Learned a new phrase today ... thought I'd share

Jul 28, 2008
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Today, while messaging with a Dominican friend, he used the phrase "hechar el plato a la casa." Of course, I'd never heard that before, neither had my dictionary. I took it to mean, in the context of our conversation, that he was talking about the workers "putting the roof on his house" that he's having built. For those more versed in dominicanismos, is that the correct meaning?
 
Feb 7, 2007
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Ceiling = Plato

It's a correct expression. .. it literally means to throw a ceiling, or correctly translated to construct a ceiling
 

Hillbilly

Moderator
Jan 1, 2002
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"el plato" can al
so refer to the concrete floor or base of the house, different from the "zapata" or footing....

Echar el plato could refer to either.

Many persons use/misuse that "h" at the beginning of words....

HB
 

Uzin

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Oct 26, 2005
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As far as I know there is no word "hechar" (well, Google doesn't know it anyway), there is "hecho, hecha, hechas" from the verb "hacer".

There is the verb "echar" as explained above.

It's interesting your friend added the extra "h", from what I have seen most Dominicans tend to drop "h"s where they are actually needed, let alone adding extra ones !
 

Aguaita29

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Jul 27, 2011
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As far as I know there is no word "hechar" (well, Google doesn't know it anyway), there is "hecho, hecha, hechas" from the verb "hacer".

There is the verb "echar" as explained above.

It's interesting your friend added the extra "h", from what I have seen most Dominicans tend to drop "h"s where they are actually needed, let alone adding extra ones !
You're right! I was thinking about "hecho" as a verb, but it's a conjugation of "hacer".
 

Aguaita29

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Jul 27, 2011
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It's interesting your friend added the extra "h", from what I have seen most Dominicans tend to drop "h"s where they are actually needed, let alone adding extra ones !

This is actually a pretty common mistake.Adding letters like an "s" to other words is also common; for example, I know someone called "Emelda" and some people call her "Esmelda". I also know some people who say "Escuador" instead of "Ecuador". How about the ones who say they're very "Cast?licos"?
 

Marianopolita

Former Spanish forum Mod 2010-2021
Dec 26, 2003
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Uzin...

As far as I know there is no word "hechar" (well, Google doesn't know it anyway), there is "hecho, hecha, hechas" from the verb "hacer".

There is the verb "echar" as explained above.

It's interesting your friend added the extra "h", from what I have seen most Dominicans tend to drop "h"s where they are actually needed, let alone adding extra ones !


You are correct.

There is no such verb hechar.

The verb echar has several meanings and one common and general one is in the sense of tirar which is what the OP is referring to.

The past participle of the verb hacer is hecho.

Echar- conjugated in the present tense is: echo, echas, echa etc,

BUT

Hecho- is the past participle of the verb hacer which means done.


-MP.
 

Hector L

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Jun 11, 2010
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Aguaita29......I was taught[possibly incorrectly] that if a word begins with an S followed by a consonant then an E is placed in front of the S.....perhaps there is a similar rule for words beginning with E.
 

Kipling333

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Jan 12, 2010
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good one Hector ,,the actual word does not start with s but starts with es .. there are no words in spanish that start with s and have a consonant next but plenty with es that are followed by a consonant ..examples espacio , esperanza and estado ....What you may have been taught is that spanish words that are a little like english words which have a s and then a consonant always start with es
 

ju10prd

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'hechar el techo a la casa' would mean 'pour the roof of the house' according to word translator software...which doesn't recognize plato = dish

I used Babylon to confirm that so it must be a commonly used phrase because that is where the software programs get their translations....millions of phrases

As written in the OP Babylon = 'pour the plate of the house'
 
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Marianopolita

Former Spanish forum Mod 2010-2021
Dec 26, 2003
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Good point....

Aguaita29......I was taught[possibly incorrectly] that if a word begins with an S followed by a consonant then an E is placed in front of the S.....perhaps there is a similar rule for words beginning with E.


The rule you are referring to is regarding consonant clusters. In Spanish, words with such clusters do have an 'e' placed before it which breaks up the cluster when pronouncing the word.

There are many examples. Just look in the dictionary under the letter 'E' and start with words beginning with 'es' and you will see the trend.

But if a speaker is adding 's' to a word that starts with 'e' followed by a consonant like in the examples given in Aguaita29's post then that is incorrect and could be due to two reasons:

i) education- not knowing the orthographic and grammatical rules in Spanish

ii) hypercorrection- also due to lack of education. Speakers that add an 's' where it does not belong usually fall in that category. In the DR, I have heard people say la bosca when they mean la boca.


-MP.
 
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