I have a question = Tengo una pregunta
By Os
¿How are you guys? ¿Cómo están? ¿Did you get some rest during the Semana Santa? I hope you did.
Before we start I need you to be sure that you can both understand and say these lifesaving pregunta words.
Putting things together. Parte III.
By Os
Hola amigos. ¿How is everything going on? This is the third and last article of this series. So let me ask you this question again:
Guys: ¿Do you know how to make a Wh. question in inglés? ¿Do you start the question with an action word (verb), with the subject (subject), with the helping guy (auxiliary), with something else (the rest) or with a Wh. word? Let’s see:
Putting things together. Parte II.
Feliz día de la amistad y del amor – Happy Valentine’s Day. Let’s start with some lines that you may use this febrero:
Estoy enamorado(a) = I’m in love.
Te amo = I love you.
Te quiero mucho = I love so much.
Quiero darte un beso = I want to give you a kiss.
¡Qué cursi! = ¡How corny!
Putting things together. Parte I.
By Os
¡Feliz Año Nuevo gente! = ¡Happy New Year people! I hope you had a Feliz Navidad and everything is all right. ¡Bendiciones=Blessings!
Students and friends always tell me that they don’t know how to put the things together in Spanish. Well, let’s start the year learning that, ok? ¡It’s time to begin linking your words together!
Feliz Navidad = Merry Christmas
By Os
¡Feliz Navidad amig@s! Let me show you some vocabulario for these dates:
Regalo = gift. Presente = present.
Árbol de navidad = X-mas tree. Portal = Nativity.
Noche Buena = X-mas Eve.
Papá Noel = Santa Claus.
Aguinaldo = An extra payment that employees get in diciembre.
Tamal = Tamale. A kind of small dumpling, stuffed with meat and other eatables, and wrapped in banana leaves.
Rompope = Eggnog. Ponche de huevo. Huevos, leche, vainilla y ron… I’m getting drunk… ¡Salud!
Just for this month (because it is Navidad) I am gonna show you AGAIN something sweet about Spanish: The pronunciation of the stuff.
Feliz cumpleaños = Happy Birthday
By Os
Hola amig@s. ¿Todo bien? Today this column is celebrating one year of being around. Muchas gracias for reading it, and saying good things about it. You can find this and the other 11 (once) articles on this website: www.OsCostaRica.com
Last month there were two little (but VERY important) mistakes in some of the patterns we learned. Specifically #2, the –ER Pattern and #3, the –IR Pattern. One of the endings shown there, instead of being an “A” it should have been an “E”. (Just for the record, the endings of a verb are called CONJUGATIONS). Let’s review the three patterns we learned last month very quickly.
Let’s Play with VERBOS
By Os
Hola gente. As this is a two months issue I asked permission from the woman in charge to make this article bigger than usual. I hope you like it.
Prepare yourselves guys. VERBOS are here. Tranquil@s, it’s not the Armageddon, relax.
A verb is where the action is. A verb is a word that expresses an action. And there are two huge families of verbs: Functional and Dysfunctional.
Spanish is not a stranger
By Os
Today I’m gonna steal some phrases from a book named: “Madrigal’s Magic Key to Spanish”. It’s a good one, I recommend it 100% to those who want to learn and gain some confidence in Spanish; I hope Margarita Madrigal (the author) doesn’t mind…
At this moment you know several thousand Spanish words even if you have never seen or heard a Spanish word before. You are not aware of these words simply because they have not been pointed out to you. And today I’m gonna show you some of them…
¿Who’s who?
By Os
This month we are gonna talk about ¿Who’s who? We are gonna define the Personal Pronouns, just for the record a Personal Pronoun is a word that we use to substitute persons or things when they are the subject of the sentence.
For example:
Marcela eats a lot. I don’t want to say “Marcela” any more so I can say: She eats a lot. “She” is the Personal Pronoun that I used to substitute for “Marcela” (a person).
The house has two garages. I don’t want to say “The house” any more so I can say: She has two garages. “She” is the Personal Pronoun that I used to substitute for “The house” (a thing).
I did NOT say It has two garages –not in Spanish-. In Spanish “The house” is a “she”. “The house” is not a person (I now that) but “The house” has a gender which is femeninA. In Spanish “The house” is a “she”.
I know it is hard to swallow but you will get used to this concept soon. Believe me, there are more important things to worry about… (Like VERBOS for instance).
Let’s Review…
By Os
This is the octavo-eighth month that I write in a row, so I have decided to do a little “test-review” of some of the stuff we have been reading and learning in SPANISH SUCKS…
Say 1, 2, 3, en ESPAÑOL… ¡WOW! Now say and write the numbers between 0 and 10 en ESPAÑOL.
_________________________________________
¿Can you do it backwards?
_________________________________________
¿Can you do the same thing between 20 and 0?
_________________________________________
Say and write your telephone number in pairs:
88 Ochenta y ocho 22 Veintidós
29 Veintinueve 36 Treinta y seis
_________________ _________________
_________________ _________________
Count by hundreds between 0 and 1.000.
¿Can you do it now en ESPAÑOL? Write the #’s:
_________________________________________
There used to be 30 letters (“ch”, “ll” and “rr”) in the Spanish alphabet. Look at them:
A “a” B “be” C “ce” Ch “che” D “de” E “e” F “efe” G “ge” H “hache” I “i” J “jota” K “ka” L “ele” Ll “elle”/”doble ele” M “eme” N “ene” Ñ “eñe” O “o” P “pe” Q “cu” R “ere” Rr “erre”/”doble ere” S “ese” T “te” U “u” V “uve” W “doble uve” X “equis” Y “i griega”/”ye” Z “zeta”
Lots of stuff. Prepare yourself.
By Os
¿Todo bien gente? ¿Everything is ok people?
Last month we learned “Los Días de la Semana”, right? So, I suppose we should learn “Los Meses del Año”-“The Months of the Year” right now:
ENERO is the only one that doesn´t look very similar to the one in inglés. Check this out:
Enero = January * enero, enero, enero, enero.
Febrero = February * febrero, febrero, febrero.
Marzo = March * marzo, marzo, marzo, marzo.
Abril = April * abril, abril, abril, abril, abril, abril.
Mayo = May * mayo, mayo, mayo, mayo.
Junio = June * junio, junio, junio, junio, junio.
Julio = July * julio, julio, julio, julio, julio, julio.
Agosto = August * agosto, agosto, agosto.
Septiembre = September * septiembre, septiembre.
Octubre = October * octubre, octubre, octubre.
Noviembre = November * noviembre, noviembre.
Diciembre = December * diciembre, diciembre.
ENERO is the only one that doesn´t look quite the same as the one in inglés. ¡ENERO!
Agreement/Matchment
By Os
You know the days of the week en español, don’t you? Nooo? Why am I not surprised? Joke….Ok, let’s learn them:
Domingo (Sunday) de Ramos, everybody gets a piece of palm to welcome Jesucristo. El lunes (Monday), el martes (Tuesday) and el mièrcoles everything is normal until midnight when some people of the municipalidades are working (hard to believe but it is true, jajaja) and closing the liquor cabinets and cantinas with tape because it is prohibido to sell booze during el Jueves (Thursday) Santo and el Viernes (Friday) Santo. Tranquil@, you can come back to your favorite bar el sábado (Saturday) at 11 a.m. and el Domingo de Resurrección you can eat red meat again in case your familia is very católica and they decided to do abstinencia during the Holy Week.
Here we go guys: this is serious, very serious:
EVERYTHING has to agree.
EVERYTHING has to match.
EVERYTHING has to agree and match.
EVERYTHING has to match and agree.
Things Have a Gender & Pluralsss
By Os
Now let’s learn how to say “The” en español (AGAIN)… There are 4 ways to say “The” en español. There are 4 “words” that equal “The” en español. They are NOT interchangeable, ok?. Let’s learn ALL of them today:
Word # 1 * the = el * when the following word is masculinO.
Book = Libro * The book = El libro.
El taco, el amigo, el hombre, el reloj.
Word # 2 * the = la * when the following word is femeninA.
Table = Mesa * The table = La mesa.
La empanada, la amiga, la mujer, la pared.
Word # 3 * the = los * when the following word is masculinO and PLURAL .
BookS = LibroS * The bookS = LoS libroS.
LoS tacoS, loS amigoS, loS hombreS, loS relojES.
Word # 4 * the = las * when the following word is femeninA and PLURAL.
TableS = MesaS * The tableS = LaS mesaS.
LaS empanadaS, laS amigaS, laS mujerES, laS paredES.
Last month we learned that en español, Things have gender, remember? Well they also have PLURALS but this part is very easy and similar to el inglès.
Things Have a Gender
By Os
Feliz día de la amistad y del amor – Happy Valentine’s Day. Let’s start with some lines that you may use en febrero:
Estoy enamorado(a) = I’m in love.
Te gustó? = Did you like it?
Quiere salir conmigo? = You wanna go out with me?
Te casarías conmigo? = Would you marry me?
Quiero darte un beso = I want to give you a kiss.
Què cursi! = How corny!
Templón(a) / Templado(a) = Horny. * Oops.
Here we go: En español, Things have gender…OK? Things don’t have sex, things don’t get laid, but “someone” decided to put gender to the Things…
First things first/Primero lo primero, Second part/Segunda parte
By Os
Hola amigos: Happy New Year! – Feliz Año Nuevo! I hope you had a Feliz Navidad and everything is all right.
Did you have any trouble during your X-mas shopping understanding some numbers-números? Problems with the totals-totales? Still struggling to understand how much the bill-la cuenta is? You can’t even get a telephone number? You can say uno-dos-tres and that’s it?…Let’s fix that…Now-Ahora!
Familia “Sésamo Street”:
1 uno – 2 dos – 3 tres – 4 cuatro – 5 cinco –
6 seis – 7 siete – 8 ocho – 9 nueve
Familia “weirdos”:
0 cero – 10 diez – 20 veinte – 30 treinta –
100 cien – 500 quinientos –
1.000 mil (don’t say “un” mil, just mil)