LearnSpanishToday.com Blog

It has been said that of all the words in a language, our own first name is one of our most favorite and pleasant words to hear. We certainly all enjoy being called by our first name. Using first names is an unwritten condition of becoming good friends with someone. One of the most uncomfortable situations for me was when I was at my ten-year high school reunion and I couldn’t remember the first names of people I had been acquaintances with. It was likewise uncomfortable for them when they couldn’t recall my name. (more…)

First I’d like to thank everyone around the world for your wonderful responses to last week’s blog entry which touched on poverty and the scarcity of food in areas of Latin America. You can view some of the responses below. Since there were so many responses, unfortunately we were not able to publish everyone’s response.

We talked briefly last week about eating different parts of the cow so that no food is wasted. This week I want to tell you about some of the interesting/unusual things I ate while living in Latin America. If it makes your stomach weak, just realize that you’re only reading about it; I had to actually eat them. (more…)

In many areas of the lower-income pueblos in Latin America, resources to purchase food can be scarce. Latin America consists of a lot developing or so called third-world countries. Because of their low economic resources, Latin people usually don’t waste any of their food. In-fact, many will go to extremes (or what some people consider extreme) to eat a lot of interesting parts of the cow, pig and other animals that most Americans have never even thought of eating.

After living in Latin America for two years and becoming accustomed to their way of life, I was shocked when I returned to the United States and had dinner with my family the first night I was back. It was reverse culture shock for me. (more…)

All cultures (at least all that I know of) value “Health”, “Money”, and “Love.” If any of you readers out there know of a culture anywhere in the world that doesn’t value health, money, or love, I’d love to hear about it.

These three words when used together form a very small portion of Latin American culture, but in a way you might not have guessed. These specific three words are said when someone sneezes! If you sneeze once, Latin people will say “Health!” If you sneeze a twice, they will say “Money!” and a third sneeze in a row brings “Love!” (more…)

When I was about 10 years old, living in the United States, I went to a movie with a friend. I didn’t have any money to purchase food at the snack bar, but my friend seemed to have an unlimited supply. He bought a large drink, large popcorn and big bag of licorice but didn’t offer to share any of it with me. He went through the entire movie eating in front of me but never offered me one single thing. I don’t remember anything about the movie, but I do remember that this friend didn’t share even a single piece of popcorn with me.

I learned a great lesson that day which was again re-emphasized when I later lived in Latin America. Latin people will usually share even the smallest amount of possessions and food that they have. (more…)

In the United States as well as in Latin America, it is impolite to eat in front of someone else who is not eating. But, what should you do if you if you stop by someone’s home while they are eating? If this happens to me, I usually say something like, “I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt your dinner”, or “Sorry to bother you during dinner time.”

This type of interruption doesn’t seem to happen too much in the United States as in Latin America. This seems to be because just about everyone in the United States has a telephone and people usually call each other before stopping by. In many Latin American regions, especially in the lower-income pueblos, a very small percentage of the population owns a telephone because of the cost involved. Phone calls are normally charged by the length of each call whether local or long distance. In the United States, a set monthly phone bill gets you all the local calls you want, regardless of the length, for the cost of your set monthly price. (more…)

In English (in the United States), when we’re composing a letter that will be used as an example in business or in a textbook, we usually address it with, “Dear John” or “Dear Jane.” And then, at the end of the letter we usually sign it, “Sincerely, John Doe” or “Sincerely, Jane Doe”.

John and Jane Doe, who are obviously married and model citizens here in the United States, also have their names on government and employment forms as they show us, by their perfect examples, the correct way to fill out those difficult forms. Some of us tend to get frustrated as “John” and “Jane” seem to be the epitome of perfection in our society, and we are just the “average Joe” never quite able to reach their high level of perfection.

By the way, “John and Jane Doe” have a less than perfect son named “average Joe”. Joe despises filling out forms and got “Bs” and “Cs” in school rather than “As”. (more…)

Currently where I live in the western United States, there are many rest homes and assisted living centers nearby where elderly people go to live. Within about a four mile radius of our business, there are about five facilities with one right next door to our building.

In the assisted living facilities, the people that live there are semi-independent. They usually have their meals cooked for them, entertainment planned, and rides provided to go places. However, people residing in rest homes need more constant care, both physical and medical. Both rest homes and assisted living centers are usually very expensive. (more…)

In all of the Latin American countries I’ve lived in or visited, the people react to “el sarcasmo” (sarcasm) very differently than they do here in the United States.

In the United States sarcasm is very widespread and is used as a common, daily form of communication. Such as, if a friend or family member purchased a new shirt that was obviously a little strange, you could tease them by saying “Nice shirt!” Of course, when you say “Nice shirt!” what you actually mean is, “Wow, that shirt is a little wild or strange.”

In Latin America, people usually aren’t accustomed to hearing or using sarcasm with one another. For example, one time I was working with a native Spanish speaker who was wearing a very interesting sweater. It was definitely out of the ordinary and somewhat strange. I said, “Nice sweater!” He then looked at me with a thoughtful look and said “Thanks”. He didn’t understand the fact that I was using sarcasm with him. He thought I was serious and was giving him a nice compliment about his unusual sweater. (more…)

Before we get into this week’s subject, I just wanted to talk about some observations I received from a few of you on last week’s newsletter. I talked about several words like “parabrisas” and “parachoques” which start with the word “para”. The word “para” has multiple meanings in English. It can mean “for”, as I discussed last week, but it can also mean “stop” or “stops”. For example, the word “windshield” (”parabrisas”) could be translated as “for breezes” and/or “stops breezes”. Some native speakers e-mailed me last week to let me know that the later is preferred. This concept is the same for the word “parachoques” and also for the word “paraguas” (new word not covered last week) which means “umbrella”. The English translation of “paraguas” is “stops water”.

This week I want to discuss a myth about speaking Spanish as well as some techniques to instantly learn hundreds of Spanish words.

Many Americans mistakenly think you can just add the letter “o” to English words and those words instantly become Spanish. Although this does work once in a great while, more often than not it doesn’t work at all and just causes confusion. I have heard several Americans in Latin America use this flawed technique and suffer from a large communication gap.

Here are a few techniques that do work most of the time, but there are exceptions. All of these techniques involve suffixes (word endings):

1. “-ive” = “-ivo”: active (activo), passive (pasivo), relative (relativo), intensive (intensivo), massive (masivo). Partly because of this “ivo/ive” technique, people try to ineffectively put an “o” on the end of any English word to turn it into Spanish

2. “-ly” = “-mente”: recently (recientemente), actively (activamente), relatively (relativamente), effectively (efectivamente). This technique (”ly/mente”) isn’t as reliable in taking words from English into Spanish but can help you better decipher the meaning of written Spanish words.

3. “-ssion” = “-sión”: session (sesión), passion (pasión), depression (depresión), aggression (agresión)

4. “-ction” = “-cción”: action (acción), attraction (attracción), fiction (ficción), reaction (reacción)

5. “-ty” = “-dad”: university (universidad), activity (actividad), intensity (intensidad), ability (abilidad)

6. “-tion” = “-ción”: activation (activación), penetration (penetración), station (estación), vacation (vacación)

Moral of the Story: When you really need to guess a Spanish word, these techniques can be useful. They can also be very handy in helping you decipher written messages. However, you need to remember that that are many exceptions to these techniques. Unfortunately they aren’t fool-proof.

Sneak peek at next week: “El sarcasmo”

¡Hasta luego! (Until later!)
David S. Clark — President / Director

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