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The verb haber has always confused me in its infinitive form. So in this construct of haber cuéntame, I see it is translated as "so, tell me".

I have just memorized that, but it makes no sense to me. I would expect así, cuéntame or así pues, cuéntame. Can someone break this down and project this to other sayings that use haber in this way?

Paul W
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1 Answers1

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It is not "haber, cuéntame", but "a ver, cuéntame". The meaning of a ver is

  1. expr. U. para pedir algo que se quiere reconocer o ver.

i.e., it is used to ask to be shown or told something. It is roughly equivalent to "let's see/hear it" or "let me see/hear it" or "so", depending on the context.

wimi
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  • I got my original phrase from a text conversation with someone from Dominican Republic. So glad I asked. Thanks! – Paul W Aug 01 '21 at 14:07
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    The confusion is totally understandable, even for some native speakers with bad spelling, as "haber" and "a ver" are homophones. –  Aug 01 '21 at 15:13
  • @PaulW I also know some natives that make that mistake. It is more common than one would think... – wimi Aug 01 '21 at 15:49
  • You mean they make the mistake in writing, right? – Lambie Aug 01 '21 at 16:14
  • @Lambie yes, when writing in chats – wimi Aug 01 '21 at 16:24
  • Yeah, it is funny, isn't it? – Lambie Aug 01 '21 at 16:27
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    It's really hard to make that mistake when speaking –  Aug 01 '21 at 17:47
  • Could that also be an autocorrect error, rather than an error on the part of the texter? – chepner Aug 02 '21 at 14:59
  • @chepner that seems unlikely: at least my auto-corrector corrects word by word, and never replaces two words with one. – wimi Aug 02 '21 at 15:06
  • @wimi: it could be a combination of Autocorrect and the texter; e.g. if they wrote aber (of perhaps even aver) Autocorrect might then have changed it to haber. – Peter LeFanu Lumsdaine Aug 02 '21 at 20:13
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    It feels to me as an analog error to English speakers who write should of instead of should have. It doesn't make sense, but people write it anyway. – Martin Argerami Aug 02 '21 at 20:40
  • I had a Spanish teacher that would start each lesson with "vamos a ver" - I always thought it was a really good way to kick off with "let's all learn some stuff." – Dave Aug 02 '21 at 22:52
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    Or could have been speech to text which just writes what it bears and often doesn't make sense – Midavalo Aug 03 '21 at 13:21
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    It's most definitely a mistake made by the writer. As a Spanish native speaker, I know more people that I'd like to know who don't understand the difference between "haber", "a ver", and "aber" (which doesn't exist but anyway).

    It's also common when writing "ahí", "hay" and "ay".

     – alezvic Aug 03 '21 at 13:27
  • @ParibusCeteris is it? after all "v" and "b" might sound "equal" but are actually prononunced differently i.e. using a slightly different mouth movement. I think it's just that (we) native speakers have either forgotten that or not noticed it when speaking. – Josh Part Aug 03 '21 at 16:47
  • @JoshPart as far as I know, for most native Spanish speakers (at least those in Spain), "b" and "v" are pronounced equally. This is confirmed by RAE (see point 3). – wimi Aug 03 '21 at 17:23