Christmas are just around the corner, and I thought that perhaps you are wondering which is the Spanish word for, say, “carol”, “gingerbread” or “Santa Claus”.
So, in this article we will go through the different Spanish Christmas traditions. That way, you will learn the most important Spanish words related to Christmas in Spain, and at the same time you will enrich your culture. Two birds with one stone!
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Dec.17.2007 :: Vocabulary :: 8 Comments »
Actually, if you really need to type Spanish accent marks on a regular basis, then the best thing to do is relax, take a deep breath, and install a Spanish keyboard layout on your computer.
But perhaps you just need to type some words now and then, and you do not want to wrestle with your system configuration (or simply cannot). Then I have two different solutions for you:
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Nov.11.2007 :: Tools :: 9 Comments »
Barely, forcibly, frequently, very seldom, the hard way… Sometimes you need a short and simple way of expressing a certain way of doing things. Spanish language has lots of phrases and idioms of this kind, some of which may not be easily understood by a foreigner. Here are some of the most commonly used:
A ciegas. Blindly.
Él creyó a ciegas todo lo que ella dijo, he blindly believed all she said.
Tengo una cita a ciegas este fin de semana, I have a blind date this weekend.
A duras penas. Hardly, barely, with great difficulty.
Estoy tan cansado que a duras penas puedo moverme, I’m so tired I can hardly move.
Oct.27.2007 :: Vocabulary :: No Comments »
You might be surprised, but I know it from experience: for a Spanish speaker, learning to correctly pronounce English can be a real pain. Just an example: How can the “ough” in “tough”, “though”, “thought”, “through” and “thorough” have so many different pronunciations? It just doesn’t make sense at all!
Fortunately for you, Spanish pronunciation is a lot easier: most of the letters of the Spanish alphabet have only one possible pronunciation each. Exceptions are: c, g, r and y, which can have different pronunciations depending on their position in a word.
But it can be even easier: What if I tell you that in a single sentence you can find every possible pronunciation of each letter of the alphabet? Well, I proudly present what could be called the first Spanish phonemic pangram ever (hmm, well, as far as I know):
La cigüeña gigante bebió ocho copas de whisky, más quince jarras llenas de frÃa cerveza rubia, y enseguida huyó en un taxi.
Which means:
The giant stork drank eight glasses of whiskey, plus fifteen full mugs of cold pale ale, and escaped in a taxi right away.
Oct.14.2007 :: Pronunciation :: 3 Comments »