"Have a Nice Day" (in Spanish)
Oct. 22nd, 2017 05:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
livingdebAt our favorite Tex-Mex restaurant, one lady often says, "¡Que tenga buen día!" as we're leaving. I get that she's saying something like "Have a nice day!" so I reply "¡Usted, tambien!" (you, too), but I don't really get the construction. So finally I looked it up.
The commenter zzigzzag at this Lonely Planet forum explained it perfectly:
This is an example of a subjunctive clause where the main verb is implied rather than stated explicitly:
[Espero] que tengas un buen día.
[I hope that you] have a good day.
"That" can be omitted in English whereas in Spanish "que" cannot.
Ah, I love perfect explanations!
SpanishDict shows a probably better reply: "¡Igualmente!" Literally that means "equally." Really it means something like "the same to you," only I think without any bad connotations. We were actually taught this word during our lesson on introductions as an appropriate response to "Pleased to meet you." So I'm going to try switching to this new response next time!
The commenter zzigzzag at this Lonely Planet forum explained it perfectly:
This is an example of a subjunctive clause where the main verb is implied rather than stated explicitly:
[Espero] que tengas un buen día.
[I hope that you] have a good day.
"That" can be omitted in English whereas in Spanish "que" cannot.
Ah, I love perfect explanations!
SpanishDict shows a probably better reply: "¡Igualmente!" Literally that means "equally." Really it means something like "the same to you," only I think without any bad connotations. We were actually taught this word during our lesson on introductions as an appropriate response to "Pleased to meet you." So I'm going to try switching to this new response next time!