czarina84

Yes, it is.  I think that Spanish spoken in the Caribbean, like Puerto Rico, is also different than that of Spain and South America.  I'm pretty sure that Mexican Spanish is also different than that of Caribbean and Spain Spanish.  Will the native Spanish speakers set me straight if I'm wrong?

Let me add yet another car idiom: "Kick the tires" means to inspect something. 

Well, remembering that "they're" is a contraction for "they are" should help you keep from getting that one mixed-up.  As for the other two, I just learned them by seeing them over and over.  Creating sentences and reading books, I just saw them multiple times and committed them to memory. 

On ‎12‎/‎10‎/‎2015‎ ‎3‎:‎20‎:‎27‎, Mameha said:

This may be a simple question, but since we around Christmas (i couldn't wait until Valentine's day!) i think it's good to open an happy topic!

How do you say "i love you", or how do you express love in your language? Not only to your lovers, but even your relatives, parents, friends!

In Italian "I love you" can be translated in 2 ways:

"Ti amo" is the "I love you" that you say generally to your boyfriend/girlfriend, wife/husband but you can say it maybe to your son or daughter too because it is a great expression of love.

"Ti voglio bene" is what you say generally to people like friends, parents, relatives or people you love in general.

What about you?  Let's spread the love!

 

In Italian, you don't pronounce "g", correct?  So would "voglio" be pronounced "vo-leo"?  Sorry for the English phonetic pronunciation.  I didn't know any other way to ask it. 

21 hours ago, djordje87 said:

I believe that morena means dark haired dark skinned lady so you are right about that. She is just pure latina girl. And sierra might be the mountain range because i just translate this from what i have learned and it is not much obviously. You Spanish is more precise than mine. That was just google translate as i can see now. So i checked with some of my friends and they told me any elevated ground is correct here. Like a hill or a mountain.

Thank you for double-checking.  And, again, thank you for the song.  When I listen to Spanish music, I like to keep read the translation.  It helps me word associate, so that way the two languages become like one. This helps me a lot.  I'm very glad you have friends who can help you. 

"I'm all black and blue" means you are severely bruised.  "Black as coal" is pretty self-explanatory.  "Green thumb"  means you are very good with plants; "black thumb" is its opposite.  "Greenhorn" is someone who is woefully inexperienced.  "To have a yellow streak" means someone is a coward; you can also just say "Are you yellow?" meaning "are you scared/cowardly?"  "To catch someone red-handed" means to see them do something wrong.  "White as a ghost" means very pale; usually used after a scare but also can be used to describe someone who is naturally very light skinned.  "Seeing pink elephants" means to imagine something.  "Talk a blue streak" means to talk a lot and rapidly (see Six from Blossom -- she's my best example).

2 minutes ago, linguaholic said:

Is Reggaeton really Spanish?  Didn't know that.

Yeah.  Reggae is a type of Jamaican music.  Reggaeton is a type of Spanish hip-hop, like Daddy Yankee or the Kumbia Kings.

That kind of sounds like Pictionary.   That's an interesting way to learn but how do you convey the meaning?  I know you can teach them the word "eyesore" but how do you let them know the definition?

I don't really like the fact that I have to include my native language in this.  I'd rather it be five languages other than my native tongue.

1- English (native)

2- French (I started learning this in high school and I just fell in love with it)

3- Spanish (Practicality.  There are many Spanish-speaking immigrants in this country and I like to listen to Spanish-language music from traditional to Tejano to Reggaeton)

4- Korean (It's a beautiful language)

5- Celtic/Gaelic (I have Irish and Scottish ancestry and feel very connected to it.)

There are a few others.  These aren't in any particular order.  They are all equal in my opinion.

11 hours ago, djordje87 said:

 

 

 

Thank you.  I was also translating a few words incorrectly.  I thought "morena" meant dark-haired and "sierra" meant mountain range.  Thanks for correcting me on those. 

YouTube takes a very long time to load on my computer, so I'm going to try to watch it later on the PlayStation 3. It's much more clear.  Thank you for letting me know about this.

The only Shakespeare work that I like is Much Ado About Nothing.  Most of his works seem like soap operas to me, albeit, bloodier.  I think that Much Ado About Nothing is much more real.  It's about love in its different phases and most of the over-the-top drama queen stuff is more subdued. 

I think the best teachers, for me, are native speakers who were not foreign.  Allow me to clarify this.  In America there are many bilingual speakers who were born in the US.  Most of them were taught Spanish as their first language, then learned English in school or at home when they were about to start school.  Therefore they have the good luck to know how to speak Spanish and English and understand the importance of grammar rules, especially those who were taught English outside of their home. 

Have you found your legend yet or are you still looking?

19 hours ago, takibari said:

You're quite right. The emotion that the singer brings out when performing the song helps a lot. Primarily because the emotion provides an immediate and CLEAR context to the meaning of the lyrics. If at first you struggle with the meaning of the lyrics, with the help of the melody and the emotion from the singer, you can readily identify whether the song is a happy song, a sad one, an inspirational bit, or what have you.

The only exception I have heard was El Canoero by Los Super Seven.  The background music is very upbeat but the lyrics translate into things like "the poor canoeist, he died".

On ‎10‎/‎4‎/‎2014‎ ‎6‎:‎11‎:‎36‎, Meerkat said:

My favorite is still "It cost me an arm and a leg". I know what it means (I am a native english speaker) but it is awful... who in the world pays in arms and legs?

 

Did some guy have not enough change to pay a cannibal?

Maybe the cannibal's currency is arms and legs.  Would that mean that hands, feet, digits and nails are change?    Honestly, though, I think it refers to something that costs so much that it is as difficult to give up as much needed body parts, such as arms and legs.  Similar to "I would give my right arm for talent like hers".

That's a great idea.  Not only does it help them with learning the language, it also stimulates creativity.  Another good thing about it is that it helps them realize what it would be like to have real world conversations.  Not that it's likely they will be stranded, but the very real instance of having to pull a foreign word out of thin air.  Very clever.

I ran into a similar problem while watching The Nightmare Before Christmas on Netflix, only the subtitle difference was in the same language!  I was watching it with Spanish audio and Spanish subtitles.  Since I know the movie by hear in English, I figured watching it in Spanish would give me a better handle on the language.  However the Spanish subtitles were using different words than the Spanish audio.  For example, the line "This is Halloween" was "Esta Halloween" in the audio and "Es Halloween" in the subtitles.   

9 minutes ago, Trellum said:

They're basically the same, ballads are simple light songs... mostly about love, same as the Spanish balada   But of  course I am no music teacher, so I'm not aware of all the behind each music style, but for our purpose, yes, you can use them interchangeably.  And no,  balada and canción are not synonyms.  Canción means ''song'' and can be applied to any music genre, like for example, we can be talking about una canción de amor, una canción de rock, etc. 

I know what a ballad is.  (That wasn't meant to be snippy; I was just letting you know that I know what a ballad is.)  I just asking about the meaning of the word "balada".  Thank you for answering that question.  I was just confused by the wording.  I'm dyslexic and sometimes words don't register in my head properly.

That's the main method I'm trying to learn Spanish.  It's working very well.  It's a mixture of hearing the words and writing them down that makes it a good learning method.  But there's something about the emotion in the music that boosts its efficacy. 

On ‎12‎/‎7‎/‎2015‎ ‎1‎:‎28‎:‎06‎, Paula said:

Tal vez te ayude tener que leer mis palabras en español, ¿no crees? Yo te propongo que escribas todos tus posts en esta parte del foro en español para que asi lo practiques. Si quieres chatear en skype conmigo estoy para servirte. Yo vivo en México y pues lógicamente mi idioma nativo es el español.

Tú, ¿de dónde eres? ¿Hace cuánto vives en Estados Unidos?

No pierdas tus raíces, habla y practica tu español lo más que puedas. Yo estoy para ayudarte en lo que necesites!!

It is to nice of you to write this is Spanish.  It's a good way to help out. 

I didn't realize that, either.  The way it was explained to me was that an extended metaphor was just "more than a phrase".  That's the American education system for you, I guess. 

That's odd.  Do they only have "peel here" in English or do they have it in other languages.  Usually, when I see labels they are in Spanish and sometimes in French.  I have never looked at a banana label, though. 

2 hours ago, anna3101 said:

Actually, what I've heard about it is that slavery was not the main reason at all. That's what we were taught in school and that's what is shown in all the films but the real reason, as always, was money - the North was industrialized and the South was rural, and the taxes that the North imposed on imported goods were the actual bone of contention between the two parts of the U.S. I was actually quite surprised when I found out about it because for my whole life I naively thought they were fighting for ideals...

They were and they weren't.  That's the problem with the Civil War.  It was a messy, bloody, complicated war.  I don't know why so many Americans are so obsessed with it.  Personally, I hate it.  What you grew up learning was true.  It was about money.  It was also about slavery.  It was about autonomy.  It was about so many things.  The catalyst, though was "don't take away our free labor".   

22 hours ago, lushlala said:

I totally agree with you there, @czarina84! I don't think I could ever feel I know enough and stop learning because of that! I too find I'm still learning bits of my own language, and I've spoken it all my life too.  I don't think there can ever be an end to the learning process, but maybe that's just me.

I'm the same way.  I think that, in a way, I'm glad there is no end to the learning process.  It keeps your brain sharp and gives you a journey, a reason to wake up and enjoy life.  Don't get me wrong, I do like down time, but I love learning.