A hell of a …
Entre colegas, Expresiones, February 10th, 2009Esta expresión coloquial se usa para indicar gran cantidad, ya sea positivo o negativo. No tiene una traducción directa, pues depende de la expresión que se use a continuación y del contexto.
That was a hell of a movie, the actors did a great job!
Que maravilla de película, los actores lo han hecho muy bien!
Mike is a hell of a nice guy, always kind and unselfish.
Mike es un tipo encantador/estupendo, siembre amable y generoso.
“That was a hell of a movie, I can’t believe how bad (was) the script *was*!”
Suena un poco incongruo – la primera parte quiere decir algo como “that was a great movie”
Oh! Lo he cambiado, de todas formas, tú como dirías que es una película mala?
I was thinking about that again, and “X is a hell of a Y” can either mean that X is very bad (i.e the literal meaning), or, when used ironically, the exact opposite (i.e. X is very good), depending on the context and intonation.
I’d say that the ironic meaning is far more common, and that in the context of commenting on a movie this is the most likely.
You could, however, say things like:
That town is a hell of place. There are really some amazing places to see.
That town is a hell of a place. Did you see all the rubbish lying around? And they say that crime is a real problem there.
To say that a movie was really bad, I think I’d probably say something like:
That movie was rubbish / terrible / dreadful / *crap / **shit
* more informal
** very informal / vulgar
Wow! Thank you so much Graham! That makes things clearer