The English Channel’s name in Spanish El Canal de la Mancha, literarily translates as The Channel of the Stain. This is historically an unfortunate translation mistake from its French name Canal de la Manche, which in French means Channel of the Sleeve, yes, as in a shirt. Probably the channel’s shape resembled a sleeve to the […] More
Entender and comprender both mean to understand. Although comprender is very popular among students, natives don’t use it as much. The reason comprender is so popular among beginner students and tourists is that comprender is a regular verb so it’s taught before entender, which is a stem-changing verb. Many students quit Spanish before even […] More
In Spanish, one way to classify verbs is by their endings, -ar, -er, and -ir. In a few years, the -ar verbs will be the big majority. The reason is that almost every new verb that is being incorporated into the language is always -ar. Many of these verbs come from either English or […] More
One of my friends who wrote a book asked me to go to Barnes and Noble, find his book, and take photos of it so that he could put them on his Instagram profile. I didn’t think I was going to find it unless I went to the big one at Union Square, and I […] More
My student Greg Zittel was watching soccer games on TV during a World Cup, and every time a team scored a goal, the announcer shouted golazo, golazo, azo, azo. He wanted to know what azo, azo means. -azo, -aza are attached at the end of some nouns to make them bigger or greater, and sometimes […] More
Here are some examples of diminutives for common Spanish names for men and women. Most of these names are used in Mexico but they may be a little different in other countries. Ale, Alex » Alejandro (Alexander) Beto » Alberto, Roberto Bety » Beatriz Carmela, Carmelita » Carmen Coco » Socorro (women’s) Concha » […] More
Hay in Spanish means there is, there are, is there?, are there?. Hay should always be singular. Hay, Había, habrá, ha habido, etc. In spite of that, in Mexico and other countries it’s common to use a conjugation of haber that does not officially exist in Spanish: habemos. Latin American presidents often use this […] More
This is how Romance people say everybody: language the world all the world = everybody Spanish el mundo todo el mundo French le monde tout le monde Portuguese o mondo todo o mundo Romanian lumea (the definite article is indicated at the end, “lume+a” in this case). toată lumea Italian il mondo tutto il mondo […] More
Warning: this article contains a couple of raunchy words. As you can see in some of the examples below, you have to be very careful when saying some of these words. It’s similar to the common pronunciation mistake of Spanish-speaking people trying to say beach, but ending up sounding like bitch. Something similar could happen […] More
Here are 10 common random idioms you may have trouble with if you hear them for the first time: Expression Approximate literal translation (what you might think you actually heard) Explanation querer decir to want to say to mean. ¿Qué quieres decir? : what do you mean? en mi vida in my life never, never […] More
This was an AT&T commercial on the Spanish television in the United States that we had to watch many times a day for months. My students at that time asked me to explain to them what this singer was saying. Paulina Rubio singing Causa y Efecto, the song on the AT&T […] More
Many fruits in Spanish have different names in different countries. One example is banana, in Mexico and Spain it’s called plátano, but in other countries, it’s called banana. This is a sample list of fruit tree names in Spanish. If you pay attention, very often, the tree’s name of a fruit with a femenine noun, […] More
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