Mamá Vs. Madre
Madre = Mother. Mamá = Mom. Padre = Father. Papá = Dad. Padres =
Parents.
In Latin America, it is generally accepted to call your -or somebody else's-
father or mother "papá" or "mamá" in almost every situation, be it
formal or casual, private or public. Please be aware that there is a cultural
difference with Spain, where in general, only kids would use these
words to refer to one's parents in public. In Argentina and some other
South American countries, children often refer to their parents
as "mi viejo" and "mi vieja." I'm not sure about the policy
for "papá" and "mamá" down there.
This is an example from a recent Mexican news story talking about the
passing of Spanish singer Julio Iglesias' father:
Fallece el papá
de Julio Iglesias
Murió a los 90 años de edad en el Hospital
Clínico
San Carlos de Madrid, sin que se haya precisado la
causa del deceso
Notimex
El Universal online
Madrid
Lunes 19 de diciembre de 2005
(...)
Last updated: 20051219 (spanishNY.com) top
To stick one's foot in it
In Spanish, we have a couple of words for "leg."
If you are talking about people, a leg is "pierna," and a foot is
"pie." However, if you are talking about live animals or
furniture, a leg is "pata." If the leg is intended for food,
then it is OK to call a chicken or pork leg "pierna," just like
a human leg.
But wait! According to the
Real Academia de la Lengua Española (the Royal Academy for Spanish
Language), some live animals -and not necessarily apes- have "piernas"
and "pies." Just like humans! So it is OK to call "piernas" and
"pies", legs, paws, claws, and feet of animals (although not many
people do so.) This is the RAE definition of "avestruz"
(ostrich), for example:
avestruz.
(Del
prov. estrutz, este del
lat. struthĭo, y este
del gr. στρουθίων).
1.
m.
Ave del orden de las Estrucioniformes, su única especie actual. En
anteriores clasificaciones zoológicas se incluía en las llamadas
Corredoras. Llega a los dos metros de altura y es la mayor de las
aves actuales. Tiene dos dedos en cada
pie,
piernas
largas y robustas, cabeza y cuello
casi desnudos, el plumaje suelto y flexible, negro en el macho y
gris en la hembra, y blancas en ambos las remeras y timoneras.
Habita en África y en Arabia.
Real Academia Española ©
Todos los derechos reservados
It is interesting that they use the word "cuello,"
(neck, collar.) "Pescuezo" is another word that also refers to this
body part in animals and sometimes in people. The RAE also claims that
the four legs of a cow can be called "manos" (like human hands), but only after
they are cut!
"Pata" is used to refer to a
human leg (or foot) in expressions like "tener mala pata" (to have bad
luck), "estirar la pata" (to die), "meter la pata" (to stick one's foot in one's mouth.)
(spanishNY.com) top
Por la
mañana and en la mañana : in the morning
Many Spanish books indicate that the translation for "in the morning" is
"por la mañana." However, In Mexico
and the U.S. using the preposition por in this expression is not realistic, as most people say "en
la mañana." Likewise, people say "en la tarde" and "en la
noche." If you are planning to visit Spain then use "por
la mañana" instead.
There are many more cases where por is used
in Spain whereas we in Latin America would use
en or another preposition to convey the same idea.
(spanishNY.com) top
Rentar or alquilar : to rent
In Mexico and some other countries, most people use the verb rentar
for to rent. Some people criticize this claiming it is a
foreign word, so they think alquilar
should be the correct term.
Well, rentar comes originally from old French and Latin. Alquilar
comes from Arabic.
If we use this benchmark, then both words are "foreign." Which one is a more
"foreign" word for a Romance language? the one coming from Latin
or the one coming from Arabic? Arrendar,
to rent, is another Spanish verb that shares a common Latin
origin with rentar, but it is not as popular as the previous
two. (spanishNY.com) top
S : The
omission of the /s/ sound in different Hispanic
countries.
You might have noticed how people from some
Spanish speaking regions do not always pronounce the
s. The study below shows a relationship
between the region, gender, and education level of the people who omit
(or use) this letter. In the Spanish spoken in New
York, it is common to hear sentences like the one below, which I
actually heard on the streets of NYC:
'tonce'. qué tú dice'. Ta'tienda ta'bielta ta'talde.
Translation:
Entonces, ¿qué dices? ¿esta tienda está
abierta hasta tarde? (So
then, what do you say [think]? is this store open until late?)
Hardly could the average Hispanic citizen
understand a sentence like the one above. One might need to be
familiar with this particular variety of Spanish in order to
understand it. Full syllables, not only s', are missing in the
sentence.
[Ø]
indicates omission of the letter s. [h] indicates that, in some
cities, people replace the s sound with
an aspirated h sound.
[s] represents the percentage of people
who do pronounce the letter s.
(Source: Fontanella de Weinberg, Dale Koike, Carol Klee, Wiley,
2003.)
Semialfabeto means semi-literate. Primario incompleto means incomplete
elementary school. Universitario means college/university educated.
This is not a complete list. Some people in some
coastal towns of Mexico, in southern Spain, in Venezuela, in Chile,
and in Cuba, among other regions, often fail to pronounce the final s;
and in some cases, most occurrences of it. Since the "S" and "Z"
sounds are the same in Latin America, [s] also applies to the letter
Z, and sometimes
even to the letter X, as in the word dúplex, pronounced by
some in New York as /duple/, or Bronx as /bron/.
(spanishNY.com) top
Satisfacer : to satisfy
Satisfacer is a compound verb whose second part comes from "facer", word
from which modern "hacer" developed. (to do, to make.) The
future of hacer is haré, harás, haremos, etc. The future of satisfacer
should be satisfaré, satisfarás, satisfará, and so on, and it is used
by most people. Some, however, follow the
rules for regular verbs: satisfaceré, satisfacerás, satisfaceremos,
etc. Perhaps this is not recognized by to the RAE, but you will
find it is spoken frequently. The same happens in the conditional
tense and with other compound verbs.
Future:
Results 1 - 10 of about 74,900
Spanish pages for satisfará.
78.5%
Results 1 - 10 of about 20,400 Spanish
pages for satisfacerá. 21.5%
Conditional:
Results 1 - 10 of about 103 Spanish pages
for satisfaríamos. 85.1%
Results 1 - 9 of about 18 Spanish pages
for satisfaceríamos. 14.9%
(spanishNY.com) top
Sexo :
sex, gender
In Spanish sexo means sex, but also gender. Same in English, but
English prefers gender instead of "sex" in official documents. If
you fill out a form in Spanish and see the field "sex," that doesn't
mean you need to answer
yes, never, once a week, etc. You need to
indicate "Masculino" or "Femenino." There is a word, "género,"
which means gender (and genre), but it's not used in forms so often.
(spanishNY.com) top
SOS
Sos in Spanish is the conjugation of
the verb ser -one of the two to be verbs- for the
personal pronoun vos, which is used largely in Argentina.
yo soy, tú eres, vos sos, él es, usted es,
nosotros somos, vosotros sois, ellos son, ustedes son. Since the
largest Argentinean community outside Argentina lives in Mexico,
sos is used by some people in Mexico as
well. SOS
/ese-o-ese/
is also the international signal of distress, known in all languages.
(Source: La Nación)
(spanishNY.com). top
Terror Vs. Horror
In English, people say
horror movie. In Spanish we say
película
de terror (terror movie.) Unfortunately, terror in
English is now reserved to be used in a different contex
t.
Peli in this cartoon means película (movie, film.) The
caption was very likely written in Spain, where some words are cut
short like cole (colegio, school), boli (bolígrafo,
ballpen), zoo (zoológico.) These short versions are not
commonly used outside Spain.
(Image credit: unknown)
(spanishNY.com). top
Valigia, an Italian word that took two different routes to Spanish and ended up as two different words
Veliz
<- Velís <- Valise <- Valigia
Valija <- Valigia
veliz, velís, valija, maleta, petaca = suitcase
In the north of Mexico, people often use the
word veliz or velís for a suitcase. It quite
probably came
across the border from the U.S. as "valise," which in turn came from
French, and ultimately from the Italian word "valigia." (the RAE
dictionary hasn't figured this out yet.)
Spanish has also the word valija, which followed a more direct route
from Italy to Spain; from the very same Italian word "valigia." (the
south half of modern Italy used to belong to Spain in 1500's.)
So this Italian word "Valigia" landed as three different words in
Mexico: valija, veliz, and velís, all of them meaning suitcase.
Nevertheless, maleta,
from French male and malle,
is the preferred word for suitcase in Spanish,
even in Mexico. From "valija" comes the verb "desvalijar," which means
more or less to steal by empting a house, a car, etc. And yet, there
is another word for suitcase in Mexico: petaca,
a term coming from Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs.
(spanishNY.com) top
Notes:
This is an acronym I use frequently: RAE. Real Academia de la Lengua
Española. Royal Academy for the Spanish Language.
I am trying to be as accurate as possible, but at the same time I have
to be brief. However, if you have any comments, feedback,
contributions, corrections, complaints, questions, additions, etc.
about these notes, please use the contact
page on the menu. Thank you.
I would like to thank Greg Zittel, L.
Smith, and
other students of mine -and visitors in general- for their help and
comments.
Finally I got my copyright setup.
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