Tuesday 10 May 2011

Bastante - quite enough

One of the things I always found a little confusing in Spanish was when meanings overlapped, so that a Spanish word represents two or more English words or vice versa. One example is 'bastante'. This word can be translated as either 'enough' or 'quite'. Basically the meaning depends on the context, but it is worth noting that in English the two meanings are not that different - the biggest difference is that 'quite' goes before a word and 'enough' goes after, e.g. quite good or good enough. Bastante is a word I like to use at times instead of a simple yes or no answer, just to show that I know a little more Spanish than 'sí'and 'no'.

Some examples -

bastante bien = quite well / well enough
es bastante grande = it is quite big / big enough
¿es bastante ancho? = is it wide enough?

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