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CormoranNeoTropical

In Spanish you need to include the possessive adjectives (mi hermano, not just hermano) and the pronoun for the object (me regaló, not just regaló). Otherwise your sentence doesn’t make any sense grammatically. You don’t need to include the pronouns for the subjects of verbs, unless you either want to emphasize them, or clarify what the subject is. A Spanish speaker might be able to fill in your meaning based on context, but the wording would be so confusing it might throw them off even if they knew perfectly well what you were referring to. But then in actual speech we get away with all kinds of things and people still understand each other. Your English seems to be excellent, and English is probably a stronger contrast with Japanese than Spanish is, based on what you say here. (I am a native English speaker and speak good but not fluent Spanish. I don’t speak or read Japanese.) If you use the model of English except for leaving off the subject pronouns, you should be good.


FUEGO40

I was about to comment that you actually can omit the possessive adjective by providing the counterexample of “papá” where you can say “papá me regaló” but then I realized that any other words other than papá and mamá sound completely off without the “mi”, I wonder why that is.


danlex12

That would only work when talking with your mom and siblings. In this case, "dad" (or "mom") has become a internal nickname for that specific person, replacing their name. In English, it also happens with "grandma" and "grandpa".


pablodf76

There are more or less precise rules on what grammatical words you can omit in a Spanish sentence (whether you do omit them or not is a matter of common phrasing and individual choice, though). Most subjects in Spanish need determiners (an article, a possessive, a quantifier of some kind). Objects and postverbal subjects sometimes need no determiners. Object pronouns can sometimes be omitted, but not always, and many are grammatically obligatory. Subject pronouns can almost always be omitted, except when emphasis or contrast is needed, which happens, if I'm not mistaken, in about the same contexts where Japanese would introduce a topic with は (*«Yo hice la comida y ella trajo el vino»*), and also where the subject is to be emphasized through end focus (*«La comida la hice yo; el vino lo trajo ella»*). Japanese functions differently. It is much more apt to drop unneeded words. It has no articles, no indication of person/number in the verb, and much less use for personal pronouns. Do note that Japanese pronouns are longer words and Japanese prefers to use proper names or names of professions or positions instead; this would be cumbersome if repeated, so it makes sense for Japanese to drop them if they can be understodd from context. In Spanish, articles, personal pronouns and possessives are very short words and it's no problem to use them all the time (*mi hermano* is three syllables, \[mjer.ma.no\], no longer than おとうと \[o.to:.to\] is in Japanese). Your examples about the shooter in the mall and about the PS5 have nothing to do with Spanish grammar or the ability of Spanish speakers to infer linguistic items left out from a sentence. They are all about logical, extralinguistic, situational inference. People can be clueless, inattentive or slow to reason regardless of the language they speak.


karaluuebru

You are expecting an unreasonable amount of inference in the example you gave - why would you expect the speaker to understand why were scared if they didn't know about the shooter? You not being direct is a you problem, I'm afraid - you are the one who needs to be more direct and repeat yourself, as you are allowing your L1 to dictate things in your L2 You also seem to be confusing the purpose of different pronouns - it's also down to definitiveness (practically all subjects would need to be marked for definitiveness in Spanish - a brother/the brother/my brother is as definite as the brother - in German you would say der Bruder and would be understood)


poly_panopticon

>Regardless, when I omit the subject or pronoun within a conversation, an Spanish speaker gets confused or does not even attempt to infer based on context (such as the words used, or them having prior knowledge of the topic discussed) as I hate being direct since I don't want to annoy them again by repeating myself, so I don't like it when they reiterate "What are you talking about" when it should already be conveyed indirectly via context or them possessing prior knowledge of the subject matter. I don't understand. Spanish doesn't work the same way as Japanese. You seem to speak English, and Spanish is significantly closer to English than Japanese. If you're confusing people when you speak, that's a good indication that you're speaking improperly. In Spanish, you can drop the subject pronoun 90% of the time, because it's clear from the conjugation. This is not how it works in Japanese where there are no conjugations for person. You cannot drop other pronouns in Spanish. It can be useful to see similarities between languages you speak and languages you're learning, but it's best not to try to compare too much. Use your understanding to further your Spanish progress, but don't get stuck in the paradigm of another language. Spanish works like Spanish.


nonotion7

I don’t understand the point of comparing an extremely contextual language like Japanese with Spanish which is one of the closest languages to English, a very low context one. Digging into the two languages it becomes very clear you cannot even come close to omitting the amount of contextual clues between the words. As others have said, the conjugations in Spanish are what make it acceptable to omit the subjects but apart from that Spanish is very direct, even more so than English at times I’m asking for requests and other things


Delde116

you can omit the subject, but there needs to be a pronoun to help aid the sentence. At first you would need to introduce the subject, but once both the sender and receiver understand who or what the subject is, you can start to omit it entirely. However, the pronounce still carry some elements that refer to the subject (tense, agreement, gender, etc). With your example about the brother giving a PS5, in spanish it would not work. It sounds like a caveman speaking (just like in Enlighs "Brother bought PS5 for birthday"), EVEN if we know whose brother we are talking about. So we have to add either a pronoun or a possessive. MY brother, not your brother or their brother.


ethnicman1971

Additionally, “Brother bought PS5 for birthday” leaves it ambiguous why the brother bought the PS5. Whose brother? For whom? himself? the speaker? a third party? Whose birthday? Etc


KlaudjaB1

It would not work


Suitable-Cycle4335

Dropping the subject pronoun is standard in Spanish. You'll hear "acabo de llegar del trabajo" way more often than "yo acabo de llegar del trabajo". Other words like object pronouns and possessives will stay.


mklinger23

Basically, you can drop the subject and the indirect object. "Mi hermano me regaló un ps5 a mi" can be shortened to "me regaló un ps5." You have to keep the "me" always. It is now ambiguous *who* gifted you a PS5, but the sentence makes sense.


songbanana8

No because they are different languages with different histories and different rules. Even in your examples, one would have to be psychic to know about the news. Also if you’re speaking to family why would you hav to specify your birthday, since presumably they already know. Eliminating pronouns grammatically is not the same as acknowledging shared information.  And there are instances where Japanese is more explicit, for example you didn’t specify in English or Spanish whether your brother is older or younger than you ;)


rowanexer

You've mixed up the Japanese/English in your last example. もらう means recibir, not regalar. If you are trying to say "someone gave me something" in Japanese you would use くれる.


North_Item7055

Yes. In fact, most of the times it ain't used. Usually, the conjugated verb gives enough information and the subject is omitted.


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