Spanish movie

Yesterday in class we began watching Pan's Labyrinth. I have seen this movie several times before and I noticed that watching it this time I did not have to look at the subtitles near as much for several reasons. The first is because I had seen it several times I knew what they were talking about. The second is because My vocabulary has increased a lot since I saw the movie the last time.

Me gustan las películas extranjeras.
Esta película es muy oscura.
Me gusta el visual en esta pelicula.

Soccer

Last week I watched my favorite soccer team in the championship game for their division. Even better my second favorite team they were playing against. The two teams were Real Madrid and Barcelona both teams in the Spain conference. My favorite team is Barcelona unfortunately they lost by one goal. The announcers were speaking in spanish and from time to time I could understand a word or two.

El pasa a su derecha.
Meta para el Real Madrid.
Una tarjeta amarilla para el Real Madrid.

Future tense

In Spanish when you are speaking the the future tense you have to use a specific form of the verbs that you use or in other words you have to conjugate it a certain way. Fortunately it is a very easy conjugation. The tense are the same for ar, ir, and er verbs and it is as follows Yo-e Tu-as el/ella/Usd.-a nosotros-emos ellas,usds-an.

Voy a limpiare mi casa.
Voy a comere esta noche.
Voy a ir a la cama más tarde.

Conversation at Elementary School

Once a month I go to Johnny Allen Elementary School and do a 45 minute activity with some of the students there. A majority of the kids are Hispanic at this school and are fluent in Spanish. On Wednesday I went to do the monthly visit and the entire time I was able to communicate in Spanish with a young boy named hector. Are conversation was very basic so I was able to maintain it the entire time.

Necesito el azul?
Puedo tomar su basura?
Te gusta dibujar?

Doubt, Certainty

In the Spanish language there are you use different forms of words depending on whether or not you are expressing doubt, disbelief and denial or expressing certainty. When expressing doubt, disbelief or denial and if its an ar verb then you add e, es, e, emos, en. If it is a ir or and er verb then you add a, as, a, amos, an. If you are expressing certainty then you conjugate the verb normally.

Dudo que usted va a estudies.
Estoy seguro de que van a estudiar.
Niego que comie los dulces.

Soccer or Futobol

I play soccer at an indoor league in Amarillo. We usually have one game per week. The week we played on Wednesday night at 8:45. The team we were playing predominantly spoke Spanish. It was funny because they would only speak to one another in Spanish when they were on the field. I was at an advantage because I was able to pick up some things that they were saying.


Pase a la izquierda.
Pase a la derecha.
Voy a la mitad. 

Por or Para

Por and Para can be a confusing subject because it is difficult to know when to use. They both stand for the English word "for" but in different circumstances you use different either por or para. You use para when it is purpose, recipient, opinion, destination or a deadline standard. You use por when it is duration, emotions, exchange, motivation, means, movement or substitution.  

El proyecto es para el veinte de mayo.
Trabajamos para ganar dinero.
Vivimos en Lewisville por dos anos.

Interview

Yesterday I had an interview in Dallas in a big office building that was over 30 storeys high. When I arrived I had to check in at the front desk, it was on the first floor. I got there an hour early because I wanted to make sure that I could find the building, I don't do well driving in Dallas traffic. When I was sitting waiting for me interview I heard the receptions speaking in Spanish and she said something that I recognized. She was talking about the Internet.

El Internet es lenta.
Como puedo solucionarlo?
Necesito un nuevo ordenador.  

Command form

Command form is a little tricky in Spanish. There are several factors that come into play. The first factor is whether it is a negative command or an affirmative command. If it is a negative command then you put the command in the yo form and drop the o then if its an ar verb you add es and if its an er, or ir verb then you add as. If its an affirmative action then you just put the command in the el/ella form.

No me hables.
Me hablas.
Cantas para mi.

Conversation in Spanish

Yesterday I was really encouraged in my Spanish speaking skills. Yesterday I saw one of my friends from Colombia at lunch and we began to talk about class and other things and I ventured out and just started speaking in to her in Spanish. She smiled and began speaking back to me in Spanish. I got the idea because she said that she was not feeling well the other day and I thought "O we just went over this chapter I am going to try and see what happens". This was the first conversation in Spanish I have had outside of class that lasted longer than a minute.

Que estaba enfermo de ayer?
Fuiste al medico?
Te sientes mejor ahora?

quinceanera

I am puzzled and intersted why a females fifteenth birthday is such a bid deal in Spanish speaking cultures. Some good friends of mine have a daughter who not to long ago had her fifteenth birthday and they had a huge celebration. After the celebration her and her friends took a limo to Lubbock to go see a concert and stayed at a hotel in Lubbock.

En las mujeres la cultura de habla española 15 cumpleanos es enorme.
Tienen una gran celebracion.
Muchos de los huespedes están invitados

"Mente"

I enjoyed learning about adverbs that add the mente to the end of the word. I mainly enjoyed learning about them because it is so much fun to say. When working with these type of adverbs you change the word to its feminine form and then add mente to it. If it does not have a feminine form then you just simply add mente to it.

Rapidamente vamos a la parque.
Me gusta habla en adverbs.
Me gusta habla en espanola.

Imperfect and Preterite

I have been having a really hard time determining when to use the preterite tense and the imperfect tense. One thing that has sort of helped me is thinking about it in terms of infinite and ongoing. What I mean by infinite is if it is a specific event in the past as in its over and done with then it is in the preterite form. However if it is a ongoing or a broad statement such as "on Saturdays I use to go to the super market" then it is imperfect because it is not perfectly completed.

Los sábados yo uso para iba a la super mercado.
Ayer me comí una hamburguesa. 
No me gusta la gramatica.

Greeting

I have a friend who is from Colombia. Her name is Kat and we have gone a several trips together with a bunch of our friends. Our friendship has continued to grow. She has always just greeted me with a hello, however this past week she greeted me with one kiss on the cheek. Because we have become more comfortable in our friendship she felt comfortable with greeting me the way she greet all of her other friends who are accustomed to her traditions. 

Mi amiga me saludo con un beso en la mejilla.
Nuestra amistad es bueno.
Ella espanol es buena.

Que & Cual

One thing that I learned this week is that Que and Cual do not all ways translate directly into What and Which. This is kinda of a bummer because if they did it would make it a lot easier for me to figure out which one to use. However I do know that if Que or Cual is ever right before a noun it is always Que. Cual can not come right before a noun.

Que colores te gustran?
Cuales son tus medias las negras o las verde?
Que perro te gustan?

Music Festivals

I was pleased to discover that there is a music festival in Chile. When ever I think about any kind of music festival like Austin City Limits or Lolla Palooza I think about them in terms of being in the states and to be completely honest I never really knew that there was music festivals outside of the states. It is encouraging to discover that there are music festival out side of the US and that they are jam packed with people.

En 1959 unos estudiantes de Vina del Mar, Chile, celebraron una fiesta.
En el festical hay concursos musicales y conciertos de artistas famosos.
Una artista famoso es Daddy Yankee.

Religious Festivals

I thought it was very interesting how pubic religion is so prevalent in other countries. Here in the United States you would never see massive parades completely devoted to a religion. Now we do see some aspects of religions tied into holidays but it is not dominated by one religion or another. For example during Christmas you see Santa clause but that is not affiliated with any religion.

Festivales en Espana son muy religiosos.
En Espana hay desfiles de las fiestas religiosas.
Estas paradas son muy importantes para el pueblo.

Spanish Conversation

On Thursday of last week I was very encouraged at my ability in my Spanish speaking skills. I am involved in a program that is called Teen Leadership Amarillo Canyon. One day out of the month this group goes and does an activity with kids at an elementary school. We went to Johnny Allen and there was a mother with her 2 year old eating lunch next to me and they were speaking in Spanish. I decided to be bold and try out my Spanish skills. I asked her if that was her daughter and what her name was then I told her that I thought her daughter was very pretty.

Hola, ella es to nina?
Como te llamas?
Me llamo es Matt.
To nina es muy bonita.

Mixed Cultures

I have often heard the term TexMex often times affiliated with food. This week I overheard two janitors at my work talking and they were speaking in Spanish but they were also speaking in English. I began to really think about the fact that they were interchangeably using two languages and not missing a beat. Living in Texas it is evident to me that the blend of Hispanic and Mexican culture with Texas culture have made up a new culture entirely. This culture I believe is what the term TexMex refers to. This culture has shadows of Mexican and Hispanic traditions and cultures but has adapted to a newer form to fit in with the Texas culture.

Las culturas mexicana y española se han combinado con la cultura de Texas.
Una nueva cultura llama TexMex.
Es en Texas.

Comparisons

This week I learned that in Spanish when you are comparing something such as "He is bigger than she is" you can not just add on two letter to the end of the adjective like in English. If the things are be compared are different you must use the form "Mas/menos" which means more or less then the adjective, adverb or noun followed with "que" which in this case stands for than. This is a much more complex way of comparing things but for Spanish this is the norm.

El es mas grande que ella.
El es menos bonita que ella.
Ella es mas alta que el.

Ser and Ir

In the Spanish language the preterite of ser and ir stand for I went or I was. Ir mean to go and Ser means to be. What is interesting about both of these is that in the preterite they are conjugated the same in all forms Fui, Fuiste, Fue, Fuimos, Fueron. I helpful tip to decid which is being used to to look for "a". This will almost always follow the conjugated form of Ir.

Fui al cine anoche.
Fui anoche Muy simpático.
Se fueron a cenar con nosotros.

Foods

This week I learned that many of the foods we have here in America did not originate from here. I was surprised to discover that if it had not been for people introducing these foods to us we may not have them today. Some of these foods include tomatoes, chocolate and corn. We use these foods in almost all of our dishes now crazy to image them with out it.

Yo estaba interesado en aprender sobre el origen de estos alimentos.
Me gustan los tomates y estaría triste si no los tienen.
Me gusta comer.

Nap Time

I have often thought how much I took nap time for granted when I was a young child. I have thought man wouldn't it be nice to be able to just take a 1 hour or even 30 minute nap before work. This week I learned that in some place of the world like Spain they still do have nap time. From 2:30 to 4:30 in the afternoon most everything shuts down and they have La Siesta. Man that would be great if we could do that here in the U.S.

Me gusta dormir la siesta.
Me gustaría poder tomar una siesta antes del trabajo.
Estoy cansado de la tarde.

Double Negative

This week in Spanish I learned that it is not uncommon to use what we call in English a double negative. This has been very difficult for me to wrap my brain around because my whole life I have been taught that a double negative is wrong. The Spanish language likes to give an empathises on the negative action.

No me gusta que se caliente o sudorosa.
Me gusta ser frío con una chaqueta.
No me gusta el clima en el Canyon.