TeoSolorzano Posted October 29, 2015 Report Share Posted October 29, 2015 So, I ran into an issue trying to translate today. The concept is that neither one of two people have a certain quality. The specific sentence is "Neither Olivier nor Antonio is Latino."I thought about some possibilities: "Olivier ni Antonio es latino." "Olivier ni Antonio no es latino." "Ni Olivier ni Antonio es latino." Are any of these right, or would it translate completely differently? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordan94 Posted November 2, 2015 Report Share Posted November 2, 2015 I've been wondering the same thing actually. I was really confused by this at first. Spanish is so much different from English. I remember when I first started learning Spanish I was really frustrated and confused by the whole process, but I got the hang of it eventually. It was quite a long process and a long journey but in the end it paid off very well for me. I'm actually hoping on starting a new job that requires language learning. I'm hoping to learn as many languages as I possibly can in my lifetime. I think it will enrich my life and make me more intelligent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
czarina84 Posted November 3, 2015 Report Share Posted November 3, 2015 I am also studying Spanish. I'm not fluent, so I could be wrong. Both the first and third one look right to me. The second one seems like it would translate to "Olivier nor Antonio isn't Latino" which would kind of be saying that they are both Latino. I ran it through a translator and got "Ni Olivier ni Antonio es latino". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elimination Posted November 4, 2015 Report Share Posted November 4, 2015 (edited) Hey everyone!Native speaker from Mexico here. The third is about right, the only correction would be to use plural: "Ni Olivier ni Antonio son latinos."; unless you're very specifically talking about the names and their origins, rather than actual people.The first one sounds off and the second is negating the statement, as in "Olivier nor Antonio are not Latino."Hope that helps! Edited November 4, 2015 by Elimination czarina84 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
czarina84 Posted November 5, 2015 Report Share Posted November 5, 2015 On 11/4/2015 at 2:37 AM, Elimination said: Hey everyone!Native speaker from Mexico here. The third is about right, the only correction would be to use plural: "Ni Olivier ni Antonio son latinos."; unless you're very specifically talking about the names and their origins, rather than actual people.The first one sounds off and the second is negating the statement, as in "Olivier nor Antonio are not Latino."Hope that helps! Thank you for chiming in on this. I knew the second one wasn't correct. I was shaky on the first one, so thank you very much for letting me know it was wrong. I have a question, though. Is the first one just wrong in Mexico but some other countries may use it or is it wrong in any region that speaks Spanish? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Elimination Posted November 7, 2015 Report Share Posted November 7, 2015 On 11/5/2015 at 3:22 PM, czarina84 said: Thank you for chiming in on this. I knew the second one wasn't correct. I was shaky on the first one, so thank you very much for letting me know it was wrong. I have a question, though. Is the first one just wrong in Mexico but some other countries may use it or is it wrong in any region that speaks Spanish? You're welcome. That one is wrong in any region. It's just grammatically off, it sounds incomplete, like a mistake. Indeed, the way to go is that third option!Another way to say it, but excluding "ni" (which I suppose beats the purpose of the thread, but oh well) is "Olivier y Antonio no son latinos." czarina84 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
czarina84 Posted November 8, 2015 Report Share Posted November 8, 2015 On 11/7/2015 at 11:14 PM, Elimination said: You're welcome. That one is wrong in any region. It's just grammatically off, it sounds incomplete, like a mistake. Indeed, the way to go is that third option!Another way to say it, but excluding "ni" (which I suppose beats the purpose of the thread, but oh well) is "Olivier y Antonio no son latinos."Even if it does defeat the purpose of the thread, it's still good to know. You never know when you are going to run into certain phrases. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Oricat Posted November 17, 2015 Report Share Posted November 17, 2015 The third options is almost right, you just have to change it to plural because you are talking about two persons "Ni Olviver ni Antonio son latinos" if you want to add the ni, there are so many ways to say something in Spanish that sometimes it is hard for me to know if it's right or not (I'm from Venezuela and I speak Spanish as my native language). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sillylucy Posted November 23, 2015 Report Share Posted November 23, 2015 I think of "ni" as "nor" in English. It is used a little funky in this example so I will come up with one of my own. "Jessica ni Carla tiene dinero para escuela." Jessica nor Carla have money for school. Cuba 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paula Posted December 6, 2015 Report Share Posted December 6, 2015 On 10/29/2015 at 7:12 PM, TeoSolorzano said: So, I ran into an issue trying to translate today. The concept is that neither one of two people have a certain quality. The specific sentence is "Neither Olivier nor Antonio is Latino." I thought about some possibilities: "Olivier ni Antonio es latino." "Olivier ni Antonio no es latino." "Ni Olivier ni Antonio es latino." Are any of these right, or would it translate completely differently? Expand Hello, I'm happy I can actually help in this because I'm a native Spanish speaker. One of your translations is almost correct, you got the "NI" right, but the thing is that Oliver and Antonio are two different persons so you cannot use "ES LATINO" in the sentence because "ES LATINO" talks only about one person, not two. Here's how it goes: Ni Antonio ni Oliver son Latinos. As you can see we changed the "ES" with the plural word "SON" and added an "S" at the end of the word "Latino" to make it plural. Hope this helps, and I'll be more than happy to help you out with anything else you have in Spanish!! linguaholic 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XLS Posted December 7, 2015 Report Share Posted December 7, 2015 On 10/29/2015 at 7:12 PM, TeoSolorzano said: So, I ran into an issue trying to translate today. The concept is that neither one of two people have a certain quality. The specific sentence is "Neither Olivier nor Antonio is Latino." I thought about some possibilities: "Olivier ni Antonio es latino." "Olivier ni Antonio no es latino." "Ni Olivier ni Antonio es latino." Are any of these right, or would it translate completely differently? Expand " Oliver y Antonio no son latinos" or "Oliver ni Antonio no son Latinos", that is how I would say it. I think Spanish only gets complicated when English is thrown into the mix. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
3rdeyeguy Posted December 17, 2015 Report Share Posted December 17, 2015 This is a cool thread. Normally I would run a question like this through a translator to get my answer, but I'd never get the reasoning as to why the sentence structure was the way it was. Thank you native speakers for giving me a detailed answer as to why it should be rather than "this is the answer goodbye". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
honestlang Posted March 10, 2016 Report Share Posted March 10, 2016 Ni, ni - Neither, nor Cuba 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
untalleslie Posted September 18, 2016 Report Share Posted September 18, 2016 When it comes to me I think that the right way to translate it would be Ni Antonio ni Oliver son latinos. If you translate it on English it would sound weird because the grammar rules are kind of different from each other... Just try to think just in Spanish, don't mix it up with English. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sicario Posted August 22, 2019 Report Share Posted August 22, 2019 On 12/7/2015 at 3:26 PM, XLS said: " Oliver y Antonio no son latinos" or "Oliver ni Antonio no son Latinos", that is how I would say it. I think Spanish only gets complicated when English is thrown into the mix. Expand Yeah you're not kidding as "Oliver ni Antonio no son Latinos" means "Oliver and Antonio not are latinos" "Not are" in Spanish but "are not" in English! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ALRO777 Posted September 21, 2019 Report Share Posted September 21, 2019 On 12/7/2015 at 3:26 PM, XLS said: "Oliver y Antonio no son latinos" or "Oliver ni Antonio no son Latinos", that is how I would say it. I think Spanish only gets complicated when English is thrown into the mix. Expand The first one is correct, but the second one must be: "Ni Oliver ni Antonio son Latinos". I think someone has been already mentioned it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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