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Archive for January, 2009

Latin music: Luis Fonsi, from Puerto Rico Posted by on Jan 30, 2009

Luis Fonsi was born in Puerto Rico, but spent most of his childhood in Florida. He went to the Florida State University to study vocal techniques. While in FLU he was overheard singing by a music department president, who offered him his first contract with a large disquera (recording company). Below is a video of…

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Punctuation marks. Posted by on Jan 26, 2009

Today we’re going to learn about “signos de puntuación” (punctuation marks). Let’s see what they’re called in Spanish. el punto final – period/full stop el punto y aparte – period/full stop (and new paragraph) el asterisco – asterisk la coma – comma el punto y coma – semicolon las comillas – quotation marks las comillas…

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Similarities between Spanish words Posted by on Jan 22, 2009

Paronyms are pairs and sets of words in a language that may be easily confused because they are similar in form. Sometimes they are related in meaning and sometimes they are quite unrelated. Check them out! 1. abertura / apertura / obertura Abertura = hole, gap, orifice. Hay una abertura en la pared. (There’s a…

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You’re in my way! Los obstáculos en español. Posted by on Jan 19, 2009

One of the greatest things in learning a language is learning new vocabulary. I just get a major kick out of it and not so long ago I was thinking about how many synonyms there are for the word “obstáculo”, an obstacle. Check them out! 1. escollo – pitfall, stumbling block. 2. impedimento – impediment…

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Singing … en español, ¡por supuesto! Posted by on Jan 12, 2009

Since Ricky Martin’s appearance on the Grammy Awards ceremony in 1999 singing La Copa de la Vida, Spanish has received a lot of attention throughout the English-speaking music world and many English-speaking artists decided to follow this path. Here’s a collection of videos from some artists singing in Spanish (well AND badly). Check it out!…

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Cuco Peña, ay alma en pena – The history of corridos Posted by on Jan 7, 2009

“Corridos” are Mexican songs that tell stories. They are made up of three parts: a) introduction of the characters, b) the story itself and c) a moral or farewell. The website Corridos Sin Fronteras offers history, songs, and you can even compose your own corrido corrido. OK, now let’s get to the fun part: in…

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