I have been busy with other things of late, haven’t taken time to post, and admit I write today mostly to keep this URL from oxidizing, or sprouting green fungi. I may have more to hold forth about later in the year. In the meantime: another installment of favorite words and sayings in español: Mas…
All posts in Spanish
(More) Spanish Film for Spanish Students
My stint as a voracious consumer of Spanish cinema has drawn to a close. I now own more than two hundred DVDs and Blu-Rays, have seen many more films through RTVE and Spain’s library system. The stint served me well. Listening is the language skill that matters most in my day-to-day expat life: understanding the…
Surcos: a Spanish Cinema Special Mention
Industrialization drove thousands of rural families into Spain’s big cities last century in search of money and work. The fictional story of one is told in Surcos, a 1951 neo-realist film that chronicles the grim disintegration of the Pérez clan amid the temptations and shams of a heartless Madrid. A local screenwriter told me about…
Will I Ever be Fully Fluent in Spanish?
“Tim, your Spanish vocabulary is better than mine!” This wasn’t true, wasn’t close to true, but last month I still felt buoyed by the Spaniard’s compliment as I shuffled to the busy Ventas café counter for our next round of drinks. Capcioso was the word I’d just used, that had so impressed my companion. He’d…
14 Spanish Expressions That I Wish I’d Known …
… before climbing aboard my L.A.-to-Madrid one way flight in 2016. Fourteen out of many, many more. I launched my personal vocabulary list in my Tracy hotel room on the day I learned that I’d qualified for a Spain visa. The list is now seventy-two pages long, regularly updated, includes about 3,500 entries. Of those…
Europe’s Many Lingoes
“My God, these people are speaking Gallego!” These were the thoughts that ran through this not-entirely-acculturated Yankee’s noggin while waiting my turn at the Día Basquiños supermarket in Santiago de Compostela. I hadn’t eaten since morning, had wandered far from the tourist quarter in search of a vendor that would sell staples to lug back…
International Online Language Exchange
Thanks to Covid-19, the in-person language exchange I last hosted at Madrid’s VIPs Velásquez has become a not-in-person international event online, with regular log-ins from three continents. Every weekend I greet familiar faces signing in from Madrid, Barcelona, London, Toronto, New York, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Houston, Chicago, Mexico City, Los Angeles. One faithful user joins…
Spanish Loanwords: My Nominations
What follows is an incomplete list of Spanish words and sayings that might rate utterance by English speakers. The German weltschmerz, zeitgeist and schadenfreude get occasional play in the U.S. media because no English words so ably cover the same turf. Why not pagafantas and hombretón? I have discussed all candidates below with Spain born-and-raiseds,…
Italki Online Language Learning: a Review
italki is a global internet platform that links language learners with language instructors. A big, well-established platform: the about page claims five million students parsing verbs in one hundred thirty languages with ten thousand teachers. Thirteen years old now, founded by two Shanghai entrepreneurs. Betcha you’ve never heard of it. Spain’s coronavirus quarantine has made…
Spanish Film for Spanish Students
I now understand some Spanish movies. Finally! Took me long enough. Commercial, for profit, entertainment movies, made in Spanish, mostly in Spain. Without subtitles. Only some of them, mind you, and I never understand every word, but I can now usually follow a plot line, fathom enough to be interested. A milestone! I presume that…