*Spanish - The use of Como.

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DC-DC
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*Spanish - The use of Como.

Postby DC-DC » Mon Aug 02, 2021 2:56 pm

Hello!

I am completely new to learning languages and have decided to try Spanish.

The word como is confusing me and may seem basic but hopefully somebody can help.

As far as the word translates, i understand it translates to 'As'

But 'Yo como pan' translates to I eat bread. How is this so?

How does the word como have 2 completely different meanings?

Thanks in advance.
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Re: *Spanish - The use of Como.

Postby Querneus » Mon Aug 02, 2021 9:00 pm

That's a normal thing to happen between languages. Languages' words don't match well.

For an opposite example, English "free" is translated differently when you talk about "free beer" (cerveza gratis, something that costs no money) or your "free time" (tiempo libre, related to the freedom to do things). There's also a strong difference in Spanish for "square" when you talk about a "town square" (la plaza) or the mathematical figure with sides of equal length (el cuadrado).
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Re: *Spanish - The use of Como.

Postby Cenwalh » Mon Aug 02, 2021 9:32 pm

This is simply a homophone. We have lots of them in English as well, although they're often spelt differently. To take a word similar to 'como' (meaning 'I eat'), you'll note that the word 'ate' is pronounced the same as 'eight' despite them meaning very different things.

Spanish spelling is much simpler than English because it's regulated, so you don't often see homophones with different spellings (there are exceptions such as 'cómo', and where some letters have the same pronunciations).

Regarding 'como' as 'I eat', this is a conjugation of the verb 'comer'. You will almost definitely not be confused by this once you get use to it, just like you're not confused by people saying basically any of these English homophones http://www.singularis.ltd.uk/bifroest/m ... -list.html (although you might misspell some of them, so thank goodness Spanish is easier to spell!)
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Re: *Spanish - The use of Como.

Postby sirgregory » Mon Aug 02, 2021 10:24 pm

Same thing happens in English. For example, the word "like" can be a verb. "I like dinosaurs." But it can also be used to make comparisons. "I look like a dinosaur." If you look a word up in the dictionary it will split out these out these different usages for you. It usually won't show you inflected forms of verbs though. You usually need to know the infinitive or base form for that (in the case of "como" it would "comer").

I would recommend that you familiarize yourself with the basic parts of speech. That will help you understand how words function within a sentence. Below is a video that goes over some of the basics in English. It's often easier to start out by learning these concepts in your native language first.

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Re: *Spanish - The use of Como.

Postby Dragon27 » Tue Aug 03, 2021 5:52 am

Different words (with differing meanings) that simultaneously have the same pronunciation (homophones) and share the same spelling (homographs) are also called homonyms (under a more restrictive definition).
Examples are the pair stalk (part of a plant) and stalk (follow/harass a person) and the pair left (past tense of leave) and left (opposite of right).
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Re: *Spanish - The use of Como.

Postby El Forastero » Thu Aug 12, 2021 2:52 am

Como is also a city in Italy :D , so you can create this sentence:

¿Cómo como en Como? Como en Como como como en Como (How do I eat in Como? I eat in Como as I eat in Como).
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Re: *Spanish - The use of Como.

Postby Le Baron » Thu Aug 12, 2021 11:22 am

DC-DC wrote:How does the word como have 2 completely different meanings?

I have some annoying news for you. Como (and cómo) also means 'what', 'how', 'like/as' (same as French 'comme')... The better news is that como in this sense just stays as como.

On the other hand comer 'to eat' changes (is conjugated) and so you should concentrate more on that.

Above all from the outset don't puzzle too much over things that seem unusual at every turn or you'll handicap yourself. To move forward you just have to accept what comes until you get a foothold. I hope you are following a course to get these things worked out? If it's done just flitting around YouTube and perusing an app you'll be in a quagmire.
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Re: *Spanish - The use of Como.

Postby mjfleck2000 » Fri Aug 13, 2021 4:52 pm

El Forastero wrote:Como is also a city in Italy :D , so you can create this sentence:

¿Cómo como en Como? Como en Como como como en Como (How do I eat in Como? I eat in Como as I eat in Como).


Oh oh oh.... I heard a variation on this when I was in Perú:

it is a tongue twister...

Si como como como
y comes como comes
cómo comes como como
si como como como.

which translates to something like:
If I eat like I eat
and you eat like you eat
how do you eat like I eat
if I eat like I eat.

Mike
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