Archive for the year 2008
Che! Posted by Adir on Jul 24, 2008
¡Che! is an interjection used mainly in Argentina and Eastern Spain (Valencia) and it’s often used to get attention or express surprise. It can be roughly translated as “Eh!”, “Wow!”, or “Hey!”. It’s also used as a discourse marker to initiate an utterance, or tagged at the end of a sentence. ¡Che, está buena la…
Spanish or Castillian? Posted by Adir on Jul 21, 2008
To answer that question we have to go back to the origins of the language. Spanish comes from Latin, which arrived in the Iberian Peninsula around 2,000 years ago. As in many other Roman provinces, Latin became Vulgar Latin by adopting some of the vocabulary of the indigenous languages and later developed even further into…
Verbs in -ducir Posted by Transparent Language on Jul 18, 2008
We know that a suffix is often added to a word stem to create new words, but that isn’t always the case. Let’s take the example of the suffix –ducir in Spanish and some verbs formed with it: conducir, reducir, deducir, etc. Such verbs are derived from Latin ducere, which meant “to lead”. The examples…
Elections en español Posted by Transparent Language on Jul 15, 2008
US elections are around the corner and candidates are doing their best to get votes from the ever-growing Latin communities. John McCain www.johnmccain.com/espanol and Barack Obama www.barackobama.com/espanol have Spanish versions of their websites with lots of useful information. In case your Spanish is a little rusty, here’s a list of some handy political vocabulary. apoyar…
Para vs. Por Posted by Transparent Language on Jul 8, 2008
The prepositions por and para have very specific uses in Spanish. Here are some of them. PARA 1. Para is used to indicate destination or purpose. El barco salió para Francia. – The ship left for France. Este regalo es para María. – This gifit is for María. Estudia para abogado. – He studies (to…
Vegetables Posted by Transparent Language on Jul 5, 2008
OK, so your mom always told you: “Eat your vegetables, theyre good for you!”; and guess what? She was right! Heres a list of some common verduras in Spanish. artichoke — la alcachofa asparagus — el espárrago, los espárragos avocado — el aguacate, la palta bean — la judía, la haba, la habichuela, el frijol…
Idioms with Bread Posted by Transparent Language on Jul 2, 2008
The word bread (pan) is the source of several idioms and expressions. Contigo, pan y cebolla – We shall live on love alone. Para casarse se necesitan muchas cosas, no sólo decir que contigo pan y cebolla. Llamar al pan pan y al vino, vino. – to call a spade a spade. Voy a hablarte…