Who in New York City doesn’t know what SI VES ALGO, DI ALGO means? It’s all over the place SI VES ALGO, DI ALGO is the familiar (tú) translation for IF YOU SEE SOMETHING, SAY SOMETHING. When we just switched from tokens to Metrocards in the mid-1990s, we had these […] More
It’s not uncommon to hear Spanish language students say finito! when they finish doing a quiz or an exercise. The thing is that finito meaning done! is not a Spanish word, it’s the past participle of the Italian verb finire. Finito in Spanish is an adjective that is used mainly in mathematics referring to a […] More
In Spanish, many professions and adjectives end in -dor for males, but in -dora for females. So I think whoever named the character Dora the Explorer in English, knew that it was going to be very appealing in Spanish. The masculine form for this occupation is explorador. Now let’s imagine that Dora has some other […] 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
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
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
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
You have to be careful with R and RR, not only spelling words, but also pronouncing them! Here are some examples: with R meaning with RR meaning ahora now ahorra save (money, time) from ahorrar. boro boron (Chem.) borro I erase, I delete. From borrar. caro expensive carro car cero zero cerro mount, hill […] More
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