# la casa que está al lado / de al lado



## Dogway

I once wrote a sentence to a friend that stuck on me as being weird, not correct at all. It had to do with saying that it was beside me, my house, etc but omitting that information.

_Eso sucedio en la casa de al lado (de la mia)
That happened on the house beside (mine)_

Is it correct, is it mandatory to write beside what?

Thank you!


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## Agró

_That happened in the house next to mine._
_That happened next door._


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## Ania R.

To me "beside" sounds weird in this context, even if you add the "mine" at the end. I would say "the house next to mine" or possibly "the house next door".


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## Dogway

Ok, next door is very "house" specific, if instead I said "island"?

_Eso sucedio en la isla de al lado.
That happened on the island beside.

_Here "next" doesn't sound too fitting, I don't know.


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## mijoch

Neighboring house/island/town/etc.


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## SolAguila

mijoch said:


> Neighboring house/island/town/etc.



Is it not neighbo*u*ring?, well, is does not matter with or without an u.


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## Dogway

_"That happened on the neighbor island"_ then? does it sound natural?


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## mijoch

Free dictionary gives "neighbor"  

My little old Oxford diictionary gives "neighbour"  

So,as you say---both are OK, or is it an AE/BE thing.?

Hi Dogway----"on the neighboring island"


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## SolAguila

Mijoch, it is ok, AE/BE thing


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## Dogway

yes, neighbour-neighbor, same as color-colour, I tend to use AE English for simplicity.
Doesn't "neighboring island" sound too strict, like taken from textbook? Or can be said in an informal conversation?


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## Dogway

Ok, while on bed I thought about another option (Does it sound more natural?):

_That happened on the island aside.
_
Another examples:

_That was on the desk aside.
He chose the seat aside._

All these having known what we are talking about, hence no need to say aside/beside "what thing".


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## Satyricon

Try beside not aside it sounds more appropriate and more of the english manner.


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## Dogway

_That happened on the island beside._
_That was on the desk beside.
He chose the seat beside._

correct?


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## Satyricon

Correction "That happened at the island beside (mine)"
You said "That was on the desk beside" is something on the desk or is that where something happened??


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## Dogway

So I can say "_That happened at the island beside_" without mine right? guess I wasn't so much wrong from the beginning.

I don't know if that makes a difference whether something is on the desk or something happened there, my thought was on the latter, but now I want to know.


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## Satyricon

If it happened there, like "Qué pasó (ahi)" or on like "sobre" Yeah you can said that happened at the island beside and if they ask where (como ¿Dónde? pero en inglés) you say mine.


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## Dogway

Thanks a lot for help. Actually my phrase was "_at the island beside's_" like in the sense "_the island _(that is) _beside_" but I guess that's very wrong.


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## Satyricon

It's still right and no problem.


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## FromPA

The next island/desk over.
"Beside" doesn't work in any of the examples above.


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## mijoch

The response "next door" to the OP is, of course, perfect.

"Neighboring" is more generally applicable. "neighboring house/island/town/country/planet/galaxy/etc." and is a very commonly used, understandable word.

"It is so nice to live in a nice neighborhood with neighborly neigbors, and neighborly neighbors in the nice neighboring neighborhoods".


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## Dogway

"_la casa de al lado_" was a bad chosen example, the moderators put that up as title instead of what I had before.
The phrase that I initially had problems with was island. But saying neighboring island sounds like explaining history facts to children.
I'm quite puzzled because some native speakers say it's fine (Satyricon) and others it's not.

"_next island over"_, sounds as it was the next in a line, as in numbered...


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## FromPA

"Adjacent" also works


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## mijoch

Yes. "Adjacent" works, but doesn't extend as does "neighbor" to "neighborhood".

"next island over" is  meaningless. 

'


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## Dogway

In Spanish "Isla adyacente" sounds VERY formal. Is there any informal/slang way to say the same without any kind of pronoun?


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## FromPA

mijoch said:


> Yes. "Adjacent" works, but doesn't extend as does "neighbor" to "neighborhood".
> 
> "next island over" is  meaningless.
> 
> '



Neighboring implies in the vicinity of (or in the neighborhood of) but  not necessarily next to, which is the sense I get from "al lado."   However, when talking about islands, there's probably no difference.  

"The next island over" isn't meaningless to me.


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## mijoch

Not necessarily "next to", but does include that meaning. 

I don't understand "next island over"  Is that AE?

"isla vecina"

English children learn at an early age that the people "next door" are "neighbours"(para variar).

¿A qué edad aprenden los niños de habla español que la gente que vive en la casa de al lado son "los vecinos"? ¿Y lo aprenden en una clase de historia?

Many dictionaries-----------neighbour/vecino.


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## Dogway

hello mijoch. I don't know how many times I repeated it, but the moderators put the thread title on their own. I don't want to say "casa de al lado", I want to say "isla de al lado", "pupitre de al lado", "ordenador de al lado", you get the idea, you can't get more slang than that in Spanish, if you can say "the island next door" that's another story. As for neighbor as you say we have vecino, but we rarely say "isla vecina", "ordenador vecino", if that's English slang, that's another story.


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## mijoch

Fair enough. 

I just don't know a slang term. For me "neighboring island" is not posh or special or only occurs in textbooks.

You could say "the island close by". The essence here is the "closeness". It is not a general term.

If, for some reason, you can't accept "neighbouring" because, to you, it doesn't sound right, I suggest you use the AE "the next island over". Many BE speakers won't understand it, but if you like it-----great.

You do tend to confuse. I've seen "isla vecina" used, but never with the same feeling as an "ordenador". Surely "islas" and "ordenadores" deserve different consideration.

You could use "the next island"-------5.000 km away? But that infers that you are on one island referrring to another. Again, not a general case.


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## Dogway

Yes, we can say "isla vecina" but it sounds refined, somewhat.
Anyways it seems in English neighboring doesn't carry that connotation.
"close by" could be said as "cercana"? that's not exactly "de al lado".
My English is very americanised (americanized in UK?), so I can accept "next __ over"

Here there are 7 islands (mine being the biggest), and they are not arranged in order, so you can loosely say "de al lado" and it will be understood as there's also a big one next to it. Saying the "next island" has a deprecating connotation over the other islands around. Saying "de al lado" leaves it in ambiguity, but is still understandable and doesn't put down minor islands. My logic says that the matching expression can be interchangeable used with "ordenador de al lado" or "pupitre de al lado"

"next PC over" "neighboring PC" (ie. "use the neighboring PC, that one is broken")
"next desk over" "neighboring desk" (ie. "I sit on the next desk over, next to the window")


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## Satyricon

How about the island approximately next to mine? I know people will know what he's talking about with what I told him, you don't always have to be exact. If he put down the question to these answers then we would get a better idea of where he is coming from.


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## Dogway

The idea is to keep it short and rather informal. As you would say in a normal conversation.
The closer I can think of to what I mean is "the other island", but that is... well; "la otra isla" to be exact.
I don't understand why you can't just say "the island beside('s)"


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## horsewishr

mijoch said:


> Yes. "Adjacent" works, but doesn't extend as does "neighbor" to "neighborhood".
> 
> "next island over" is  meaningless.


It's definitely not meaningless in AE.  It means adjacent.  If you're not referring to the adjacent island, you could say "a nearby island."


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## mijoch

I see, I think. 

Does it mean "the next island from the one you're on?

If so, it's different to "neighboring", but fits  
with this thread.


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## Dogway

well, nearby is similar to close by, so that doesn't quite fit.

Yes you can say I'm on the island. but when you talk about "_el ordenador de al lado_" you don't necessarily need to be on the computer. The key point is we (interlocutors) know what we are talking about (the island I live, the computer that is to be used, etc) so there's no need to say "the island beside *it*" (it or the one I live)


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## Dogway

I had a spark.

Probably instead of saying "_that happened on the island besides_'"
I could say "_that happened on the side island_"

Is that correct?


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## FromPA

Dogway said:


> I had a spark.
> 
> Probably instead of saying "_that happened on the island besides_'"
> I could say "_that happened on the side island_"
> 
> Is that correct?



No.  Neither one is correct.


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