Confused With A Basic Sentence

First post!

I’m using Assimi (along with many other materials) and I’m a little confused with a sentence. It’s a headline from a news article:

“Eso no les pasa más que a los demás”

The translation says: “It only happens to others.” (Literal: That doesn’t happen more than to the others).

Looking at it, to me it appears to say “That doesn’t happen to them more than the rest.” Seemingly meaning that “that doesn’t happen to them MORE than the rest” rather than “that doesn’t happen to them AS MUCH AS as the rest.” Which makes more sense since it’s saying it means it happens to others more… “It only happens to others.”

Does “más que” not mean “more than” in this particular sentence? Shouldn’t it be “as much as” and how would “as much as” be expressed?

Does “les” in this sentence not mean “to them” ?

Sorry, I know this is basic but I’m still a beginner.

Thanks for any help. I hope I’ve made myself understood.

Hellion,
I am not native Spanish, but I will try to tackle this question.

Pasar (along with suceder and occurrir), when used to mean “to happen,” is one of those verbs (in this case, a special type of impersonal verb) that requires an indirect object pronoun — even when the object is stated in noun or pronoun form after ‘a.’ Here, ‘les’ is in agreement with “a los demás.” It’s the same “person.” Many native Spanish speakers will explain that this “connects” the sentence. The use of both objects in the same sentence is not considered redundant in Spanish, as it is in English.

The following seemingly over-redundant sentence demonstrates this:

Eso que nos pasa a nosotros los hombres no nos pasa más que a nosotros, los hombres.
What happens to us men, only happens to us men.

Here’s another example I pulled from Twitter:
— ¿Qué te pasa en los dientes?
— What’s wrong with your teeth? [in the photo, the person has two prominent pieces of metal bridgework in their front teeth and gums]
— El otro día que fue al machón a pescar, y mira donde acabó el anzuelo.
— The other day I went fishing at the pier and look where the hook ended up. [this of course is a joke]
— Esto no nos pasa más que a los de Rincón (que somos mucho valientes y vamos al machón, y anzuelo entre los dientes).
— This kind of thing only happens to us people from Rincón (who are very brave and go to the pier and fishhook our teeth).
(Here, it’s the opposite sentiment to the headline. This kind of thing only happens to us; not to other people).

So, the headline is not such a basic sentence as you might think. There’s a lot of grammatical information going on in that sentence.

I am guessing that the news story is about someone famous? Or it could be about someone who is not famous, but something very lucky (or unlucky) happened to them. In any event . . .

Eso no les pasa más que a los demás

los demás = otros
literally “the rest” or “others” but it’s like saying “them” or “those people” (famous people; lucky people; unlucky people; only certain people, i.e. not us; not regular people)

no . . . más (que) = sólo
not . . . but = only

What the headline is saying is:

Literally: That doesn’t happen but to them

In other words: That kind of thing only happens to them (famous people, etc; i.e. it doesn’t happen to us; to regular people.)

Such a headline is supposed to draw you in; to get you wondering who and what the article is about.
That kind of thing only happens to Charlie Sheen? Lindsey Lohan? Was it another crazy thing that happened?
That kind of thing only happens to one in a million people? Was it something lucky (or unlucky) that happened to someone?

If you ask a native Spanish speaker how to say, “That only happens to them” in Spanish, a typical answer will be:

Eso sólo le sucede a los demás.
or less formally:
Eso sólo le pasa a los demás.

It’s also handy to know that there are at least three ways of forming this sentence:
Eso sólo le sucede a los demás.
A los demás sólo le sucede eso.
Sólo a los demás le sucede eso.

I hope this helps! Any corrections from native Spanish speakers to my explanations or translations are more than welcome!

I think Brucenator’s expression is quite useful.

Anyway, the main thing is that “no … más” is a fixed expression, it can mean “only”
“No hay nadie más que yo” “There’s only me”. "No tengo más
If you know some French “no … más” is the Spanish equivalent of “ne … que”, meaning again “seulement”, “solamente”.
Just a point, I don’t consider this expression particularly “informal”.

Thanks, Francisco.

So I take “no . . . más (que)” to mean “not … but” meaning “only” (rather than “not… more than” meaning “only.”) I think I’ll correct that in my explanation.

Eso no les pasa más que a los demás
That doesn’t happen but to them, i.e. That kind of thing only happens to them.

No hay nadie más que yo.
There isn’t anyone but me, i.e. There is only me.

No tengo (nada) más que palabras de admiración.
I have nothing but words of admiration, i.e. I only have words of admiration.

That is how I’ve always understood “ne . . . que” in French: “not . . . but” meaning “only.”

@ } – – ` – – , – —
(I would vote you a rose, but the system isn’t allowing me to do that at the moment.)

Thank you for the virtual rose.
Yes, that’s perfectly right. Good point.
One more example:
“The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth” = “La verdad, toda la verdad y nada más que la verdad”.

Great example, thanks!

Thanks guys! It’s really helpful to have examples, thank you for giving so much time and effort in those explanations.

The sentence is taken from a news headline that is translated in Assimil as:

“It Only Happens To Others.”

The story is about a father whose son fell to his death from a balcony and in trying to stop him from falling, the father supposedly slipped on a banana skin and also fell to his death whilst holding his other son (who also died) in his arms as he fell.

Underneath the text there is a cartoon with a caption saying “me he vuelto desconfiado” so I think it was supposed to be a joke, perhaps like an April fools or something, though I’m not sure joking about a subject matter like that is funny?

#confused

So in this case, it was something very unlucky that happened. Hopefully it was a joke and didn’t really happen. I’ve never heard of someone ACTUALLY slipping on a banana peel, let alone falling to their death as a result.

Indeed!