limon

One that always cracks me up is; "El hombre como el oso, cuanto mas feo mas hermoso" (Men are like bears, the uglier the more beautiful!)

"To crow" is to brag loudly. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander" meaning fair is fair, usually gender-wise. Also seen as "What's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander" Astool pigeon is a slightly archaic term for a snitch, originating from a form of hunting that involved a decoy bird. Cock of the walk a preening, self-important male. Eagle eyed very observant, with keen vision. Hawkish warmongering or generally aggressive. Bird-brained foolish and empty headed, also feather-brained. Also flighty, but not sure if that's directly related.

Y disfruta el fin de semana para empezar con energia el comienzo de este mes. I did enjoy my weekend, and woke up with a hangover.

Yeah, it really depends. In a movie where there are just a few lines subtitled, they might be better (since there's less pressure to get the content in quickly) or a whole lot worse (since the team doing the translation may not be a solid one). But then again, English language movies with a little bit of another language in them often get that wrong anyway, spoken or written. It also really depends on the country. For example dubbing has a horrid reputation in the States, and rightly so, but in Spain for instance it is a field populated by well paid professionals who do an exceptional job. But that's because there is a lot of demand, and good money, since most English language movies get translated for the mass market.

Well the thing about Shakespeare is that he isn't meant to be read, but performed. I read a few in my teens and liked them okay but didn't get the actual effect until I saw some movies and plays. The same is true of a lot of older poetry, on the page it's just not the same, it's like reading a script or lyrics, the effect is muted and incomplete. The hardest book I finished was probably Ursula K. Le Guin's The Dispossessed, granted that I was 15 at the time

I think part of what makes some slang or curse words sound "dirtier" in a different country/dialect is that since they're new to you the connotations of the actual word are more obvious. I mean "asshole" is actually a pretty foul word if you stop to think about it, but it becomes commonplace and disappears into the associations you have from when you've heard and used it. A new word like "culero" makes you notice the root of it all anew.

I'm sorry to say I'm only familiar with two of the authors; Thomas Pynchon and Gene Luen Yang. Both are very good, and quite different from each other. I recommend them unreservedly, though. I haven't read the particular works on the list, unfortunately, so I'll recommend ones I have read Pynchon's Against the Day took me forever to read, since he's not all that concerned with plot, but man can he write! The language is gorgeous, and it's quite funny as well. Luen Yang's American Born Chinese is a classic, and very insightful too. I'm behind on my reading at the moment, but I'll have to pick up their books on this list, ans maybe explore some of the other authors.

Ooh, these are all good ones. I'd say my biggest one is the misuse of quotation marks to signify emphasis. As in; "FRESH" VEGETABLES or better yet FRESH "VEGETABLES" Which are apparently meant to entice, but usually just creep me out. Are those vegetables fresh, are they even vegetables? Is it sarcasm or a warning?

Yeah, pretty much all the time. Talking to folks generally, at home in California or while travelling. Plus as part of my jobs over the years, I've worked a lot of customer service, and also done translation work here and there.

Yeah, I had to learn it, we had little workbooks for that express purpose. I like it a lot, and appreciate it as a skill in the same way I appreciate calligraphy, but I wouldn't expect kids coming up to need it, anymore than it would have been expected of me to know how to use a fountain pen. I'm still pretty decent at it if I want to be, but I'm not sure it is that useful a skill for most people. As long as they can write legibly it's fine surely.

Much as I dislike that word, Dictionaries are descriptive, not prescriptive. Which is to say that they describe word usage as it occurs in the language, they don't actually dictate what words are 'correct'. If everyone is using a word a certain way, that word becomes part of the language by definition and should quite rightly be added to the repository of word information.

Hmmm, I would think those two phrases mean different things in both languages. "Such is life" "Asi es la vida" is a shrugging resignation, close to "what can you do about it" or "that's the way it goes" "this is the life" is used to mean "this is great"

Oh yeah, definitely. I don't know that it is unique, but in Spain we love the curse word "coño". We use it so much, that I've been told the word is a nickname for Spaniards in some Latin American countries.

I've mostly only read classics in Spanish, to be honest. I'd have to go with Platero y Yo by Juan Ramon Jimenez.

How old is he? There is a lot of great Spanish children's literature, but obviously things that are good for very little kids might be less entertaining if he's 12 I remember loving the Gloria Fuertes poetry books when I was little, Pio Pio Lope: El Pollito Miope. Don't know if those are still available.

It's never really occurred to me. I guess I'd prefer to have *more* native tongues, though. It would have been awesome to learn other languages early on as well. But I love English (and Spanish) and can't really imagine not knowing them, because they're part of how my brain works now.

Yeah, picking a single one is difficult. I loved Battle Royale for example, but don't know how to compare it to say, Kitchen Stories. They;re too different from each other.

Fragile Things is wonderful! I recommend checking out the audiobook if you get a chance, he narrates it himself. "Forbidden Brides of the Faceless Slaves in the Secret House of the Night of Dread Desire" is one of my favorite Gaiman stories, cracks me up every time.

Dan Brown. I had to search and report for factual errors in Angels & Demons, and it was an incredible mess and a slog to read. Just a terrible, terrible, terrible book.

I don't think leaving the tv on is useful for learning from scratch, but it does help reinforce language and speaking patterns. I personally avoid any method that puts too much emphasis on learning through books and grammar, at least at first. You need a basic understanding of the underlying structure, but for learning a living language that you want to actually use, I think a basic vocabulary, pronunciation, and rules grounding is the place to start. And audio, listening and repetition are obviously key.

I think it is most common when you are favoring one language over the other, the brain forms habits is all. However the vocabulary is not lost, it's simply pushed to the back for the shelf so to speak, meaning the brain grabs for the words at the front that are easier to reach.

Huh, I knew about the others but had never heard the Chilean one, that is very good to know! It would have sounded more formal to me, since "vos" sounds vaguely archaic to a Spaniard in the same way that "thou" might to an American, so I would never have guessed it was derogatory.

I don't know if there are languages I don't like, but certain accents are a bit less appealing New Jersey, some Australian accents. I also have more trouble understanding Russian speakers of English than most other accents.

That's important as well, being able to communicate in a professional setting. I hadn't thought how difficult it must be in hospitals and so on, with patients who don't speak the main language. Most other places there are interpreters at least.

Well English is a Germanic language, so not related to Greek though they both have Indo-European roots. Obviously languages cross-pollinate a *lot*, so charts and trees don't tell the whole story, but here are a couple that show the major divisions; http://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/IE_Main3_both.html http://gn250.pbworks.com/w/file/35414189/Language+Tree.gif