# habitación de servicio



## allauda

Hola, me gustaría saber cómo se llama en inglés a lo que en Argentina llamamos "habitación de servicio" o bien "dependencia de servicio", términos con los cuales hacemos referencia a la habitación destinada en una casa o apartamento al dormitorio de la mucama.
Muchas gracias!


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## lapachis8

Es curioso porque en el mundo anglo el concepto de servidumbre se maneja de manera muy diferente del mundo hispanoamericano.
Sólo la gente inmensamente acaudalada tiene servidumbre viviendo en su casa en el mundo anglo y bueno, también algunos californianos, donde la mano de obra barata para labores domésticas abunda.


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## mariente

Según mi diccionario entrada de servicio es service entrace, con lo cual habiatación de servicio podría ser service room. Pero esperá la respuesta de un nativo!


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## Txiri

You could call it "the maid´s quarters" and it wouldn´t sound bad ...  "the servant´s quarters" ...


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## lapachis8

Hola,
Ahora que Txiri lo menciona, he oido nativos del inglés en mi país con ayuda doméstica en casa que llaman a ese tipo de habitación "the maid´s room".
saludos


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## mariente

But when you have to put a classified, I think is too informal to put the maid´s room, because sometimes that room is not used by the maid but as an ordinary room, as my mother does in our house, because she doesnt need so much space.


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## snat

The words you would use really depend on how well you treat the people who work for you.
The maid's quarters sounds like it is a little room adjacent to the kitchen with a cot and not much else.
The maid's room would be a reasonably comfortable bedroom.
An au-pair suite or a live-in nanny suite would be a nice bedroom with a tv, a small refrigerator, a microwave and an attached bathroom. Very few baby sitters live that well, but a few do.


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## Txiri

"Quarter´s" sounds more elegant to _me_ than "room" ....


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## Moritzchen

"Live-in quarters"?  Although quarters is more than a room, it includes a bathroom and in many cases a small sitting room.


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## mariente

Quarters me suena cuartel y ¿alguien podría contestar mi pregunta por favor?


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## Edwin

"Maid's quarters"? Claro que se usa, pero me recuerda de "slave's quarters" o habitaciones donde vivan soldatos.  Pero como siempre depende del propósito. ¿Es para describir donde vive la criada en tu casa o quizás sea para un anuncio en un periódico para contratar a una criada o cuál?  

Como dijo lapachis8 no es algo con que la mayoria de estadounideses tengan familiaridad.


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## mariente

¿Para un aviso clasificado como sería?


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## Edwin

mariente said:
			
		

> ¿Para un aviso clasificado como sería?



Sí tienes razón: Aquí van algunos ejemplos:

Live-in Maid wanted for Chinese family who is re-locating from the mid west. Preferably Chinese - English speaking. E-mail this site for details 

Urgent. Nanny needed to care for a 2 year old boy and sometimes a 4 month old baby girl. Live in or live out negotiable. Please call Kim at 01-5535759/02-253...

Maid to live in, general housework washing, ironing and some cooking. English couple with no children. Must like animals as we have 4 cats and 1 miniture dog. W...

Nanny/Cook/Maid Wanted. • Driver/Gardener Available ... There is a maids room in my 2 bed apartment which is on one level and very easy to maintain .

Nanny/Cook/Maid Wanted. • Driver/Gardener Available ... Maids quarters , Lovely garden , 10 min walk to beach or town center . Unfurni . .  ..


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## Moritzchen

Yes, I'm finding maid's quarters in the LA Times.


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## mariente

I dont need a maid. I just want to put a classified which says that my house has a maid´s room, but i dont want to put  maid´s room because I can give to it another destination, like an ordinary room, or an office.


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## Txiri

Then call it whatever you like.  "House with x bedrooms, living room, solarium ..., office ..."


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## Moritzchen

Oh, I thought we were answering allauda's question. In your case I would use bonus room.


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## mariente

In spanish we have the word dependencia to describe that room. I feel that English has not got enough words to describe everything, as spanish  does have . That room is different from the others, thats why i cant call it whatever i like. If i give to it another destination thats my bussiness, but the room is still a "dependencia".


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## Moritzchen

You are right mariente, English is such a poor language (by the way how do you say "toes" in Argentina?), so well... good luck.


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## mariente

Toes = dedos de los pies


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## Moritzchen

No, that is feet fingers, I'm asking for just a word for "toes".


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## mariente

If you dont believe me you can look it up in any dictionary. The meaning is dedos de los pies. I know it and my dictionary  Simon and Schuster says it


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## Moritzchen

Oh, so you don't have a specific word for "toes"! Does that make Spanish a poor language? And by the way, why don't you look for "dependencia" in your big fat Simon and Schuster's? My edition has it in page 1115. It doesn't say anything about any room, even in your mother's house. Now the other big fat dictionary, the one of the Real Academia has this

*dependencia**.*(De _dependiente_).
*7.* f. Cada habitación o espacio dedicados a los servicios de una casa.misma.
_Real Academia Española © Todos los derechos reservados_

So you see, you've been showing how impolite, brassy and pushy you are even when you do not have a clear concept of what it is you wan to ask. A dependencia de servicio would be a laundry room for instance, not the maid's room. We gave you proper translations for you to publish your classified in the Buenos Aires Herald, but evidently you don't have the time to read or don't like what we are providing you with. So you are on your own nena, and please try to be polite the next time you hit this forum. (Polite, page 572).


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## mariente

Moritzchen said:
			
		

> Oh, so you don't have a specific word for "toes"! Does that make Spanish a poor language? And by the way, why don't you look for "dependencia" in your big fat Simon and Schuster's? My edition has it in page 1115. It doesn't say anything about any room, even in your mother's house. Now the other big fat dictionary, the one of the Real Academia has this
> 
> *dependencia**.*(De _dependiente_).
> *7.* f. Cada habitación o espacio dedicados a los servicios de una casa.misma.
> _Real Academia Española © Todos los derechos reservados_
> 
> So you see, you've been showing how impolite, brassy and pushy you are even when you do not have a clear concept of what it is you wan to ask. A dependencia de servicio would be a laundry room for instance, not the maid's room. We gave you proper translations for you to publish your classified in the Buenos Aires Herald, but evidently you don't have the time to read or don't like what we are providing you with. So you are on your own nena, and please try to be polite the next time you hit this forum. (Polite, page 572).


 Well it wasnt my intention to offend you. The thing is ok, we dont have a word for that word but we have words to describe everything we want to say. I mean we can make differences between love, English uses the same word for everything. In English you say boyfriend and girlfriend because you dont have gender for the word friend and boyfriend and anyway that words could have two meanings. This is not a competition of what language is better. I am very interested in english i have been studying it since i was 6 years old. But still i could get to the conclusion that english doesnt have enough words to describe everything.
By the way i said "I feel", i dont know why i cannot express my opinion. I did not disrespect anybody. I dont know why you are saying i was not polite. By the way, I dont need you to put the definition of  "dependencia" because i know what it means


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## Moritzchen

No honey you did not offend me. So you've been studying English for what? Six years now? Good night.


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## mariente

And then you said i wasnt polite.  Look who is talking


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## Txiri

mariente said:
			
		

> ...we dont have a word for that word but we have words to describe everything we want to say. I mean we can make differences between love, English uses the same word for everything.


 
It´s a bit facile to say that "we have words to describe everything we want to say".  Which comes first, language or thought?

I know you don´t mean "English uses the same word for everything", in fact, I have seen articles comparing the lexical richness of English to other Indo European languages, and English beats them out, by the hundreds of thousands.  I think Spanish is more difficult for a beginning student to undertake, because there seem to be a never-ending series of verbs, which we render with phrasals (so it seems as if there are more verbs at that elementary level).   But I wonder--and I don´t know-- if English isn´t harder to master than Spanish.


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## mariente

I dont know what you mean by which comes first, language or thought? i mean, i do understand the phrase but i cant get what you really meant by that . 
 I have to tell you that spanish isnt easy even for natives. We all make mistakes with some tenses.  English hasnt so much rules as spanish has. Its complicated but spanish, for me at least, is more difficult. I dont mean to offend anyone with this opinion.


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## danielfranco

In English, the concept is often expressed as "spare room" or "guest room", if what you really want is to mean you have a room to let. I was born and raised in Mexico City, and had never before heard of a "dependencia" to mean a room in an abode, much less to mean the live-in maid's room... But that's a regional issue.
As an aside, perhaps you'd be interested to know that English has the most amount of words of ANY language (yep, including Spanish, that has about one third as many words as English). Of course, it doesn't make English "better" than Spanish. Just makes it "wordier".
Sorry to see you guys "B-atching" at each other.
Toodles!


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## cirrus

Translating this is difficult because the economic and social conditions of most English speaking countries are different from many Latin American ones.  When I see habitacion de servicio I think servant's quarters or maid's room but these days these words sound strange in English because - at least in the UK - hardly anybody has had servants since the 1920s.


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## mariente

I see the that the concept  kind of doesnt exist. It is not a guestroom or a spare room. Spare room I see it more as a playroom. Could that be? 
Anyway I am still wondering how i can say it. We cannot put in a classified. appartment with 3 rooms and Guestroom/spare room/maids room/quarters because that wouldnt be the exact concept.
Well, thanks anyway. I think that maybe there is a specific term. I found in the diccionary branch and branch office, so maybe the term would be branch room. What do you think? for a classified? thanksss


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## cirrus

mariente said:
			
		

> Well, thanks anyway. I think that maybe there is a specific term. I found in the diccionary branch and branch office, so maybe the term would be branch room. What do you think? for a classified? thanksss


Branch room doesn't mean anything to me.  You could say spare room/ study/ utility room.  A spare room isn't necessarily a play room.


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## mariente

Ok, then could you please tell me  what a spare room is? because maybe that would be the term then. Thanks!!


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## Edwin

mariente said:
			
		

> Ok, then could you please tell me  what a spare room is? because maybe that would be the term then. Thanks!!



Aquí va una definición de *spare* de OneLook.com:



> *spare:* adjective:   more than is needed, desired, or required (Example: "Sleeping in the spare room")



Es interesante que el ejemplo en el diccionario sea "the spare room".


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## mariente

then thak you i found my word!!


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