Spanish word of the day

Quote: Wizard

Question for the Spanish speakers. What do you call a swimming pool, a piscina or an alberca? How about a car, a carro or automovil?

A friend of mine who owns a used car lot says that it depends on where the person is from. I believe he said that if they are from Mexico, it is carro, if from Nicaragua automovil. I think he mentioned cocha, but the conversation was at least 10 years ago. I could also be wrong on what country used what term; the gist is that it depends.

Quote: Mosca

A friend of mine who owns a used car lot says that it depends on where the person is from. I believe he said that if they are from Mexico, it is carro, if from Nicaragua automovil. I think he mentioned cocha, but the conversation was at least 10 years ago. I could also be wrong on what country used what term; the gist is that it depends.

I think carro is much more common in the southwest US. My Spanish tutor mentioned coche is also an option, but I can't recall anybody actually using it.

Fecha: 7 de Mayo
Palabra de la dia: APOSTAR

Apostar means to bet/gamble. Naturally, this word comes up a lot as I struggle to describe my daily life to my Spanish tutor. The verb jugar might also be used to mean gamble, but that is also the word for play, as in to play a game. I think there deserves to be a dedicated word for gambling, so I prefer to go with apostar.

The word for the noun bet, as in I made a $10 bet, is apuesta, which can also mean dashing/handsome in reference to anyone of the female gender. You would use apuesto for a man.

To use our word of the day in a sentence:

Quiero apostar en el Derby de Kentucky hoy. = I want to bet on the Kentucky Derby today.
Note: corrected (thanks nareed)

As always, I welcome correction and comments from those who really understand the language.

Quote: Wizard

Me gusta apostar por la Kentucky Derby de hoy = I want to bet on the Kentucky Derby today.

Quiero apostar en el Derby de Kentucky hoy.

Quiero = I want (also I love)

Me gusta = I like

Hoy = Today

De hoy = of today, or today's

Quote: Wizard

Apostar means to bet/gamble. Naturally, this word comes up a lot as I struggle to describe my daily life to my Spanish tutor. The verb jugar might also be used to mean gamble, but that is also the word for play, as in to play a game. I think there deserves to be a dedicated word for gambling, so I prefer to go with apostar.

play is from an old Anglo Saxon verb (plegian) "to exercise, frolic, perform music,". The word existed for hundreds of years before it acquired the connotation of being the opposite of work. As with most Anglo-Saxon words it has multiple meanings in modern English which have dozens of counterparts in Latin.

The Latin based languages (usually called Romance since they spoke the language of the Romans) are spoken by close to a billion people. Castilian Spanish and Latin American Spanish, Portuguese and Brazilian Protuguese , French , Italian with Romanian and Catalan being lesser languages. Smaller languages left are Corsican, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Galician, Gascon, Lombard, Mirandese, Occitan, Piedmontese, Aromanian, Sardinian, Sicilian, Venetian, Asturian, Neapolitan and Friulian.

While this is simplistic, Italian kept most of the vocabulary, Romanian kept most of the noun declensions, and Spanish kept most of the verb structure of Latin. Spanish traditionally had very few foreign vocabulary influences except for Arabic.

Principal Meanings of the verb play (not the noun)
play a game - jugar
play music - tocar
play a part in desempeñar
play an stringed instrument - tañer

Gamble and bet are also from Anglo Saxon or Old English. But we post a wager which is English words based on Latin. As you would expect, the latin based word would form the basis of the Spanish verb.

Verbs can be transitive (act on an object),intransitive (act on nothing) or reflexive (act on yourself). Sometimes variations of the same verb can have versions of all types.

te apuesto una cena a que gana el Madrid -> I bet you the price of a dinner that Madrid will win
apuesto a que no viene -> I bet he doesn't come
apostarse algo con alguien -> to bet somebody something
Apostarlas or apostárselas -> to contend, to defy
Apostar carreras -> to run races

Quote: Wizard

Is there such a thing as a dialect of Spanish as spoken in the United States? If so, what is it called? Mexican Spanish obviously has a big influence, but are there any regional differences between the southern US and northern Mexico? What else could explain the Calzones thing?

I don't think there is any clear distinction between Spanish spoken in the USA and Spanish in northern Mexico. But the Spanish spoken in the Mexican states near the border is distinctly different than that in Mexico city, or along the oceans, or in the south or Yucatan.

Spanish is clearly going to be influenced by the 56 indigenous languages as well.

Quote: pacomartin

play is from an old Anglo Saxon verb (plegian) "to exercise, frolic, perform music,"...

Thank you for going beyond the call of duty, as always. Most of the languages in your list I have never even heard of.

Fecha: 8 de Mayo
Palabra de la dia: VERDAD

This is la otra Spanish Mike with your Spanish word of the day. Who is the original Spanish Mike, you might ask? Paco turned me onto his video One' rel='nofollow' target='_blank'>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ngRq82c8Baw]One Semester of Spanish Love Song. That is the most enjoyable thing I've seen on YouTube for a long time, thanks Paco.

To get to the point, the word of the day is verdad=truth. How might you remember this one? Think of these English words: verdict, verify, version, and verily. What do they all have in common besides starting with ver? They all have to do with the truth, or at least the quest for it.

How about the suffix "dad?" I'm not sure what that means, but if nareed can't help, Paco is seldom stumped. One thing I do know is that Spanish words ending in the suffix 'dad' have in common is that they are all feminine words.

Recently, when I was torturing my poor tutor with trying to say something in Spanish I said "el verdad." She corrected me, saying verdad is feminine, because women always like the truth. Hmmm. I'm not sure that was a truthful reason. Tal vez estaba bromeando.*

Example time.

Tú no habias afrontar la verdad. = You can't handle the truth.

* Corrected, thanks nareed.

The easiest English word that comes from the latin word for truth is "very". Which is roughly the same meaning as "truly".

Generally we say that verbs have "conjugations" and nouns have "declensions". Noun declensions can be complicated (look up in Wikipedia), and Romanian is the modern Latin based language that kept most of the Latin noun declensions. But Spanish did keep the idea of a noun having masculine or feminine gender.

Example of masculine noun
calzón (plural calzones)

Feminine nouns
(1) Generally nouns ending in "-a"
la fruta, la mesa, la palabra ( exceptions!)

(2) Nouns ending in "-dad" / "-tad" / "-tud"
la ciudad, la edad, la universidad
la amistad, la facultad, la libertad
la inquietud, la juventud, la virtud

(3) Nouns ending in "-ción" / "-sión" / "-gión"
la canción, la estación, la lección
la profesión, la televisión, la tensión
la legión, la región, la religión

(4) Nouns ending in "-ez", as long as they refer to abstract nouns formed with suffixes
la rigidez -- rigidity
la sensatez -- soberness
la validez -- validity
la vejez -- old age, oldness

(5) Nouns ending in "-triz"
la actriz, la directriz, la emperatriz

(6) Nouns ending in "-umbre"
la costumbre, la incertidumbre, la legumbre

(7) Shortened version of originally feminine nouns
la disco -- la discoteca*
la foto -- la fotografía
la moto -- la motocicleta
la tele -- la televisión
* but when it refers to a disk, it's el disco

(8) Nouns referring to women
la madre -- mother
la mujer -- woman, wife

Quote: Why gender sucks when you are trying to learn Spanish

Because you cannot predict the gender of most nouns.
Because not every noun that ends in -o is masculine, and not every noun that ends in -a is feminine.
Because many nouns end in letters other than o or a.

Por ejemplo. Do you think the Spanish word for "dress" is masculine or feminine? Actually, the word for "dress" is : el vestido

Muchas palabras que terminan en "-tad" o "-dad" en espanol terminan en "-ty" en ingles:

universidad - university
maternidad - maternity
nacionalidad - nationality
calidad - quality

But the precise meaning or origin of suffixes and prefixes is often not obvious. Nareed is just as likely to know what -dad means as you are to know what -ty means.

Some suffixes and prefixes are obvious. Suffixes that enlarge or diminish are an example. But often times it is obscure.

For example in the English words: amnesty, levity, depravity, laxity, audacity, surety, temerity, scanty, haughty, humidity, specialty, majority, ability, humanity, activity, creativity, vanity, loyalty, lucidity the suffix "ty" or "ity" means state of, quality of, or condition of.
But university is the quality of "universalness"?

Using this meaning of the suffix -ty in English, and -dad in Spanish, combined with the latin word for truth, "ver" you get "verdad" which is having the quality or state of truth.

Women love truth. Tell her her dress makes her look frumpy.

English is the most studied language on the planet. The Oxford 3000 is a core vocabulary list for people learning English. It might be a good place to start your Spanish vocabulary.

Limon y sal
Tengo que confesar que a veces,
no me gusta tu forma de ser,
luego te me desapareces
y no entiendo muy bien porque,
no dices nada romantico
cuando llega el atardecer,
te pones de un humor extraño
con cada luna llena al mes.

Pero a todo lo demás,
le gana lo bueno que me das,
solo tenerte cerca,
siento que vuelvo a empezar.

Chorus
Yo te quiero con limon y sal,
yo te quiero tal y como estas,
no hace falta cambiarte nada,
yo te quiero si vienes o si vas,
si subes y bajas y no estas
seguro de lo que sientes.

Tengo que confesarte ahora,
nunca creí en la felicidad,
a veces algo se le parece,
pero es pura casualidad,
Luego me vengo a encontrar
con tus ojos me dan algo mas,
solo tenerte cerca,
siento que vuelvo a empezar.

Chorus x 2

Solo tenerte cerca
siento que vuelvo a empezar.