Mexican Spanish to Maltese: distinguish still happening from not yet started
Todavía is not always a time expression
The Diccionario del español de México distinguishes temporal todavía from its use to intensify a comparison and from y todavía expressing something surprising or excessive on top of what was said. Todavía está dormido reports a continuing state. A comparison involving todavía mejor increases the degree of improvement; it need not say that an earlier activity remains in progress. A Maltese translation that introduces continuation into every occurrence would therefore alter the comparative claim.
With a negative event description, todavía can instead identify something that has not happened by the relevant time. Establish whether the Mexican message says that a state persists, a task remains incomplete, or something is even better or worse. These interpretations can share the same Spanish spelling while requiring different Maltese constructions. In particular, do not remove the negative component from a not-yet message simply because a dictionary associates todavía with still.
An official Maltese example makes the not-yet distinction concrete
Malta’s National Statistics Office uses Għandi xogħol li għadu ma bediex in its bilingual Labour Force Survey questionnaire, paired with the meaning that the respondent has a job which has not started yet. This is an attested administrative sentence, not an invented translation. It distinguishes having an arranged job from having already begun it. That difference can be lost if a Mexican statement about employment that has not begun becomes a statement that the person is still working.
For Mexican Spanish to Maltese messages about a start date, preserve which event is negated. The existence of the job and the beginning of work are separate propositions in the official example. A negative statement about starting does not mean that no job exists. This reading is particularly useful for appointment or employment explanations containing todavía, where an omitted or misplaced negative can reverse the status being reported.
Continuation depends on the following construction
John J. Camilleri’s Maltese resource-grammar notes list għad with an imperfective under still/yet and illustrate Pawlu għadu jiekol. They also list a distinct għad plus kemm plus perfective construction. Consequently, a translation cannot be assessed by finding għadu alone and assuming that every following phrase has identical time reference. The accompanying words and verb form determine which construction appears. For Mexican temporal todavía, the target needs to preserve the particular continuing state or pending event, rather than merely repeat a familiar Maltese element.
Stopping an activity is different again
Martine Vanhove’s primary study of Maltese auxiliaries discusses baqa’ and other continuative auxiliaries. It explains that negating continuative auxiliaries can yield a cessation reading: an activity no longer continues. That differs from a task not having started yet. For a Mexican message, no longer working and not yet working identify opposite histories even though both deny work at the reference time.
Vanhove also emphasizes restrictions involving verb forms, registers, and dialects across the auxiliary system. Her analysis therefore does not justify replacing every todavía mechanically with baqa’. First distinguish persistence, an unfulfilled beginning, and cessation. Then interpret the Maltese auxiliary and its negation together. A fluent-looking negative clause can still give the wrong history of the event if those distinctions are collapsed.
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