Belated happy Spanish Language Day. April 23 is the day each year mandated by the United Nations to celebrate the Spanish language. Google doodle joined the celebration with a story on the unique Spanish letter of ñ.
Who counts as a speaker of a language?
Anna Babel, a Spanish professor at an American university, linked perception of language efficiency with social characteristics. Professor Babel used examples from both Bolivia and the USA to show how a person’s social group and ethnicity can influence others’ perception of whether they are a native speaker of the national language.
English grammar for students of Spanish
There is no shortage of books to help us learn the Spanish grammar. The one I’m recommending, English Grammar for Students of Spanish, is indispensable if you already have some exposure to the Spanish language, perhaps, not in the formal sense, and you feel you need to delve into grammar to round out your learning, …
Read these books to understand Peru
This blog post by Nicolas Bello lists 15 books that will help you understand Peru, its history and culture.
The key to language is universal psychology, not universal grammar
Paul Ibbotson, The Open University What makes language special is part of what makes us special, so understanding what language is made of and how we learn it brings us closer to our human nature. Is language special because it runs on its own unique piece of mental software written into our DNA? Or is …
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Currency Trivia
I am reposting the following currency trivia from the Spanishdict website. Enjoy. Name a Spanish-speaking country that uses the same currency as 19 other countries. Name 2 Spanish-speaking countries that use the USD as their national currency.Hint: The 2 names share the same first letter. Name the Paraguayan currency.Hint: It shares the same name as …
Learning Spanish from comic strips
What is your favorite comic strip and character? Your answer will most likely give away your age bracket and gender. My wife adores Peanuts and her favorite character is Snoopy. Another comic strip from around the same era is Mafalda which was written and illustrated by Quino, an Argentine. The main character in Mafalda is …
A book for South American history buffs
The Paraguayan War: Causes and Early Conduct is a protracted account of the 1864–1870 Paraguayan war, aka the Triple Alliance war. This is a story about the smallish Paraguay at war with the triple alliance of Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. The author spent considerable effort in explaining the backdrop of the conflict, going as far …
Learn Spanish while listening to pop music
Language learning can be monotonous and discouraging at times. Anything that can spice up the process is a welcome relief. Listening to Spanish pop music became one of my favorite Spanish learning tools. My previous blog posts here and here listed some of my favorite artists and songs. I found listening to Spanish hit songs …
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The resumptive lo: a Spanish gotcha for English speakers
‘Are you mad at me?’—’¿Estás enojada conmigo?’ ‘I am’. In Spanish, the equivalent answer is ‘estoy’, right? Not quite. The correct answer is ‘lo estoy’. The lo in ‘lo estoy’ is called the resumptive lo. Like the last missing piece of a puzzle, without it, you can still see the whole picture, but it is …
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