Falsos amigos

Goodness, it's been a while - sorry about that! ¡Lo siento!

Anyway, I had mentioned that we should also have a look at some false friends - words which look the same as an English word but which actually have a different meaning.

Once again we find that someone friendly out there in internet-world has done the work for us and you can find a big list of false friends here:

http://www.elearnspanishlanguage.com/vocabulary/falsosamigos.html

Wow, there´s a lot of them, huh!

But don´t worry - they seem like something which is going to be confusing, something to trick you, but actually in many cases the context makes clear that the "false" meaning of the word is simply impossible. And in other cases there is at least the possibility of getting a great story out of a hilarious misunderstanding! (Check out embarazada!)

Spanish Cognates

About half-a-dozen posts ago, I said I would try to publish a list of Spanish words which are cognates with English words (and vice-versa!). The only trouble is, there's such a heck of a lot of them! This is good - is makes Spanish easier for you to learn!

So, I did a quick bit of internet research and came up with this link, which i recommend to you:

http://www.latinamericalinks.com/spanish_cognates.htm

They've got over 4000 cognates listed so far, and I don't think they've finished yet! Their page on Peruvian slang is fun, too!

So, off you go then and enjoy that. The next thing, though, is False Friends - they look like cognates, but they're NOT!

more on vocab

DO try to get the pronunciation right from the start when you learn new words. Say words out loud. Use a tape, CD or the internet or a friend (a friend on the internet, even); but you must do something. Don´t guess, and don´t just say the word as if it was English. And don´t put too much faith in so-called "phonetic pronunciations" in phrase books. You need to hear it.

I´d say that one of the main reasons for early frustration and giving up with a new language is that, after all our hard work, sometimes those wretched foreigners have the nerve not to understand us! They must be doing it on purpose - that´s so rude! And I said it just like in the book, too!

Spanish, unfortunately, is written with letters that look exactly like English letters. But do not fall for this, IT IS A TRICK! Actually very few Spanish letters are pronounced exactly as in English, and many of them are VERY different. And if you don´t get the sounds right, then people just won´t be able to understand you, I´m afraid.

This is another good reason for joining a class - you need feedback on your pronunciation. If you´re working on your own, try recording yourself and then listen to see if you´re really making the sounds you think you´re making. Practise. Take your time with it - it can take a while. Relax.

Vocabulary

Well, when it all comes down to it, a lot of learning a language is to do with learning words! There's a lot of other bits, as well, of course, otherwise all you'd need would be to buy a dictionary; but learning some words would be a good place to start.


Now, let's look at two questions:


Which words should you be learning?

How should you go about learning them?

One should generally begin, I feel, not with the words which are easiest to remember, but with the most everyday and useful ones. (A significant exception to this is the Michel Thomas course, which memorably begins with No es acetable así - It is not acceptable like that. I like the Michel Thomas course a lot; it´s expensive (so get it from the library!), but it does offer something significantly different from other courses, and by the end you should be able to put quite long sentences together without much effort. I´ll post more about it later)

Anyway, ¡Hola!, ¡Adiós!, Por favor, gracias, Me llamo....
and the numbers 1 - 12 would seem a good place to start. Move on to describing yourself and your family, buying groceries and asking for the time and directions.

Why start here, if these words and phrases aren´t the easiest to remember? Well, once you´ve learnt how to ask the time, you can get immediate satisfaction when you go to Spain just asking people again and again what time it is! After a while, you may even start to find that you are beginning to understand their answers!

Likewise, I still keep find myself asking people questions in Spain, even when I already know the answer! It´s just fun to be talking Spanish! So ask where the Main Square is ¿Dónde está la Plaza Mayor? even if you´ve already been there. Don´t worry if you don´t understand the answer - just wander off in the general direction they were pointing and then ask someone else!

Right that´s enough for now, more later.