Carro, coche, automóvil : car
Some people say that carro (car)
is a word coming from English so coche
is a better word to refer to an automobile in Spanish. Car and
carro come from Latin and Gaul (some kind of Celtic from the
ancient territory of France), whereas coche comes from the Hungarian
word kocsi, and it's related to the English word couch
and the German Kutsche. If it's acceptable to use a Hungarian origin word in Spanish, I don't see why it
would not be proper to use a Latin, Celtic, or English origin
word to refer to the same object. Carro is used in New York,
probably in most of the Hispanic U.S., in Central America, and in the
Caribbean. Coche is used in Spain. Both coche and carro
are used in Mexico. Automóvil and
auto are used everywhere, but the later
is the preferred term in Argentina. Many former French language
students wrongly think that coche is a feminine noun, la voiture, but
in Spanish it is masculine, el coche. The word carro is
related to the Latin verb currere, to run, so are the words
carrera, career, race; correo, post office, courier.
(spanishNY.com)
Perhaps Mexicans could have an excuse to use the
Hungarian
coche after all. For some years in 1800's, the brother of Emperor Franz Josef of
Austria and Hungary, Maximilian of Habsburg, was the Emperor of
Mexico. They both were children of Franz Karl, another Archduke of Austria and
Hungary. Emperor Maximilian of Mexico was born with a
Hungarian title himself: Ferdinand Maximilian Josef, Archduke of
Austria, Prince of Hungary and Bohemia.
Charlotte, the Empress of Mexico, was first cousin of
both, Queen Victoria and her husband Prince Albert of England.
It is said that during this period, words like mariachi appeared in Spanish.
That's not it for the Hungarian connection between Mexico, Hungary, and cars. About 40 years later, Emil Jellinek-Mercedes, precursor of the Mercedes-Benz car, was Consul General of the Austro-Hungarian empire in Mexico.
(spanishNY.com) top
Decimal point, or decimal comma?
(Example: Four million dollars is indicated as $4,000,000.00 - with
the decimal point - in the United States and many other countries, as
opposed to $4.000.000,00 - with the decimal comma - in Spain and many
South American countries.)
Most people in the world use the decimal point. How do I know? Because
the decimal point system is used in both China and India. Roughly half
of the Spanish speaking population uses the decimal point and the
other half uses the decimal comma. Among the countries that use the
decimal comma are Argentina, Spain, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Cuba. On the other hand, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and their
nationals in the U.S., as well as most of the Central American and
Caribbean countries use the decimal point. Therefore, be careful with
Spanish grammar books that indicate that figures in Spanish must be
written using decimal comma. Probably their authors are not well informed. It
rather depends on each country. Remember that %67 of the Hispanic
speaking population in the U.S. is of Mexican origin plus %9 of Puerto
Rican origin.
A possible solution is to take advantage of the short length of the word
mil (thousand) to minimize this problem.
10 mil 800 effectively replaces both
10,800 and 10.800
in many situations.
(spanishNY.com) top
Days of
the week
Days of the week in Spanish are named after Latin names, and these
Latin names spring from Roman gods assimilated from Greek mythology;
also the Moon, the Hebrew's Shabbat, and the Lord. There is no need to
capitalize days of the week in Spanish.
Monday = lunes = Lunae dies = Day of the Moon
Tuesday = martes = Martis dies = Day of
Mars
Wednesday = miércoles = Mercuri dies =
Day of Mercury
Thursday = jueves = Iovis dies =
Jovis dies = Day of Jupiter
Friday = viernes = Veneris dies = Day of
Venus
Saturday = sábado = comes originally from
Akkadian's Sabbatum, one of the first major languages in old Mesopotamia
(current Iraq) thousands of years ago. Then, it moved on to Hebrew as
"Shabbat," Day of Rest. A previous version of Latin called this
day Saturni dies = Saturn's day, which survives in English.
Sunday = domingo = Dominicus dies = Día
del Señor = Day of the Lord. A previous version of Latin called this
day Solis dies, sun's day. Just like English. (spanishNY.com) top
Cepillarse los dientes and lavarse los dientes : to
brush one's teeth
Most Spanish books teach the expression cepillarse
los dientes, a direct translation from to brush one's teeth. However, many people in Mexico
and other countries also use the expression "lavarse
los dientes" (to wash one's teeth.) Cepillarse los
dientes is more formal, perhaps the expression a tooth brush
commercial would use. Lavarse los dientes is the expression most
people would use in an everyday situation and perhaps in most
countries.
These are the Google results for several
combinations of these two expressions:
to brush one's teeth.
Results 1 - 10 of about 30,400
for "cepillarse los dientes". 47.7%
Results 1 - 10 of about 33,300 for "lavarse
los dientes". 52.3%.
he/she brushes his/her teeth.
Results 1 - 10 of about 771 for "se cepilla
los dientes".
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,500 for "se lava los
dientes" (this one wins 2 : 1)
I brush my teeth.
Results 1 - 10 of about 625 for "me
cepillo los dientes".
Results 1 - 10 of about 1,280 for "me lavo
". (again. this one wins 2 : 1)
Some time ago, I asked a friend of mine from Colombia about
this, and he told me in his country people say cepillarse los
dientes. The next day I was watching an interview with Shakira, a
Colombian singer, who said, "the last thing I do in the day is lavarme
los dientes." A student of mine from
Australia told me that the people down under say to clean one's
teeth, so, as you can see, these expressions change from country to country in
different languages. Do not limit yourself to what the books indicate.
Chances are that they were written by non Spanish natives, or perhaps
they just want to introduce a new verb for the sake of variety.
(spanishNY.com) top
EE. UU. and EU : United
States
The United
States in Spanish translates to
Estados Unidos. Since in Latin,
abbreviations of plural nouns are indicated by repeating each initial
twice, the abbreviation of "Estados
Unidos"
is EE.UU. Even though EE.UU. is used in
many Hispanic countries, in Mexico it is considered old fashioned so
it is nearly extinct; most Mexican publications simply print EU, or the full
name, so It is important that you become acquainted with all
these abbreviations. Now, do not confuse EU with European Union, which in
Spanish is U.E.. (Unión Europea.) Sometimes
EUA, for Estados
Unidos de América, is also used, but I guess in Spain, because the A
of América seems redundant to us as most other Spanish speaking
countries are in the Americas. (spanishNY.com) top
Cuanto más, entre más, mientras más : the more.....the more, less, better, etc.
1) Cuanto más
tarde sea, menos gente habrá en las calles.
2) Entre más tarde sea, menos gente habrá
en las calles.
3) Mientras más tarde sea, menos gente
habrá en las calles.
(The later it gets, the fewer people will be on the streets.)
In Spain, only the first sentence would be considered correct. To
them, number 2 and 3 might sound incorrect or informal. In the United
States, Mexico, and perhaps other countries, 2 or the 3 of these
sentences are considered correct, but "cuanto + adverb", is used by
the majority.
Below are some non-scientific statistics based
on Google searches:
Results 1 - 10 of about 10,900
Spanish pages for "cuanto más tarde".
90.20%
Results 1 - 10 of about 501 Spanish pages
for "entre más tarde".
4.15%
Results 1 - 10 of about 678 Spanish pages
for "mientras más tarde".
5.60%
Another variation:
Results 1 - 10 of about 579 Spanish
pages for "cuanto menos dinero".
66.40%
Results 1 - 10 of about 58 Spanish pages
for "entre menos dinero".
6.65%
Results 1 - 10 of about 235 Spanish
pages for "mientras menos dinero". 26.95%
(spanishNY.com) top
La Internet or El Internet
?
Should Internet be a masculine or feminine noun? I would say it
should be feminine. The Internet originated when many local area
networks or wide area networks -BITNET, ARPANET, etc.- were connected
together using a common protocol (TCP/IP.) A computer network in
Spanish is called red, which is a feminine noun.
Red is
the word for a network and for a net. Since the Internet is a computer
network, which in Spanish is "red de computadoras," ("red de
ordenadores" in Spain.) I think Internet should be a feminine word.
The RAE recently classified it as an ambiguous noun. (either gender is
fine.) (spanishNY.com) top
Chaqueta, chamarra, saco :
jacket
Chaqueta is the most widely used word for
jacket, which comes from
French
jaquette. However, If you travel to Mexico, do not use this
word as it might be embarrassing, it has a sexual connotation. Use chamarra instead; from Zamarra, a Basque origin
word for a similar piece of clothing. For a sport jacket, use
saco.
(spanishNY.com) top
Habemos : there are (including myself)
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 perhaps other countries, it is common to use a
conjugation of haber
that does not officially exist in Spanish:
habemos. "Habemos cinco personas en esa
clase" (there are, including me, 5 people in that class.) It
should be "Hay 5 personas en esa clase", but this doesn't carry the
idea that you are included in these 5 people. This is part of the reason why
people resort to this nonexistent word: sometimes it is useful. The
sentence could be rearranged to "Estamos inscritas cinco personas
en esa clase." (We are five people enrolled in this class), now you
are also included in these 5 people. It is important that you know
habemos since you will encounter it sooner or later, however, try to avoid
it
in formal speech.
These are the Google search results for habemos.
About 102,000 Spanish language web pages contain that word at least
once. Too
many instances for a word that supposedly does not exist.
Results 1 - 10 of about
102,000
Spanish pages for habemos.
(spanishNY.com) top
México or Méjico
According to the RAE, México and derived words can also be spelled
with "j" instead of "x." The same institution encourages people
to write Texas with "j." The "x" is there to remind us that "México"
used to be pronounced /meshico/ in it's original language. To some
extent, we Mexicans do not consider it polite to be addressed in
written form as "Mejicanos," or the name of our country to be spelled
as "Méjico." I asked RAE staff why they do this, and they replied that
young people in Spain usually pronounce "México" as /meksico/ and
"Texas" as /teksas/ when they see these names spelled with "X."
(? !? !? ) This "j" spelling is not uncommon in South America as
well.
(spanishNY.com) top
U.S.
Hispanic Population by Country of Origin
If you are an American student of Spanish, or live
in the U.S., then Mexican Spanish is statistically the most suitable
for you, and by far.
67 out of every 100 Hispanic people in the U.S. are of Mexican origin.
In the opposite direction,
more than one million U.S. citizens reside in Mexico, which makes it
the country with the largest American expatriate community in the
world.
About 37 out of every 100 Spanish
speakers in the world are of Mexican origin. This is another reason
why Mexican Spanish expressions, conventions, vocabulary, and
structures, have a huge weight, even if some European scholars
sometimes question them. One example of this is the use of the
decimal point to indicate figures in the U.S. Hispanic media: If you
choose to use the decimal comma instead, you will certainly put at risk the
largest portion of your market.
Source and graphics: U.S. Census Bureau, U.S.
Department of State, ACA.
(spanishNY.com) top
Numbers, ordinal : Números ordinales
Coming from Latin, Spanish ordinal numbers are incredibly
elaborated. For practical purposes -except in formal situations, a
country's constitution perhaps, but not in daily life- we mostly use the first
10 or 12 of them: Primero, segundo, tercero, cuarto, quinto, sexto,
séptimo, octavo, noveno, décimo, undécimo, duodécimo. From here on, we
usually switch to cardinal numbers: trece, catorce, quince, etc.
Examples of Spanish ordinal numbers:
41th becomes "cuadragésimo primero" in
Spanish
56th is "quincuagésimo sexto" (can
you imagine telling someone, "Yo trabajo en este edificio en el
quincuagésimo sexto piso"? (I work in this building on the 56th
floor.)
75th is "septuagésimo quinto"
100th is "centésimo" (not too bad...not
too bad. It's related to century)
200th is "ducentésimo"
479th is "cuadringentésimo
septuagésimo noveno." Imagine
yourself using this
one! Instead, most people would say "cuatrocientos setenta y nueve."
Ordinal numbers in Spanish used as adjectives or pronouns agree in
gender and number. Ejs.: primero, primera, primeros, primeras.
For days of the month, only the first day can be either
"primero" or "uno," but thereafter we switch to cardinal numbers.
Primero, dos, tres, and so on. Another example: Pope Jean Paul
II was
Papa Juan Pablo Segundo. However, Pope Benedict the XVI is Papa
Benedicto dieciséis. Only in formal situations would he be called
Papa Benedicto Décimo Sexto. (spanishNY.com) top
Months
Septiembre (September ) was the
7th month (séptimo mes), but nowadays it is
the 9th month.
Octubre (October) was the 8th month (octavo
mes), but nowadays it is the 10th month.
Noviembre
(November) was the 9th month (noveno
mes), but nowadays it is the 11th month.
Diciembre (December) was the 10th month (décimo
mes), but nowadays it is the 12th month.
So what happened here? Some wanted to honor Mr. Julius Caesar (July),
and Mr. Caesar Octavianus Augustus* (August.) In order to celebrate
these two Roman emperors, previously existing months were renamed,
shifted, and January and February were later inserted. So July and August ended up as the
month number 7th and 8th respectively. September was bumped over to
month number 9th, and the rest of the months after it were shifted
also. There is no need to capitalize months in Spanish.
(spanishNY.com)
*Roman emperors would often modify their names
during their lifetime. One example is Gaius Octavius, who became Gaius
Julius Cesar, then Gaius Julius Cesar Octavianus, and finally Gaius
Julius Cesar Octavianus Augustus (5 names). According to the Romans,
the more names a person had, the more important the person was. In the
Roman world, women
and slaves had only one name.
(spanishNY.com) top
Semana, week
Semana is the Spanish word for week.
Semana comes from Latin
septimana, similar to
séptimo (7th) and siete (7.) Now It
should be clear why semana represents a 7 day period.
(spanishNY.com) top
Misuri, how about Quentoqui?
The Royal Academy for Spanish Language (RAE)
is trying to impose their will on issues like the spelling of U.S.
geographical names that are not in Spanish and have no Spanish
tradition (at least not from Spain). One example of this, is their recommendation for
the spelling of Missouri,
which
is the correct regional spelling, as opposed to the RAE spelling -
Misuri.
I think this spelling is acceptable in Spain, but for Spanish
speaking people living in the U.S., and in many other
countries, it's a bit over the top. If they wish to educate us on how
to spell geographic names of Spain, they are the most reliable
authority to do so, but they shouldn't try to impose their will on how
to spell geographic names that don't belong to their country. They are
probably unaware that if we write Misuri
and not Missouri, our colleagues, family,
or friends, will probably think we didn't receive proper education, especially for
those of us living in the U.S.. Imagine the impression you would give
your possible employer during a job interview after having written
Ciudad de Kansas, Misuri,
or San Luis, Misuri,
on your resume. That, if the
possible employer decides to call you
after seeing that.
In one of their dictionaries, the RAE quotes this word in El Nuevo Herald,
a popular Miami Spanish newspaper, as an attempt to try to convince us
to use Misuri. I think the news story
they quoted was an exception. The journalist who wrote that article was
probably educated in Spain, and the Nuevo Herald editor turned a blind
eye to
this word. Misuri is not part of the Nuevo
Herald's Manual of Style.
This is a search for
Misuri on the Nuevo Herald
website,
for Spanish language stories only during the last 7 days. Only 1 match was
found.
Searched for "Misuri".
Returning 1 articles of 1 found.
If this is too many articles to browse, you may refine your search
with additional terms.
This is a search
for Missouri on the Nuevo Herald,
for Spanish language stories only. 34 matches
were returned this time.
Searched
for "Missouri".
Returning 10 articles of 34 found.
If this is too many articles to browse, you may refine your search
with additional terms.
This is a Google search for
the word
Misuri on Spanish language pages only:
Results 1 - 10 of about
29,800 Spanish pages for
Misuri
Many of the above matches located in
sites outside Spain happen to be news stories produced by
the Spain's EFE news agency that were not changed back to
Missouri, as
it frequently happens in Mexico with their stories.
This is a Google search for the word Missouri
on Spanish Language pages only:
Results 1 - 10 of about 857,000 Spanish
pages for
Missouri
In summary:
Misuri
29,800 Spanish pages = 03.36%
Missouri 857,000
Spanish pages = 96.64%
Below are some RAE recommendations.
Follow them at
your own risk! If you are planning to take their D.E.L.E. exam, then
these recommendations become mandatory for you:
Pennsylvania
should be spelled
Pensilvania
(Probably Mr. William Penn
wouldn't have liked it)
Mississippi
should be spelled
Misisipi
or Misisipí
(yes, with stress on the last
syllable. I wonder where they got that idea from.)
New Hampshire
should be spelled Nuevo
Hampshire
Hawaii is incorrect in RAE
Spanish; Hawái
(with an accent mark on the a)
is the only correct and pure form
acceptable to them. That's why 199 web pages -including mine- ( a
whopping 00.006% ) are written in correct, RAE Spanish. 511,000
(16.424%) write Hawai,
but they are missing the accent mark, so they cannot be certified as
RAE Spanish. 2,060,000 (83.570%) spell
Hawaii, and are all incorrect
and don't use valid RAE Spanish. All these are results for Spanish
language pages only, English pages were excluded. Nevertheless, It
could have been worse; they could have come up with something like
Jaguái.
Louisiana is not acceptable,
according to them. In RAE Spanish, we should write
Luisiana (even my Spanish
spelling checker complains, so It's not RAE compliant)
Until recently, they advised us to write
Tejas
instead of
Texas,
but somehow they corrected this, and now they recommend us to spell
Texas.
Kudos to whoever enlightened them.
Likewise, they recommended us to spell
México
as Méjico,
and New Mexico
as Nuevo Méjico.
They corrected these ones too! Mr. Manuel Seco, a member of the RAE,
still pushes for the J
spellings for México and Texas.
Speaking of Mr. Seco, in one of his books that otherwise is
useful, he recommends that the word sandwich
be pronounced as /sángüich/.
Just imagine, the RAE seems to inaccurately think that the
W
in English
is pronounced just like the combination
Gu
in Spanish. For the RAE, the English words
good
and
wood
are pronounced exactly the same! We are lucky that they haven't asked
us yet to write
Washington
as
Guáchinton
(but this is in fact the way it is pronounced in Spain, with a
G
and not with a
W
sound.) Another example
of their confusion with the pronunciation of the
W
=
G
is their advice to write
whiskey
as güisqui
(please, never use this eccentricity, or whatever it can
be called, unless you are in Spain or will
be taking their D.E.L.E. exam.) If that's not perplexing enough, they sometimes even
use
the German or Slavic pronunciation for the letter
W
-like a
V-
in English words!
Water is pronounced -and
written- as Váter
in Spain
(this is one of the words they use for
toilet, from W.C.).
Among the less controversial Hispanicized U.S.
geographical names are:
Filadelfia
for Philadelphia.
Still, more than 50% of the pages in Spanish use the original
spelling. Only some people agree.
Nueva York
for New York.
Unanimous.
Nueva Jersey
for New Jersey.
(The only difference is that, in Spain, some pronounce the
J
as in Spanish. We do it as in English.)
Nuevo México
for New Mexico.
(although some people in Spain write
Nuevo Méjico.
To them, it's acceptable.)
Perhaps all this is their revenge for the English spelling of
Andalucía
as
Andalusia,
with an s.
For those acquainted with the
Japanese language, the creation of the word
Misuri
resembles what the Japanese do with
English words in katakana.
Bottom line:
If you live, or plan to live in Spain, if you study Spanish in the Instituto Cervantes or will take their D.E.L.E. exam, or if you do
business with people in Spain, then write
Misuri;
and while you are at it, you can even write
Quentoqui or
Quentoquí
(they like to stress the last syllable like in Misisipí) instead of
Kentucky.
The Cervantes Institute and the Royal Academy in Spain will rave.
Last update: 20060112 (spanishNY.com)
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