). Take any of the modern western languages and you'll find the name of the language coincides with the demonym, Spain being an exception. That is a remarkable fact. The word Castellano speaks about history, tells about the origins of the language. What is the necessity of uniformization?

In spite of the fact that English is a Germanic language and Spanish is a romance, I find striking similarities between them. There are so many things we say in exactly the same way! Aside from the fact that English is completely penetrated by Latin. If an Spaniard opens an English dictionary he will find 75 per cent of the words come from Latin. Because they sound familiar to him.

[Symphony7]

Then I can say "quite a few trees" is a larger quantity than "a few trees"? But not as large as "many trees"? Or only larger than expected?

Also notice the difference between "a few" and simply "few".

"We have a few trees" is more than "We have few trees".

[Hollywood]

This topic sounds like where the phrase "Lost in Translation" might fit.

[Enrique]

Could you explain the meaning of your joke to a non-English speaker (I guess it is a joke), Hollywood?

[Hollywood]

Could you explain the meaning of your joke to a non-English speaker (I guess it is a joke), Hollywood?

I found one of the meanings of "Lost in Translation" from the Urban Dictionary website:

"When something is translated into another language, and sometimes translated back into the original language, and because of differences of the languages, some of the original meaning is lost."

It's interesting to see the different meanings for the same word in British english and in American english. Ah, those pesky colonists.

Here's a fun website called British Translator & Slang Dictionary where you can translate British to American & American to British slang.

https://www.translatebritish.com/reverse.php

[Enrique]

But, wait a moment, please. According to that definition, what is that that is lost in translation? The thing translated or the translator?

Some ten years ago a friend of mine showed me a computer program which translated between English and Spanish. I then gave the program the first sentence in Don Quijote de la Mancha and order it to put it into English. And then I asked it to translate the English resulting sentence into Spanish. You couldn't believe the disparate I got. Of course languages change in a span of four hundred years. Nowadays mechanical translation is much more accurate.