Spanish Word of the Day

Quote: Wizard

Fecha: 20-1-14
Palabra: Quebrantar

You know, it gets used so infrequently I can't think of a single time I've ver heard it. And yet I must have because I recognize it.

Quote: Wizard

I find when I try to speak Spanish to anybody they just ignore my mistakes. Sometimes I catch myself in one after the fact and I correct myself but the listener will just nod, as if to say "I get it, just finish what you're trying to say as quickly to get it over with."

I've been wondering, despite the errors that Nareed is correcting, how understandable you are.

I can't tell myself. When you use words I know, I can tell what you're saying. It might not be fluid, but it's communicated. And isn't that the point?

I wonder if these por/para, lo/las, and your other common mistakes are similar to what I hear from the old Puerto Ricans in my area. The youngin's have English down, but the older ones would always ask "I have the 80 on the gas?" or "For much the carton?" Obviously totally wrong, but totally apparent what they need.

So, same thing?

Quote: Wizard

Gilligan esta enumecida a el fastidiando de el Skipper. = Gilligan is numb to the nagging of the Skipper.

Let's tackle this one at a time:

1) It should be "enTumecida," in which case you're implying Gilligan is female. So that's a typo and missmatched gender. This regardless of whether the word applies or not.

2) "A el" shouldn't be used here. try "AL"

3) As Paco says, sometimes words ending in -ing do not translate the same way into Spanish. In this case it should be "fastidio."(*)

4) As Paco also said, "de el" should be contracted to "del." The reason is that when identical vowels meet at the end and beginning of a word, they tend to be pronounced once anyway.

5) As I said, practice makes perfect. Look, in 1982 I spent a summer in Canada and could barely get along with my English. I relied a lot on a friend who was much better at it than I. In 1983 I was reading SF in English exclusively.


(*) Nag is a troublesome word for translation. The act it describes does exist universally, but there is no one word in Spanish that means "to nag."

Quote: Face

I've been wondering, despite the errors that Nareed is correcting, how understandable you are.

Very.

But small mistakes can make you understood the wrong way. There's the famous case of the Parker pen add. I don't vouch for it's authenticity, but it rings true. Parker pens had a slogan concerning leaky pens, theirs don't leak apaprently, with the words "Avoid embarrassment with Parker Pens." In Spanish it came out as "Evite el embarazo con Plumas Parker."

The thing is "Embarazo" is Spanish for "Pregnancy." So the add said "Avoid pregnancy with Parker Pens." The opportunities for dirty jokes about that are endless, given a pen's "phallic" design, yes? :) (For the record I'd ahve translated the slogan as "Evite pasar penas con Plumas Parker").

Quote: Nareed

Very.

Good =)

Quote: Nareed

But small mistakes can make you understood the wrong way. There's the famous case of the Parker pen add. I don't vouch for it's authenticity, but it rings true. Parker pens had a slogan concerning leaky pens, theirs don't leak apaprently, with the words "Avoid embarrassment with Parker Pens." In Spanish it came out as "Evite el embarazo con Plumas Parker."

The thing is "Embarazo" is Spanish for "Pregnancy." So the add said "Avoid pregnancy with Parker Pens." The opportunities for dirty jokes about that are endless, given a pen's "phallic" design, yes? :) (For the record I'd ahve translated the slogan as "Evite pasar penas con Plumas Parker").

Bwahaha! So glad I asked XD

Thanks for all the help, as always.

Quote: Nareed

The act it describes does exist universally, but there is no one word in Spanish that means "to nag."

There must be something special about Latinas that a word for "nag" never bubbled up.

Quote: Face

Bwahaha! So glad I asked XD

There are others. The Chevy Nova is said to have suffered becasue "no va" means "doesn't go" or "doesn't move." But I recall ads for it in the 70s without any adverse comments about it. And an airline ad bragging about leather seats that more or less came out as "sit naked" rather than "sit on leather," which I do recall seeing and mocking. If you look around you ought to find examples from other languages, in particular Chinese.

Quote: Wizard

The assignment for the advanced readers is to compare and contrast quebrantar y romper.

DRAE definition
Quebrantar=Romper, separar con violencia.

Judging by Nareed's comment and internet use it seems to be a lofty synonym.

They are both Latin based words: rumpĕre and crepantāre.


A related word in English is "craven" because of the idea that if you are broken you surrender.

Quote: Nareed

(*) Nag is a troublesome word for translation. The act it describes does exist universally, but there is no one word in Spanish that means "to nag."

The word comes from Old English gnagan "to gnaw" , which is universally describes the emotion.

According to dictionary roer means "to gnaw" in Spanish. Does it have other meanings?

=============
In Spanish 101 they teach you that Spanish -ando, or -iendo is the equivalent of the "-ing" form in English. The issue is that in English there is at least five uses for this suffix. Not all of them are used in Spanish that way.

Etymology 1 From Middle English -ing
1) Used to form uncountable nouns from various parts of speech denoting materials or systems of objects
example) Roofing is a material that covers a roof.
2) Used to form nouns of the action or the procedure of a verb; usually identical with meaning 1. in the English language or expressed with -tion instead
example) The forging of the sword took hours. - where forging denotes a planned procedure of work rather than a specific physical action

Etymology 2 From Middle English -inge, -ynge
3) Used to form present participles of verbs.
example) Rolling stones gather no moss.

Etymology 3 Middle English -ing
4) Forming derivative nouns (originally masculine), with the sense ‘son of, belonging to’, as patronymics or diminutives.
example) bunting, farthing
5) Having a specifed quality, characteristic, or nature; of the kind of
example) sweeting, whiting, gelding

Quote: Pacomartin

According to dictionary roer means "to gnaw" in Spanish. Does it have other meanings?

None. But it shares a common root with roedor and rodent.

Quote:

In Spanish 101 they teach you that Spanish -ando, or -iendo is the equivalent of the "-ing" form in English. The issue is that in English there is at least five uses for this suffix. Not all of them are used in Spanish that way.

That's one point made in "Our Magnificent Bastard Tongue," if memory serves. Apparently even in related languages like German or Swedish the usage is very different. I need to re-listen to that book (after re-listening to Bryson's "A Short History...," Mike Duncan's History of Rome and his history of the English Civil Wars, and once I exhaust my Audible queue. I wonder if I can listen to a book while watching TV?)