Go Out vs. Go In to the Water

Hello, you have A Way with Words.

Hi, this is Mayra calling from Puerto Rico.

Oh, welcome, Mayra.

Mayra, welcome to the show. How can we help?

Hi. Well, I was born and raised here in Puerto Rico. So my first language is Spanish, just in case you notice that accent. And living here, I love going to the beach and snorkeling. And I have friends that live in Minnesota. They come and spend the cold months here from October to April. And we used to meet at the beach to go snorkeling. We sat on the sand, chatting and getting ready to go in the water. And they always say, okay, I’m ready to go out, as out to the water. Then when they were in the water for a while, they always say, okay, I’m ready to go in, as in land.

Now, the way I say it is when I’m ready to go snorkeling or swimming, I say, okay, I’m ready to go. I’m into the water, and then when I’m ready to go out, I’m ready to go out of the water. Are they right? Am I wrong? I could see both being correct depending where you’re standing when you speak and your perspective about what you’re going to do next. For example, if I’m on a porch or under a roof or in some kind of shade or under an umbrella, I could see saying that I’m going to go out because I feel like I’m leaving shelter and going out to the water. Does that make sense?

Because it’s always like we’re right there on the shore. So no shade, no shelter?

No, no shade, no nothing. It reminds me of the conversations we have about downtown. What is downtown? What is uptown? And it’s different. It’s uptown, downtown, exactly. It’s different for a lot of places. Some places, the downtown is very unlike. It’s not the center of town. It’s something else.

Yeah, I’m sure as you’ve already found, prepositions are just so tricky. That’s one of the hardest things to learn when you’re learning another language, right?

Exactly. And even in the language, they can differ from dialect to dialect.

Absolutely. English doesn’t always treat prepositions the same across all the different English speakers in the world.

Right. And, Myra, when you’re getting out of the water and you’re thinking in Spanish, what verb do you use?

Oh, that’s another thing that the way I speak English is I translate in my mind before I say it. Yeah. And I always say, voy a salir del agua.

Right, right. So it’s just a single word. I’m going to go out.

Yeah, going to go out of the water. Now, my friends from Minnesota, they live by the lake. Do lake people have a different language?

Oh, interesting. Because on a lake, I can see saying going out on the lake, where you might not say I’m going out on the ocean.

Right? Exactly. Interesting.

You know what we’re going to do for you, Myra? We’re going to throw this out to our listeners. We’re going to get some calls from our people on the coast and people who live by rivers and lakes, and they’re going to let us know what they think about this difference between going out, meaning going out to the water or going out of the water, and going in, where you can mean you’re going in the water or you’re going inland. It’s very different.

I would like to hear more. You have, Myra, you’ve posed a pretty little puzzle for us. Thank you for that. And I suspect you are not wrong. I love it, though. Thank you so much.

Thank you. Bye-bye. Take care. Keep listening. Ciao. Ciao.

Well, if you can help Myra out, call us. Let us know what you think. What’s the preposition, the verb plus preposition that you would use for going into the water or getting out of the water? Let us know. 877-929-9673. Email words@waywordradio.org.