Landing Airplanes

[Noelia]

When planes or spaceships land on different kinds of surfaces, we adapt the verb to that surface.

- Landing = aterrizar (obviously comes from Tierra)

How about these ones in English?

- Acuatizar = landing on water
- Alunizar = landing on the moon

Noelia

** Edited to fix a typo**

[Greg]

Good question, Noelia. In English all aircraft landings are called just that, "landings", regardless of the surface type. We simply add a modifying word to describe that surface:

Acuatizaje = water landing
Alunizaje = lunar landing or moon landing

This is interesting becuase I did not know that the surface type formed the basis for the word in Spanish. So now, if I ever do in fact teach someone in Spanish to fly a seaplane (or spaceship??), I'll know the terms! ;D

Greg

[Noelia]

Hola Greg

Si es interesante. Aunque también es cierto que son palabras formales. "Alunizar" es una palabra que seguramente leería en un subtítulo de la NASA, pero no de mi vecino viendo como una nave aterriza en la luna. Nosotros seguiríamos diciendo "aterrizar" porque en la mente, significa "poner algo que vuela en el piso" no importa de que material es ese piso.

Y lo mimso con los aviones que aterrizan en el agua, conozco el termino acuatizar pero también es super comun usar "aterrizar en el agua" para la gente que no está muy familiarizada con los aviones.


Noelia

[rlewis78728]

In english, I don't think we would even use these (lunar/water landing) as verbs at all - not even in a formal sense. At least I wouldn't use it that way. If I were to use this, the words "lunar" or "water" would be words describing the noun "landing" and not as a verb.

I would never say "the space ship lunar/water landed". I would just say "it landed".

But it would be very natural to say "It was a lunar landing" or "There will be a water landing". I guess that's actually more of a complex noun itself and not a modifier.

And of course, a less formal way to say "water landing" is to say "splashdown".


Robie

[Noelia]

OK! Yo pensaba que como en ambos idiomas las palabras vienen de "tierra" (aterrizar - landing) entonces si en español cambiaban tal vez tambien cambiaban en ingles pero parece que no.

De todas formas, no se hagan tantos problemas, siemrpe se puede utilizar "aterrizar" para cualquier cosa, salvo que esten escribiendo algo formal o especifico de aeronautica, entonces si usarían las otras versiones.

Noelia

[Greg]

rlewis78728 said:

In english, I don't think we would even use these (lunar/water landing) as verbs at all - not even in a formal sense. At least I wouldn't use it that way. If I were to use this, the words "lunar" or "water" would be words describing the noun "landing" and not as a verb.

You're exactly right, Robie. That's what I intended to say I but wasn't very clear.