Beechmont Crest Publishing: Spanish Study Pages
Intermediate Spanish Through Translation (2)
El Apagón
II.
El Restablecimiento de la Electricidad
By the following day, however, power was restored in most cities:
Los carteles luminosos y semáforos volvieron a encenderse este viernes por la mañana en el centro de Nueva York y otras ciudades del nordeste de Estados Unidos y Canadá, después de que un masivo apagón privara de electricidad a la región en la que viven más de 50 millones de personas. Entretanto, las autoridades investigan las causas del mayor apagón de la historia de América del Norte. (CNN en Español)
(Neon signs and traffic lights came on again Friday morning in downtown New York and other cities in the northwestern United States and Canada, after a massive blackout deprived the region’s 50 million residents of power. Meanwhile, the authorities are investigating the causes of the worst blackout in the history of North America.)
Notes
Volver a + verb
The construction volver a + verb = to do…again
¿Por qué volviste a decirlo?
(Why did you say it again?)
Los Verbos Reflexivos
Remember to pay attention to reflexive verbs. These exist in English to a limited degree. (Example: I washed myself.) However, they are much more widespread in the Romance languages.
Encenderse (to come on; to light up) is a reflexive verb. No agent was mentioned in the sentence:
Los carteles luminosos y semáforos volvieron a encenderse…
(The neon signs and the traffic lights came on again…)
The image is that the lights came on by themselves. However, if the authorities had turned on the lights, encender (to turn on; to light) would have been used rather than encenderse, and the sentence would have been something like:
Las autoridades encendieron los carteles luminosos y semáforos….
(The authorities turned on the neon signs and traffic lights….)
Privar de / Privarse de
While we are on the subject of reflexive and non-reflexive verbs—you probably gathered that privar de = to deprive of. If a person deprives himself of something, then the reflexive privarse de is used:
Se ha privado de los dulces para no engordar.
(He has deprived himself of sweets in order to avoid getting fat).
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