100 Mistakes #13 - How do you say...? What do you call...?

English is pretty easy if you don't already speak another language!

Let's look at a mistake that a lot of Spanish speakers make in almost every conversation:

"Como se dice en inglés 'cosechadora'?"

"How is it called in English 'cosechadora'?"

Here we have some strange mix of English and Spanish; call it Spanglish, if you like. The big problem is that it's structured completely differently in English.

1) The "como se dice...?" part translates literally as "how does it say itself...?" But we don't use this kind of structure in English because 'cosechadoras' don't usually say anything apart from "whirra-whirra-whirra clankety-clanka-clanka-clanka..."

We want to know how you say it! (you = people in general)

"How do you say...?" √

2) The part of the sentence that starts with 'in' goes at the end. We don't like interrupting sentences with prepositions.

"How do you say in English 'cosechadora'?"

"How do you say 'cosechadora' in English?" √

Of course, you don't have to say it that way either. You can also say:

"What's 'cosechadora' in English?"  √

"What's the English for 'cosechadora'?"  √

"What do you call 'una cosechadora' in English?"  √

"What's 'una cosechadora' called in English?"  √

Notice that these are all "What...?" questions.

The words 'how' and 'call' do not go together unless you want to know how something is achieved or how something is possible.

"How do you call your mum when you're in Barcelona?"

"I usually use Skype."

So how do you say 'cosechadora' in English? I guess you'd better watch the video.