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    All the World

    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

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    The letter Ñ does make a difference.

    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

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    Pau’s AT&T commercial

        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.     Pauliina Rubio singing Causa y Efecto, the song on the AT&T […] More

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    Árboles frutales (fruit trees)

    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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    Spanish verb tenses terminology

    In English, you say present perfect, but in Spanish we say pretérito perfecto, antepresente, and in the U. S. people also call it presente perfecto, These differences happen usually between Latin America and Spain, and sometimes between schools, like instituto Cervantes and Columbia or NYU. Here is a table showing these name differences. Example English […] More

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    El cumpleaños

    El cumpleaños There are many compound, masculine nouns in Spanish that are formed by a verb and a noun. Their noun component is usually plural, so it ends in “s,” but their overall grammatical number is singular. Examples of these words are: El cumpleaños, birthday, formed together with the verb cumplir, to fulfill, to accomplish, […] More

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    White and Black

    There are many standard expressions in Spanish and English that are exactly the same but reversed. Here are some of them: tarde o temprano, sooner or later (lit: later or sooner) sano y salvo, safe and sound (lit: sound and safe) tenedor y cuchillo, knife and fork  (lit: fork and knife) vivo o muerto, dead or alive […] More

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    El Hombre Araña

      Nouns modifying nouns are common in English, but in Spanish we normally use adjectives to modify them. As a general rule, nouns modify other nouns in Spanish only by means of the preposition de. Examples: hoja de papel, sheet of paper, mesa de madera, wooden table, collar de perlas, pearl necklace. Still, we can […] More

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    Re-, rete-, requete-, archi-, recontra-, super-, hiper-, ultra-

    Re-, rete-, requete-, archi-, recontra-, super-, hiper-, ultra- In conversational Mexican Spanish, it’s common to hear the prefixes re-, rete-, and requete-, which intensify the corresponding adjective or adverb to different degrees: feliz happy refeliz very happy retefeliz very very happy requetefeliz extremely happy rápido fast reterrápido very very fast requeterrápido extremely fast If it’s […] More

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    Fingers

    Fingers These are the finger names in Spanish: El dedo is finger, los dedos is fingers, los dedos de los pies (fingers of the feet) are toes.   dedo pulgar, thumb dedo índice, index finger dedo cordial (corazón) or dedo medio, heart finger, middle finger dedo anular, ring finger dedo meñique, pinky       https://www.tumblr.com/enisteyjia/181981985382/g-minor-bach Originally […] More

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