Glossary entry

Spanish term or phrase:

hágate bien tu corazón en los días de tu mocedad

English translation:

let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth

Added to glossary by Charles Davis
Jul 17, 2013 21:15
11 yrs ago
Spanish term

hágate bien tu corazón en los días de tu mocedad

Non-PRO Homework / test Spanish to English Art/Literary Poetry & Literature
Is Hágate grammatically correct? I was told by a native spanish speaker that you cannot use the reflexive pronoun te in this context, that it doesn't exist in Spanish, supposedly you can only say hágale. I beg to differ but don't know how to explain why, please help!
Change log

Jul 17, 2013 21:39: Charles Davis changed "Language pair" from "English to Spanish" to "Spanish to English"

Jul 19, 2013 16:27: Charles Davis Created KOG entry

Votes to reclassify question as PRO/non-PRO:

PRO (1): lorenab23

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Discussion

Charles Davis Jul 17, 2013:
Well, perhaps I've slightly overstated the case. The normal way of saying the same thing in ordinary modern Spanish would be "Que tu corazón te haga bien...", and "hacer bien" is not exactly an everyday expression. I certainly agree that this kind of structure, "Hágate bien", is formal and old-fashioned. You might find it in legal texts, but not in everyday speech.
lorenab23 Jul 17, 2013:
Thank you Charles Yes I should have said archaic instead of "old" and in regards to disuse...well let's say not commonly used. I certainly have not ever used it ;-)
Charles Davis Jul 17, 2013:
@ Lorena For once, I don't quite agree. This is not "old" Spanish, and you can't say it is in disuse, though it is certainly rather archaic in style. Grammatically it is absolutely standard Spanish. It was actually written in the 1980s. The translator has been trying to stay very close to the meaning of the original Hebrew, and has probably made it deliberately archaic in style to make it sound biblical.
lorenab23 Jul 17, 2013:
Well What you have here is "old" Spanish, Your quote is from the bible:
eclesiastes11:9,:"Regocíjate, joven, en tu juventud, y hágate bien tu corazón en los días de tu mocedad...you cannot say that it is grammatically incorrect, you could say that it is in disuse...

Proposed translations

+3
23 mins
Selected

let your heart cheer you in the days of your youth

The person who told you that the Spanish here is grammatically incorrect was wrong.

This is a verse from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 11:9. The quotation you have is from the Spanish version of the Jehovah's Witnesses' bible. Here it is on their website:

http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/b/r4/lp-s/21/11

It is listed on the site as:
"Traducción del Nuevo Mundo de las Santas Escrituras (Con Referencias)
Una traducción revisada basada en la versión de 1984 en inglés, pero consultando fielmente los antiguos textos hebreo y griego —1987—"
http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r4/lp-s/1001060118

In this verse it seems to be a very accurate version of the original Hebrew text, which can be seen here with an English translation:

http://www.mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt3111.htm

So very literally, the Spanish means "Let your heart do (haga tu corazón) good (bien) to you (te)". The "te" has to be appended to the end of the subjunctive verb, "haga". It is not a reflexive pronoun, but simply an indirect object pronoun ("to you").

The English version I have posted is from the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible:

http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ecclesiastes 11&...

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Note added at 27 mins (2013-07-17 21:43:46 GMT)
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Just to develop the grammatical explanation a little further, "tu corazón" is the subject of "haga", which is subjunctive and means "let it do" or "may it do". "Bien" is the direct object of "haga", and can be translated as "good" (noun) or "goodness" or "blessing".

"Te", as I have said, is the indirect object and expresses the person to whom good (or whatever) is done. Any appropriate pronoun could have been used, depending on the meaning: "Hágame bien", let it do good to me, "Hágale bien", let it do good to him/her/it, "háganos bien", let it do good to us, and so on.

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Note added at 55 mins (2013-07-17 22:11:34 GMT)
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On "hágate", see the following explanation from the Real Academia Española. This verb, "haga", is what they call a "subjuntivo exhortativo". "Clíticos" means unstressed pronouns, like "te":

"c) Los clíticos se posponen a las formas de imperativo y a las del subjuntivo exhortativo afirmativo: Hazlo; Ponételo; Dígannoslo; Hágase la luz. Es vulgar anteponer los clíticos al subjuntivo exhortativo cuando este no depende de otro verbo: X «¡Se callen, carajo, no es hora de conversa!» (FnGómez Viaje [Esp. 1985]); debe decirse cállense. Sin embargo, la anteposición es obligada cuando el subjuntivo va en forma negativa o depende de otro verbo (explícito o implícito): No lo hagan; Les ordeno que se callen; Que se vayan ahora mismo."
http://lema.rae.es/dpd/?key=pronombre
(Diccionario panhispánico de dudas, Pronombres personales átonos, 3)

So if it had been "Que haga", which would be more normal, or at least less formal, in modern Spanish, "te" would have preceded "haga": "Que te haga".
Peer comment(s):

agree lorenab23 : Sorry did not see your answer when I was posting my discussion entry
11 mins
No problem! Many thanks, as always :)
agree Luis Antonio de Larrauri
13 hrs
Thanks very much, Luis!
agree teju : Nicely said, saludos :)
22 hrs
Thanks, teju :) Have a great summer!
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4 KudoZ points awarded for this answer. Comment: "Thank you very much! Appreciate the clarification."
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