Native Spanish speakers: can you help me on this?

[Elok]

This is a thoroughly irrelevant argument I had with people at my church and meant to bring to the attention of my Spanish teacher but never did. This has no importance whatsoever, I just want to know who's right.

Anyway, on Easter, we Orthodox have a traditional greeting for one another: one person says "Christ is Risen," and the other replies, "Indeed He is Risen!" Since Orthodox Christianity is such a multicultural church, we've taken to exchanging the greeting in lots of different languages, trying to stump one another for fun ("Hristos a inviat!" "Adeverat a inviat!"). As you might guess from this thread's title, I have a question about the Spanish translation.

According to a little flier the church handed out, the Spanish translation is "Cristo ha resuciatado." "En verdad ha resuciatado." I don't know the verb for "to resurrect" en espanol, but assuming they got the verb right, that rendering literally reads, "Christ has risen/revived." "In truth, he has risen/revived." But the actual greeting goes Christ is Risen."

Believe it or not, the distinction is theologically relevant. We deliberately say Christ is Risen because the resurrection is viewed not just as a historical event but as an eternal truth with significance in our ongoing lives. It's an event of cosmic importance and all.

So: I think it should be "es resuciatado," or "esta resuciatado," for "is risen." I don't know which form of "to be" is supposed to be applied for metaphysical assertions, ser or estar. Haber, which is used in the phrase, is also "to be" in the sense of "exists," but in the context in which it's used it suggests the familiar old past perfect tense (what's called the past participle in English). "He roto las gafas," for example, means "I have broken the glasses." I know I've seen cases where the -ido/-ado participle is used with verbs other than haber, or at least other than a present tense ending of haber, before. But I don't know how exactly English idioms translate to Spanish.

So: "es," "esta," "ha," or none of the above? I realize this is a really pointless question; please, everybody, refrain from scornful remarks until I've got at least one answer from a Spanish speaker.

[SlowwHand]

(Spanish "formal", as in Spain) Spanish (Castilan): Crist ha ressuscitat! En veritat ha ressuscitatado!

Spanish (Baskian): Cristo berbistua! Benatan berbistua!

Spanish: Cristo ha resucitado! En verdad, ha resucitado!

[Ecthy]

You could ask at the Spanish Civ2 forum. That's some kind of huge Sumoithreadi in Spanish, here at Apolyton, plus they have +1.

[Elok]

Okay, so why "ha," not "es?" Does the idiom of "is + past participle" just not exist in Spanish, or is this some special formulation of haber in the sense of "exist?"

[SlowwHand]

Why "too" not "to" or "two" ?

[Elok]

Because those are homophones with distinct meanings. The words just coincidentally sound similar. This is a question of semantic construction; there are usually rules governing that.

[Ecthy]

Elok, the issue that I think you're addressing exists even within the German language. Different dialects use different modal verbs for perfect tense constructions. Example:

South Germany, Austria: Ich bin dort gestanden.

Normal : Ich habe dort gestanden.

Using different definitions of what kind of verb "stehen" ('stand') is and how it should be conjugated in Perfekt.

[SlowwHand]

Locations. Spain vs. Mexico's bastardized translation. Seriously. Kind of like Texan vs. English.

[civman2000]

Definitely not "es": "es resucitado" strongly implies that there is someone who revived Christ. As for "esta"/"ha", I think "ha" is better, but I'm not sure. But if you use "ha", I think it would be "se ha resucitado," not "ha resucitado"; typically in Spanish a transitive verb must be made reflexive in order to turn it into what in English would be the same verb but intransitive.

(BTW, it's "resucitar", not "resuciatar".)

Disclaimer: I am not a native speaker of Spanish.

[Ecthy]

Neither am I, but I'm planning to become one.

[SlowwHand]

What?

Or Que, as the case may be, Mr. Native.

[Wernazuma III]

Re: Native Spanish speakers: can you help me on this?

Originally posted by Elok
This is a thoroughly irrelevant argument I had with people at my church and meant to bring to the attention of my Spanish teacher but never did. This has no importance whatsoever, I just want to know who's right.

Anyway, on Easter, we Orthodox have a traditional greeting for one another: one person says "Christ is Risen," and the other replies, "Indeed He is Risen!" Since Orthodox Christianity is such a multicultural church, we've taken to exchanging the greeting in lots of different languages, trying to stump one another for fun ("Hristos a inviat!" "Adeverat a inviat!"). As you might guess from this thread's title, I have a question about the Spanish translation.

According to a little flier the church handed out, the Spanish translation is "Cristo ha resuciatado." "En verdad ha resuciatado." I don't know the verb for "to resurrect" en espanol, but assuming they got the verb right, that rendering literally reads, "Christ has risen/revived." "In truth, he has risen/revived." But the actual greeting goes Christ is Risen."

Believe it or not, the distinction is theologically relevant. We deliberately say Christ is Risen because the resurrection is viewed not just as a historical event but as an eternal truth with significance in our ongoing lives. It's an event of cosmic importance and all.

So: I think it should be "es resuciatado," or "esta resuciatado," for "is risen." I don't know which form of "to be" is supposed to be applied for metaphysical assertions, ser or estar. Haber, which is used in the phrase, is also "to be" in the sense of "exists," but in the context in which it's used it suggests the familiar old past perfect tense (what's called the past participle in English). "He roto las gafas," for example, means "I have broken the glasses." I know I've seen cases where the -ido/-ado participle is used with verbs other than haber, or at least other than a present tense ending of haber, before. But I don't know how exactly English idioms translate to Spanish.

So: "es," "esta," "ha," or none of the above? I realize this is a really pointless question; please, everybody, refrain from scornful remarks until I've got at least one answer from a Spanish speaker.

1. Well, first, forget about "estar", it's the form of to be with "less substance", a situational form that usually is subject of possible change - for metaphysical stuff hardly to be used.
2. Past tense is always formed with "haber", also past-past-tense (I had done...). Sure you can use the participle with other verbs, but not to express the past tense: "Estoy destrozado" - "I'm devastated" (note: "Soy destrozado" would mean you're probably physically destroyed or in a chronic mental state of devastation that cannot change anymore, having become part of your being).


3. Saying "Cristo es resucitado" would rather mean "Christ is being risen", it turns the sentence into passive.
So, "Cristo ha resucitado" is the correct form in my opinion. But then again, I'm no native speaker.

[Wernazuma III]

Originally posted by Ecthy


South Germany, Austria: Ich bin dort gestanden.

Piefkinesisch: Ich habe dort gestanden.

Ils sont fous ces alemands.



edit: Format

[Thorgal]

Originally posted by SlowwHand
(Spanish "formal", as in Spain) Spanish (Castilan): Crist ha ressuscitat! En veritat ha ressuscitatado!

That is not Spanish. It sounds like some sort of latin mixed with some sort of catalan.

Spanish: Cristo ha resucitado! En verdad, ha resucitado!

This is the way it is said in Spain and in any Spanish speaking country.

Latin American Spanish and Spanish from Spain are the same excepting for slang and some words usage.

[Thorgal]

Ops i didnt see this:

Believe it or not, the distinction is theologically relevant. We deliberately say Christ is Risen because the resurrection is viewed not just as a historical event but as an eternal truth with significance in our ongoing lives. It's an event of cosmic importance and all.

It has the same sense using the "pretérito perfecto compuesto" AKA "pasado participio" (past participle) in Spanish "Ha resucitado".

In Spanish the "Pretérito perfecto compuesto " is used when the time of the action is not ended yet. As opossed to the "preterito perfecto simple" AKA "pretérito indefinido" "resucitó", that is used when the time of the action is totally finished.

"Hoy he tomado zumo de naranja para desayunar" (today i have had orange juice for breakfast). Here it is used the "Pretérito perfecto compuesto" becuase today has not ended yet.

"Ayer tomé zumo de naranja para desayunar" (Yesterday i had orange juice for breakfast) Here it is used the "preterito perfecto simple" because yesterday has ended yet.

So to refer to Jesus resurection as a historical fact you would say simply "Jesucristo resucitó". This difference is mostly done in Spain and in most formal texts in general like the religious texts, I think that in Latin America colloquial spanish it is more common to use the "preterito perfecto simple" in both cases.