About Spanish Language

The Second Conjugation To Learn

2009-07-02T15:44:18Z

If you're new to Spanish and the matter of verb conjugation, chances are that the first conjugation set you learned was that of the present tense indicative. A good second conjugation to learn is that of the imperfect indicative: It's an easy form to learn, few verbs are irregular in that tense, and it's quite commonly used.

Honduran Media Provide Fascinating Look at Coup Aftermath

2009-07-01T11:24:39Z

It would be hard to come up with a more dramatic political turn of events than has taken place in Honduras this week — and if you know Spanish, the Honduran news media are providing a fascinating look at the politics, passions and intrigue that surround Sunday's coup and its aftermath.

The best Spanish-language Honduran sources for news of developments include these:

El Heraldo.hn, a typical online newspaper from Tegucigalpa, the nation's capital.
Tiempo.hn, from San Pedro Sula, Honduras' industrial capital. This is a great site for pictures, plus you can view the full print edition.
La Prensa.hn, also from San Pedro Sula. Along with quality video, this news source comes with a clear point of view: "No al chavismo", claman miles de hondureños, reads the current headline. "No to Chavism, thousands of Hondurans cry out," a reference to Venezuelan leader Hugo Chávez.

If you can pay attention to cognates and are aware of the basic background of developments, you might be able to understand much of the gist of the articles with a basic knowledge of Spanish. Here are some other words that appears frequently in the articles:

apoyar, apoyo — support.
catracho — colloquial term for a resident of Honduras.
golpe — coup.
manifestante — protester.
multitudinario — relating to a crowd or mass of people.
Mel — the nickname for Manuel Zelaya, the ousted president.
pancarta — placard

To briefly summarize developments to date: The fairly unpopular President Zelaya, who has moved politically to the left since his election three years ago, was ousted over the weekend in a military-led coup that had the support of many other political leaders, who promise new elections later this year. He was replaced by an interim president, Roberto Micheletti. Those who ousted Zelaya, now in Panama, say it wasn't a coup at all, but a constitutional removal from office. Zelaya has received official support from the United Nations and many other countries in the Western Hemisphere, who continue to recognize him as the lawful leader. He promises to return to the country in a few days, but those now in power are threatening him with arrest.

Continuing With Seguir

2009-06-30T05:42:59Z

Just because the dictionary might tell you what a Spanish word means doesn't mean you can always translate it that way and still sound like you're speaking natural English. For example, seguir typically carries the idea of "to continue." So you could try translating "Siguen sin pagarme" as "They continue without paying me." But there's a more natural way of getting that idea across, as our lesson on seguir shows.

Counting on Contar

2009-06-29T15:31:23Z

It's fairly obvious that the word "count" in the sentence "I can count on you," and the word "count" in "I can count with my fingers" don't mean the same thing. The same is true with the Spanish equivalents for the verb contar: "Puedo contar contigo" and "Puedo contar con los dedos." And as our new lesson on contar explains, contar also has some other meanings that "count" doesn't have.

Translating "For" in Time Expressions

2009-06-27T01:14:04Z

There's no single way to translate the word "for" in time expressions such as "for one year." As explained in today's featured lesson, how you express that concept in Spanish depends, among other things, on the length of time, when the specified activity occurred and whether it is still occurring.

A Matter of Punctuation

2009-06-26T06:56:47Z

To the casual observer, there isn't much difference in Spanish and English punctuation other than the use of the inverted question mark and exclamation point in Spanish. But there are some subtle differences in punctuation you need to be aware of.

Is Nothing Singular or Plural?

2009-06-25T05:51:52Z

The basic rule seems so simple: A singular noun takes a singular verb (such as es, tiene or estaba), while a plural noun takes a plural verb (such as son, tienen or estaban).

But if you've been studying Spanish beyond the basics, you know that the rules are seldom that simple. For example, does a word such as grupo (group), which is singular in itself but refers to more than one entity, take a singular or plural verb? How about a word such as ninguno or nada, which can refer to zero of something? These questions and more are answered in our lesson covering situations where grammatical number may not be obvious.

A Difference Conjugation Makes

2009-06-23T13:29:51Z

One of the delights of studying another language is learning different ways of saying familiar things. For example, as explained in our new lesson on using "we" verbs, in English we distinguish between, for example, "the students" and "we students" by the word we put before "students." In Spanish, however, you typically would do the same thing by the choice of verb: "Los estudiantes son ... " is likely referring to different people than "Los estudiantes somos ..." even though the subject of the sentence is the same. This is just one way that learning a different language requires some changes in the way we think about things.

Why Do Adjectives Sometimes Go Before the Noun?

2009-06-22T14:16:56Z

If you're a beginning Spanish student, you may have had it drilled into your head that descriptive adjectives come after the noun — so that phrases such as salsa verde (green sauce), examen difícil (difficult exam) and hombre feliz (happy man) are the norm. In real Spanish, though, descriptive adjectives often come first, as these phrases from today's news show: nuevas movilizaciones (new demonstrations), fuertes amenazas (strong threats) and buena idea (good idea). Take a look at our recently updated lesson on adjective placement to see what those phrases have in common.

Whose Is It?

2009-06-18T13:16:55Z

Spanish has quite a few days of indicating who owns or is in possession of something. Among them are the use of possessive pronouns, explained in our most recently updated lesson, which take the same form as the long-form possessive adjectives. An example of this usage is "El coche es mío" — "The car is mine." There are also the short-form possessive adjectives as in "Es mi coche" — "It is my car." Learn these methods and you'll know the most common ways of indicating whom something belongs to.