Category: Spanish (español)

Lyrics Translate

By Simon

The other day I came across a useful site called Lyrics Translate, where you can find, submit and request translations of songs. It currently contains translations between a wide range of languages, including English, German, Russian, Turkish, Spanish, Polish and so on, and the site itself can be viewed in a variety of languages. There is also a forum for translators, as well as articles and videos.

So it look like a good place to practise languages you’re learning – you can find songs in those languages, either originals, or translated from other languages, and you could even have a go at translating songs yourself.

I have submitted translations of Cockles and Mussels (Molly Malone) in Irish and Manx – not my own translations admittedly, and just found a song in Breton with a translations in English, French, Portuguese, Russian and Spanish, and a video. There are quite a few other songs in Breton too.

Summer chicks and glowing coals

By Simon

Butterfly

Last night we were talking about the Pili Palas on Anglesey, a butterfly centre, which also has birds, snakes and other exotic creatures. The name is a pun combining pili-pala (butterfly) and palas (palace) – it took me ages to realise this. We were trying to think of the words for butterfly in various other languages and came up with the French, papillon, and the Spanish mariposa, but got stuck after that. This got me wondering why these words are so different in different languages.

The English word butterfly comes from the Old English buttorfleoge, perhaps from bēatan (to beat) and flēoge (fly), or perhaps it was the name just for yellow butterflies, and/or because butterflies were thought to eat butter and milk.

In Middle High German butterflies were known as molkendiep (“milk-thief”) and in Low German a butterfly is a Botterlicker (“butter-licker”) [source]. In Modern German Schmetterling /ˈʃmɛtɐlɪŋ/ is the word for butterfly – from Schmetten (cream) – from the Czech smetana (cream). This is based on the folk belief that witches transformed themselves into butterflies to steal cream and milk [source].

Welsh words for butterfly include iâr fach yr haf (“summer chick”), glöyn byw (“living coal”), pila-pala and bili-balo.

Like iâr fach yr haf in Welsh, butterflies are known as “summer birds” in Norwegian, sommerfugl, and in Yiddish, zomerfeygele.

In Irish the word for butterfly is féileacán, possible from the Old Irish etelachán (little flying creature / butterfly), from etelach (flying) [source]. The Manx butterfly, foillycan, comes from the same root, but in Scottish Gaelic butterflies are seilleann-dé (“God’s bee”) and dealan-dè (“God’s lightening”).

The French word for butterfly, papillon, comes from the Latin pāpiliō (butterfly, moth) – of unknown origin, and also the root of the English word pavilion (via Old French) [source]. The Italian farfalla (butterfly) comes from the same source.

The Spanish word for butterfly, mariposa, apparently comes from the expression Mari, posa(te (Mary, alight!), which features in children’s songs and games, or from la Santa Maria posa (the Virgin Mary alights/rests). Other theories about the etymology of this word.

There is more discussion of words for butterfly in various languages on AllExperts, and there are words for butterfly in many more languages here.

Ingrown languages

By Simon

In an interesting book I read recently, What Language Is by John McWhorter, the author discusses why some languages appear a lot more complicated or ‘ingrown’ than others. He gives the example of Persian and Pashto, two Iranian languages spoken in a number of countries in western and central Asia. Whereas Persian has more or less regular and simple verb conjugations, in Pashto the verb endings and other aspects of the language are much less regular. This is because Persian was the language of a large empire in which many people learned Persian as adults, and few did so perfectly, so many of the irregularities and other complex aspects of Old Persian were regularised and simplified. This process didn’t happen with Pashto, so the language is still ingrown.

Other languages that are or have been used as colonial languages or lingua francas with many adults learning them imperfectly have undergone a similar process of simplification. These include English, Mandarin Chinese, colloquial spoken varieties of Arabic, Indonesian and Swahili. According to McWhorter, these languages could be considered abnormal as many of their irregularities and eccentricities have been levelled out. As a result they are relatively easy to learn, or at least somewhat less difficult than more ingrown languages.

One example a particularly ingrown language is Navajo, which even linguists find superlatively forbidding. Some even claim that it’s not possible to learn it after childhood. Apparently none of the Navajo verbs follow a regular pattern, and regularity is notably absent in other parts of the language.

So if you’re struggling to get to grips with Spanish or Mandarin, it might be of comfort to you to remember that you’re not learning Navajo or a similarly ingrown language.

Lightbulb moments

By Simon

Light bulb

Yesterday while we were singing La Bamba at the ukulele club the words started to make sense to me. I’d picked up some of them through repeated listening, but had never bothered to learn them before this week. Now I not only know the words, but also what they mean. Often with songs in languages other than English I might know the meaning of at least some of the words, but I don’t always grasp their exact meaning.

In the case of La Bamba, the lyrics that started to make sense to me last night were:

Para bailar la bamba (in order to dance the bamba)
Para bailar la bamba (in order to dance the bamba)
Se necesita una poca de gracia (you need a little bit of grace)
Una poca de gracia para mi para ti (a little bit of grace for me for you)
Y arriba y arriba – wasn’t sure about this bit – have now discovered that it means “faster, faster” or “higher, higher”
Ay arriba y arriba
Por ti sere, por ti sere, por ti sere (for you I will be, for you I will be)

Yo no soy marinero (I’m not a sailor)
Yo no soy marinero, soy capitan (I’m not a sailor, I’m a captain)
Soy capitan, soy capitan (I’m a captain, I’m a captain)

Source: http://www.lyricsmania.com/la_bamba_lyrics_los_lobos.html

This happens with songs in Welsh and Irish, and occasionally other languages as well, especially with songs I’ve heard many times – the meaning of a word, a line or even a whole verse suddenly becomes blindingly obvious and I wonder why I never realised what it meant before. It doesn’t help that it can be tricky to hear the words of songs clearly and that I don’t always listen to them very attentively, but sometimes when a word I’ve heard and understood in another context pops up in a song, it might help me understand some of the other parts of the song.

I think that the brain works away subconsciously trying to make sense of things, and when it has a solution, the conscience lights up like a light bulb. It’s moments like that that make language learning an exciting and rewarding adventure.

Spots and sleeves

By Simon

Today we have a guest post by Andrew of How to learn Spanish

channel tunnel diagram

Hi, my name’s Andrew, I’ve been teaching myself Spanish on my own for about four years now, I run a blog on the subject of how to learn Spanish on your own where I share my own experiences and tips, and today I just thought I’d share a funny story with you concerning a certain Spanish word I learned about a few months ago…

So I was in the process of going through a Notes in Spanish lesson (which I highly recommend, the audio is free, start at the beginner’s level, honestly no, you don’t need the worksheets) when I came across the term “túnel” which I presumed to mean “tunnel”, which it did, and so I added it to Anki along with an example phrase that I see in the dictionary, “Túnel del Canal de la Mancha” which refers to the English Channel tunnel, aka “the chunnel”.

Anytime I see a new word I don’t know, I have to look it up and add it to Anki, I’m a bit OCD and looking up a single word in the dictionary can cause a chain reaction that leads to me looking up and adding 10 more words. I do not know this word, “mancha”, what is this? I look it up. It means…”spot, blotch, stain, blemish, or liver spot”. This makes no sense: “Canal de la Mancha” = “Canal of the Spot”? “Canal of the stain”? “Canal of the liver spot”?!

Right, we’re going to sort this out, something funny’s going on here…

I initially think that maybe it refers to “spot” in the sense of a location, which actually is like the 8th definition down for the word “mancha” in my dictionary, so it’s possible, but…further googling turns up the Spanish wikipedia page for the English Channel, and within the very first paragraph I see:

El nombre no es más que una mala traducción del francés, ya que La Manche significa realmente ‘La Manga’, puesto que es la misma palabra que se emplea para designar a la parte de la camisa dentro de la cual se mete el brazo.

Which means:

The name is no more than a bad translation of the French, as La Manche actually means ‘The Sleeve’, since it’s the same word that’s used to designate which part of the shirt you put your arm into.

Ahhhh hahaha! I look up “manche” in the French dictionary, it means “sleeve”, I look up “manga” in the Spanish dictionary, it means “sleeve”. Ohhh boy. Ok, that explains it.

So what has happened here is that the Spanish heard the word “la manche” from the French when they were referring to the English Channel and then sort of simultaneously borrowed and mangled the French word for it instead of actually translating it (if they knew that it meant “the sleeve” they would’ve ended up with “la manga” in Spanish, but they didn’t know this), thereby ending up with “la mancha” as an adulteration of “la manche”. In other words, in the phrase “Canal de la Mancha”, the word mancha does not mean “spot, stain etc.”, in fact, it doesn’t mean anything, it’s just a name–sort of like if you’ve got a dog called “Spot”, in that particular context the word “spot” doesn’t mean “spot”, it doesn’t ‘mean’ anything, it’s just the name of the damned dog 😀

Yes, I was amused by this, thank you, I realize you may not be. If you did perhaps find it amusing or you’re simply interested in the Spanish language you might like to come on over and see what else I’ve got (a lot of people like the Shakira-series I’ve done where I teach you Spanish using her music videos), I’d be glad to have you!

Cheers,

Andrew

A kitten’s growl

By Simon

A kitten’s growl would not come near the plights of your spoken voice.
You are a banana moon subverting the sun.
Your ear-splitting sequels have a mind of their own.
Demonize your sofa. It will lend forth more peanuts between the cushions.
The tiny sounds of ancient bees resound forth from the forrested coercions between your toes.

The above sentences were generated by the The Surrealist Compliment Generator. They look a bit like things that emerged from a game some friends and I devised involving going around the group saying one word each and trying to connect the words into sentences.

The SCG also throws up surrealist compliments in other languages occasionally. For example:

– Mano a mano, le tue ossiflexe, si starnubbano nel brondio.
– Votre regard est plus penetrant qu’une stalagmite sertie dans son antre d’albatre
– Heizenmizstenwerner ut mal die westernmoviefurter und glipzenglagenheimer zieden un der witzelwaltzerfloggen…

Coming up with surrealist sentences like this in languages you’re learning could be a fun way to practise using them.

The OED defines surrealism as:

“A movement in art and literature seeking to express the subconscious mind by any of a number of different techniques, including the irrational juxtaposition of realistic images, the creation of mysterious symbols, and automatism; art or literature produced by or reminiscent of this movement.”

The word surrealism comes from the French surréalisme, which was coined by Guillaume Apollinaire in 1917.

Hands and pockets

By Simon

In English when you know something or somewhere well, you can say that you “know it like the back of your hand” or that you “know it inside out / back to front / upside down”. If you’re talking about people, you might say “I know him/her/them like I know myself.”

Yesterday I learnt that the equivalent idiom in French is “Je le connais comme ma poche” (I know it like my pocket) or “Je le connais comme le fond de ma poche” (I know it like the bottom of my pocket).

In Spanish the equivalent is “Lo/la conozco como la palma de mi mano” (I know it like the palm of my hand), and in Turkish it also the palm of the hand that is best known: “Avcumun içi gibi biliyorum” (I know it like the palm of my hand).

The German equivalent is “Ich kenne es wie meine Westentasche” (I know it like my waistcoat pocket).

What about in other languages?

Christmas

By Simon

Nadolig Llawen
Joyeux Noël
聖誕快樂
Nollaig shona doibh
¡Feliz Navidad!
Nollick Ghennal
Bo Nadal
Nollaig chridheil
メリークリスマス
Buon Natale
Frohe Weihnachten
Bon Nadal
Veselé vánoce
and Merry Christmas!

Leste

By Simon

Leste adj. [lɛst(ə)] – nimble, agile, sprightly, light; risqué (joke); offhand (remark).

This is a word I discovered last night while browsing a French dictionary. It is thought to come from an old Germanic word liste. A related adverb is lestement, which means nimbly, agilely, in a sprightly manner, lightly or offhandedly.

It’s related to the Spanish word listo, which has a number of meanings, including “ready, prepared, clever, sharp-witted, able, nimble”. It’s also related to the Portuguese word lesto, which means “quick, deft, nimble, swift, fleet, light footed, rapid, ready, clever, dexterous or skillful”. Other related words include the German listig (cunning, devious, shrewd) and leicht (easily, effortlessly, gently), which is related to the English word light(ly).

Light (not heavy) comes from the Old English leoht, from Proto-Germanic *lingkhtaz, from the Proto-Indo-European *le(n)gwh- (light, easy, agile, nimble), which is the root of leste, and also of lever [Source]

Russian mountains

By Simon

Yesterday evening I discovered that the French term for roller coaster is les montagnes russes or Russian mountains. This got me wondering what roller coasters have to do with Russian mountains, and I’ve found that from the 17th Century the Russian were constructing “Russian Mountains” – series of hills and slides of ice reinforced with wooden supports designed for sleighs. They were especially popular during the 18th century in St. Petersburg, and the idea spread to other parts of Europe. A version using wheeled wooden carts on tracks was built in Paris in 1804 and named Les Montagnes Russes.

During the early 19th century a number of mining and railway companies in the USA started offering the public rides on steeply-inclined sections of track at quiet times. These were known as scenic gravity railroads. In 1884 LaMarcus Adna Thompson opened a Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway at Coney Island in 1884, and patented many aspects of the roller coaster, including a patent for a Gravity Switch-back Railway in 1885.

The origins of the name roller coaster are uncertain. One theory is that it comes from the rollers fitted to the slides or ramps on early American roller coasters along which sleds coasted. Another theory is that the name comes from a ride located in a roller skating rink in Haverhill, Massachusetts which consisted of a sled that moved along the rollers that made up the track. The inventors of this ride, Stephen E. Jackman and Byron B. Floyd, claim the first use of the term “roller coaster”.

Russian Mountain is term for roller coaster in Spanish (montaña rusa), Portuguese (montanha russa) and Catalan (muntanya russa), and Russians call them американские горки (amerikanskie gorki) or American Mountains.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roller_coaster
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Mountains