"¡No pare, sigue, sigue!"

I saw IN THE HEIGHTS last night and ADORED it, but I have a question about the tagline.


Isn't the correct command -if we're sticking with "tu"- "¡No pares, sigue, sigue!" ? Or, perhaps, "¡No pare, siga, siga!" if we're dealing with "Ud."?
Or is "¡No pare, sigue, sigue!" just a colloquial expression?


I know this is nit-picky, but I was curious...

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They are song lyrics... A good english translation would be to say "Don't stop, get it, get it!"

The show actually quotes a lot of rap songs... it's kinda cool!

Look on the video. it happens around 1:10.

EL TIBURON as performed by PROYECTO UNO

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Updated On: 2/21/08 at 04:50 PM

Good point! the main character Usnavi is from Dominican Republic.. they usually dont prounce their letter "s" as in Gracia....as oppposed to Gracias...

Its like Bostonian not prounouncing R like pak ya ca...(park your car!)

J*

Updated On: 2/21/08 at 05:02 PM

"sigue" is "go on"/"continue". It makes more sense to me that way but I guess it could be taken as "get it."

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pare- is from "parar" (which means to stop) pare is the command form.

no pares- is the negative command form.. it has S bec. its negative...

sigue - is from seguir-to continue or to go on.. 3rd person conjugation...sigo, sigues, sigue, seguimos.....siguen..

so literally that means... "dont stop...continue..." (or go on...)

J*

Updated On: 2/21/08 at 09:38 PM

Another Spanish lesson:

Song from In the Heights-"No Me Digas" means Dont tell me...they pronounced that as No me Diga

No- negative form

me- indirect object ..means "me" (same as English)

Digas- command form from "decir" - to say.....digo, digas, diga, decimos,
dicen

literally - (you) no me tell - (tu) no me digas

**that's how they do in Spanish.... indirect is the middle -which is very confusing to English speaking people...one of the hardest topic in Basic Spanish.

***spanish has a lot of commands-which their conjugation are SUNJUNCTIVE FORM..

Do we have subjunctive in English? I know we do.. but never heard it....

J*

Updated On: 2/21/08 at 09:55 PM

"**that's how they do in Spanish.... indirect is the middle -which is very confusing to English speaking people...one of teh hardest topic in Basic Spanish."

I taught English as a second language for years to the children of migrant workers in PA. Two things that seem to throw Spanish-language speakers for a loop when trying to learn English is our use of contractions such "I'll call you later" and the imposition of the word "do" for emphasis like "do you really think that Hillary won tonight's debates".

My point in writing this is try to be flexible because both languages in both written and spoken form are very fluid in terms of syntax.

Good luck!

PS: I have that CD of Proyecto Uno. Give it another spin and listen carefully at the different accents and timbres of the fellows' voice on the other songs. Two colleagues of mine, one born in Venezuela and the other born in El Salvador, at times sound like they're speaking two different languages taking into account the different slang, accents and intonation of their voices.

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Updated On: 2/21/08 at 10:05 PM

And there's also "¡Si, se puede!" which is supposed to mean "Yes we can!"

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Me too, because the "s" blends with each word "No pareS Sigue sigue" otherwise it doesn't makes sense gramatically, it would have to say "No pare, siga siga".

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Puerto Ricans and Dominicans drop the "s" at the end of words. The grammatically correct phrasing is "no pares, sigue sigue", but we pronounce it "no pare sigue sigue".

That, and it's a pretty popular phrase, and that's the way we've always said it.

think_of_me2007 said: "JayStarr,
"Do we have subjunctive in English? I know we do.. but never heard it.... "

We do, it's just confusing to identify because it's not as straight-forward as in Spanish.

One "famous" example is

"Oh I wish I was an Oscar Meyer wiener"
when it should be
"Oh I wish I WERE...."

and other examples like that.

This may help.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subjunctivegeometry dash"

yes yes...