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¿Cuántos hispanos habrá en los Estados Unidos por 2060?
a. 60 millón
b. 85 millón
c. 111 millón
d. 75 millón

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Los calcos son frases de Español que viene de Inglés directamente; no son modificados. El calco semántico es cuando una palabra en Inglés tienen significados multiples, y uno de los otros significados es aplicado a la palabra con el mismo significado principal. Está imagen muestra algunos ejemplos de los calcos en español.

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Caló es una lengua que viene de la subcultura de los Pachucos. Origina en El Paso, Texas en los 1930s y seguí los trabajadores a Los Angeles después. Aquí está una colección de frases y palabras que son usados en Caló. Algunas que me interesó son "a ponemos chancla", las palabras modificados para los lugares, y "naranjas".

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Chicano Caló - English Dictionary (words and expressions)

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Free dictionaries at TranslationDirectory.com. Chicano Caló - English Dictionary (words and expressions).

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Los préstamos culturales son palabras o frases de Inglés que no tiene un equivalente en español, así que la lengua adoptó la frase. Los préstamos adaptados fonológicamente son palabras o frases en Español que viene de Inglés, pero son modificados para utilizar los fonemas de español. En está lista, hay préstamos culturales, como "bingo" y "beísbol", y préstamos adaptados fonológicamente, como "boxear" y "chequear".

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Las estadísticas de los hispanos en los E.E.U.U.

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Las estadísticas de los hispanos en los E.E.U.U.

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Según este artículo, los hispanos son la minoría más grande en los Estados Unidos. El gráfico muestra que por 2060, habrá 111 millón hispanos en el país. En 2017, Texas tiene el crecimiento más grande de la población hispana. Por resultado, español es la lengua más hablado, después de Inglés, en casi todos los estados.

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In September 1968, Congress authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to proclaim National Hispanic Heritage Week, observed during the week that included Sept. 15 and Sept. 16. In 1989, Congress expanded the observance to a month long celebration (Sept. 15-Oct. 15) of the culture and traditions of those who trace their roots to Spain, Mexico and the Spanish-speaking nations of Central America, South America and the Caribbean.

Sept. 15 is the starting point for the celebration because it is the anniversary of independence of five Latin American countries: Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and Nicaragua. In addition, Mexico and Chile celebrate their independence days on Sept. 16 and Sept. 18, respectively.

The following facts are made possible by the invaluable cooperation of the public to the U.S. Census Bureau's surveys. We appreciate the information shared by each respondent as we continuously measure America's people, places and economy.

The Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2017, making people of Hispanic origin the nation's largest ethnic or racial minority. Hispanics constituted 18.1 percent of the nation's total population.

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In September 1968, Congress authorized President Lyndon B. Johnson to proclaim National Hispanic Heritage Week, observed during the week that included Sept. 15 and Sept. 16. In 1989, Congress expanded the observance to a month long celebration (Sept. 15-Oct.

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La RAE tiene planes para preservar el ladino a través de estableciendo un parte de la RAE solo para ladino. Después de la expulsión de los judíos en 1492, los judíos emigraron por todo de Europa, y como mencionamos en clase, no hay un centro de ladino y por resultado, la lengua es amenazado. Esta acción es una medida para corregir la historia.

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More than five centuries after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled Spain's Jewish population, the still-spoken language of the exiles is to be formally honoured by the country's leading linguistic authority.

The Spanish Royal Academy (RAE) has announced plans to create a Judeo-Spanish branch in Israel that will sit alongside the 23 existing academies dedicated to the Spanish languages across Latin America and in countries such as Equatorial Guinea and the Philippines.

Speakers of Judeo-Spanish, or Ladino, fled Spain and settled elsewhere in Europe as well as in the Middle East, north Africa and Latin America.

The director of the RAE, Darío Villanueva, described Judeo-Spanish as "an extraordinarily important cultural and historical phenomenon" that was overdue an academy of its own.

"The Jews who were expelled in 1492 dispersed around Europe and the Americas, taking with them the Spanish language as it was spoken at the time of their expulsion," he told the Guardian.

"All of this has been miraculously preserved over the centuries. There's literature, folklore, translations of the Bible and even modern newspapers written in Ladino."

Not only did Ladino preserve many archaic Spanish words, Villanueva said, it was also influenced by the languages of the countries in which the refugees settled.

Villanueva said nine Ladino specialists had so far been appointed to help pave the way for the new institution, which will form part of the Association of Spanish Language Academies.

"Through these nine academics we can now [lay the foundations] for a Judeo-Spanish academy to be based in Israel, just as we did in the 19th century with the Latin American academies."

He added: "The idea isn't to absorb Ladino into modern Spanish, it's the opposite: to preserve it."

Isaac Querub, the president of Spain's Federation of Jewish Communities, welcomed the move to recognise what he called the "rich and profound cultural legacy" of Ladino.

"It's the language that mothers have used to rock their babies to sleep with for more than five centuries," he said. "It's the language that's been used to pass down recipes and the one that is spoken in the intimacy of home. Even after all these hundreds of years, it's still being used."

Querub said the move was one of the encouraging steps that Spain had recently taken to make up for the injustices of 1492, but he said he would prefer the institute to be based in Spain rather than Israel.

Shmuel Refael, director of the Salti Centre for Ladino Studies at Bar-Ilan University in Israel, said the language represented a "culture and an identity" for the Sephardic Jews whose community developed on the Iberian peninsula before 1492.

He estimated there were around 400,000 people in Israel with some knowledge of the language. "It depends on what you consider a 'speaker' to be: someone who knows a few words of the language, or someone who can read and write the language," he said.

Two years ago, both Spain and Portugal brought in laws to facilitate the return of the descendants of the thousands of Jews who were forced from the countries at the end of the 15th century.

The Spanish government said its offer of citizenship was intended to correct the "historical wrong" in which the country's Jewish population was banished, forced to convert to Catholicism or burned at the stake.

Portugal said that although it was impossible to make amends for what had been done, the offer of nationality represented "an attribution of a right".
Topics

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Spain honours Ladino language of Jewish exiles

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More than five centuries after King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella expelled Spain's Jewish population, the still-spoken language of the exiles is to be formally honoured by the country's leading linguistic authority.

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El voseo es una forma diferente para decir “you”, como tú. “Tú” y “vos” viene de Latín. En la edad media, “vos” fue una forma de respecto, pero hoy es usado en los contextos informales. Es usado en Argentina, Paraguay, y Uruguay. Los conjugaciones de la forma “vos” es similar a la forma “tú”, pero hay algunas diferencias en la forma presente y imperativo.

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Spanish is spoken in more than 25 countries and by more than 450 million people. While speakers from all countries can understand each other, differences exist between the language.

Let's start with what is NOT. is NOT the same thing as vosotros. Vosotros is the commonly used pronoun in Spain referring to the familiar 2nd person plural (as in 'you all').

is a substitute for 2nd person singular pronoun, in place of the more commonly used . That's it. Instead of , use '.

PERSONAL PRONOUNS (I, you, he, she)

So far so good, right?

It gets even easier.

In most cases, changing for doesn't mean changing the conjugation of the verb. You simply replace the preceding pronoun with

EXAMPLES USING TUTEO and VOSEO PERSONAL PRONOUNS

And as you probably know, in Spanish it is not required to use the personal pronoun before the conjugated verb. So, in many cases tuteo and voseo appear exactly the same (i.e. to just say 'cenaste' works in both cases).

This is true with just two exceptions, which we will discuss in more detail later.

Where did come from?

has been said to date back to roman times, originally used as a formal way of addressing someone (very similar to the French ' vous', for any of you polyglot french speakers).

Over time, Usted became the formal means of communicating to someone, so in some regions was adopted as a replacement for the tú form.

Where is it used?

The map below gives you a better idea of where is predominantly used and to what extent.

Map adapted from wikipedia

Two Exceptions in Conjugation

Let's look at each of these in turn:

1. in Present Tense

Tuteo vs Voseo Present Tense

An accent is added to the final vowel of the verb

IR verbs are conjugated using an 'is' ending instead of an 'es' ending

There is no change in the stem for irregular verbs

Thus, to conjugate a verb in , simply remove the infinitive ending and add the following endings (without changing the stem):

For example:
PEDIR (): tú pides = irregular stem change e -> i
PEDIR (): vos pedís = no stem change, i instead of e in the ending

In present tense there are only three irregulars.

These verbs are also irregular in .

Tuteo vs Voseo Present Tense Irregular Verbs

Alternatively, we can derive the in present tense by looking at the conjugation of vosotros (2nd person familiar plural). To derive from the vosotros conjugation, simply delete the non accented 'i' in the vosotros ending. In the case of 'ir' verbs, the conjugation of vosotros and is the same.

Vosotros vs Voseo Present Tense

2. Voseo in the Imperative

What about the imperative?

Tuteo vs Voseo Imperative

Remember the imperative is derived from / equal to the 3rd person singular (¡tú habla!). To derive the from the we see the same changes we saw as in the present tense:

Add an accent to the final vowel of the verb

conjugate IR verbs using an I ending instead of E

Do not change in the stem for irregular verbs

Again there are fewer irregulars in imperative compared to . Common irregular verbs in tuteo like ser ( sé), salir ( sal), or poner ( pon), are not irregular in . There is only one irregular in , and that is the verb 'ir'. However, the imperative of ir is not typically used in . Instead they use the verb andar (andá):

Tuteo vs Voseo Imperative Irregular Verbs

As we saw with the present tense, the imperative can also be easily derived from vosotros imperative form. To form the imperative vosotros, we remove the infinitive 'r' and add 'd'. In , remove the 'd' and add an accent on the final vowel. There are no irregulars in the vosotros imperative, nor in , with the exception of the verb ir which we previously mentioned.

Vosotros vs Voseo Imperative

In summary, is very similar to and vosotros forms. In the table below you can see how the conjugation can be derived from either or vosotros forms in the present tense and the imperative:

Tuteo, Vosotros and Voseo Conjugation: Present Tense and Imperative

In , in addition to changing in personal pronoun from to , you must also change in the prepositional pronoun '' to '. See the table below:

Tuteo & Voseo Prepositional Pronouns (me / you)

For example:
El teléfono es para ti = El teléfono es para vos Quiero venir contigo = Quiero venir con vos
Note that while uses for the personal and prepositional pronouns, it does NOT do so for the object pronouns nor the possessive pronouns. These remain the same in and .

Tuteo & Voseo Pronouns Comparison

Do you have any experience using ? Share with us in the comments. If you found this article helpful or interesting, please consider sharing it 🙂

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Spanish from Argentina: That Voseo Thing

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Spanish is spoken in more than 25 countries and by more than 450 million people. While speakers from all countries can understand each other, differences exist between the language. Let's start with what is NOT. is NOT the same thing as vosotros.

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Las diferencias entre el español de España y Latinoamérica

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Las diferencias entre el español de España y Latinoamérica

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Incluye dos tablas; una detalla las diferencias entre el español de Latinoamérica y España, y la otra muestra una lista de palabras que son diferentes en España y Latinoamérica. La diferencia más interesante para mí es el uso de las formas pasados; en España, es presente perfecto. En el otro lado, en Latinoamérica, hay una tendencia para usar el pretérito.

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We all know that Spanish is spoken in Spain as well as Latin America. But what many people don't realise when they start to learn Spanish is the vast difference between the two. I have been over this briefly in my Learning Spanish in Spain post, but this post will go into more depth about what actually makes the dialects of Spanish so different.

As a person who has learned Spanish to the point of C1 fluency ( how) and travelled extensively both in Spain and South America, I feel that I am a good person to break down the differences in an unbiased way (without the 'my Spanish is better than yours' attitude that most Spanish speakers seem to be prone to.)

DISCLAIMER: This article is written based on my personal experience coupled with some research. While to my knowledge all of this information is correct, I cannot speak for everyone. Not all Spanish speakers, even from the same country, speak in exactly the same way. However, generally speaking, this is how Latin American Spanish differs from Spanish from Spain

The first thing to note is that there is not just one general 'Latin American Spanish'. Each Latin American country has its own accent, its own slang, and basically makes its own rules. In any case, feel free to correct me if I am wrong about something. However, there are some things that almost every Latin American Spanish speaker has in common, which differs from the Spanish speaker from Spain.

Second person plural

Latin Americans say 'ustedes' to use 'you' in the plural form, whether formal or informal situations. E.g: Ustedes son mis mejores amigos./ You guys are my best friends.

In informal situations, Spanish people will use and conjugate 'vosotros' to speak directly to a group of two or more people. They still use 'usted' for formal situations. E.g: Vosotros queréis comer afuera hoy?/ Do you guys want to eat out today?

Past tense

Latin Americans use the past tense much like we do in English. Whether something happened 5 minutes or 5 years ago, they will use the past preterite form. E.g: Hace cinco minutos rompí el cartón de leche./ Five minutes ago I broke the milk carton.

In Spain, if something has happened in the same day, present perfect tense is used. If something happened before the present day, past preterite will be used. E.g: Jorge me ha pegado al entrar a la clase./ Jorge hit me when class started.

Pronunciation of 'c' and 'z'

In Latin America, the letter 'c' followed by 'i' or 'e' as well as the letter 'z' and the letter 's' are all pronounced like the English 's' E.g: cereza (cherry) = seresa

In most parts of Spain, the letter 'c' when followed by 'i' or 'e', and the letter 'z' are pronounced like the English 'th' (phonetics: θ). E.g Barcelona = Barthelona

Latin American Spanish Differences by country

Argentina:

Vos: Instead of 'tú', Argentinians (as well as Uruguayans and some other Latin Americans) say 'vos'. 'Vos' is conjugated the same way as 'vosotros', but with the 'I' omitted
E.g: 'habláis' (you guys speak) becomes 'hablás' (you speak).

'Sh' sound: where there is a 'y' or a 'll', in Argentinian Spanish, this sounds like the English 'sh' (phonetics: ʃ).
E.g: 'calle'(street) becomes 'cashe' and 'yo' (I) becomes 'sho'.
Peru:

'Vuestro': Peruvians, like other Latin Americans, generally use 'ustedes' form when talking to a group of people. However, they still use the possession pronoun 'vuestro' which stems from 'vosotros'.
E.g: Este carro es vuestro = este carro es de ustedes.
Colombia:

Formality: Colombians are either the most formal and polite people in the Spanish speaking world, or they just use 'usted' differently to everyone else. In some parts of Colombia, it is not uncommon to hear people using 'usted' to speak to their parents, children, brothers and sisters. Having said that, in other parts it is also common to use 'vos' in place of 'tú', but 'tú' is still widely used and understood. Because they have de-formalised 'usted', they tend to say la señora/el señor when addressing someone formally

Chile:

Cutting out consonants: The Chilean accent can be quite hard to understand for most outsiders, even native Spanish-speaking ones. The main thing that causes this difficulty is that they cut out as many consonants from their speech as possible so most words are shortened one way or another.

One of the biggest differences and the one thing that sometimes causes comprehension problems between Spain Spanish speakers and Latin American Spanish speakers is the different words that they use for the same thing.

This is not a comprehensive list, but it is a list of the main words used in Spain vs how they are used Latin America. Some of the words are used more commonly in one region, but can be understood anywhere, while others are region-specific only. Some words are different in every single country while others are widely used, with only one or two dialects deciding to use a different word.

In other words, there are so many Spanish words used in so many different ways that it can become one huge, confusing mess if you're not careful. This list lets you know which words are used differently in Spain than they are in Latin America.

Words in Spain vs Latin America

Where it gets even more interesting (or confusing, whichever way you want to put it) is how the same words used in Spain, when used in Latin America can mean something totally different. Take a look at the examples:

Latin America usage

And vice versa:

Spain usage

Personally, I have found the Spanish pronunciation in Spain much harder to master than Latin American Spanish. Another thing to note is that Latin American Spanish generally uses a lot more English borrow words and phrases than Spanish from Spain.

If your first or main language is English, I think that Latin American Spanish is easier to learn, simply because it is more similar to English phonetically and grammatically.

With all the differences there might be, Spanish is still mutually intelligible between practically anyone. Apart from the odd confusion and being mocked for speaking with a different accent, you can still have an easy conversation with any Spanish speaker, whether you learn Latin American or European Spanish. Which is kind of the point, right? To be able to communicate?

If you decide to learn Spanish from Spain, check out this post I wrote for more info.

If you decide to learn Spanish in Latin America, check out this great blog post I found.

Once you have decided what Spanish to learn, if you are still struggling with it, check out this post about how I learned a language fluently. Or this one about the best resources to learn a language online.

>Have you learned Spanish from Spain or Latin America, or are you Spanish or Latin American? Let me know your thoughts in the comments or if you have anything to add to this!

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Latin American Spanish vs Spanish from Spain - how they differ

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We all know that Spanish is spoken in Spain as well as Latin America. But what many people don't realise when they start to learn Spanish is the vast difference between the two. I have been over this briefly in my Learning Spanish in Spain post, but this post will go into more depth about what actually makes the dialects of Spanish so different.

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Este artículo identifica los variaciones en acentos del español en cada región de Latinoamérica. Los países de México, Colombia, Perú, y Bolivia son similares. Menciona que el ceceo y forma de “vosotros” no es usado en Latinoamérica. Separa el español del caribe, y explica que el s final débil es un resultado de la influencia de Andalucía y el comercio. Finalmente, detalle la influencia de los italianos en el español de Argentina, y es el parte más interesante para mí.

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Este artículo detalla la historia de los apodos más comunes. Es interesante que la creación de los apodos sean atribuidos de los mismos cambios fonéticos que  caracteriza el cambio de latín a español que aprendemos en la clase, como apócope, aféresis, y síncopa. Por ejemplo, "Leticia" se convirtió en "Leti", y el sonido final es perdido. Es un caso de apócope.

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"De Alfonso a Poncho y de Esperanza a Lancha: los Hipocorísticos"

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Siendo éste un análisis de cambios de sonidos, he agrupadolos hipocorísticos guiándome exclusivamente por las transformaciones fonéticas que registran, de tal manera que quedan reunidos en apartados cuyo título hace alusión a un proceso fonético, por ejemplo: aféresis ( Angela = Gela), palatalización ( Salvador = Chava), etc.

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La tradición y el progreso en los costumbres del nombres

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La tradición y el progreso en los costumbres del nombres

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Hace dos años, el gobierno de España pasado un ley que dice los padres pueden escoger el orden de los apellidos de sus hijos, en vez del costumbre de poner el apellido del padre primero. La meta es la igualdad de las mujeres y los hombres. La regla es para dar el nombre en el mejor interés del hijo.

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In the case that authorities are forced to intervene in a naming dispute, some guidelines have been established. Names should be bestowed "in the best interests of the child", which, according to Ministry of Justice sources cited by Spanish daily El Pais, include the avoidance of any discordant sounds or any combination that might sound rude or improper. Officials should also reject any names borne by known figures of negative reputation, and less common surnames might also be preferred.

But some have suggested that sexism could derail the move, as officials might judge the child's best interests to lie in adhering to the traditional order.

"It seems clear in any light that this (decision) is not easy and that in most cases, neither of the two surnames will entail an "interest" for the child," Ms Tomas said, suggesting even random selection might be a better method. But she also questioned whether relying on parental agreement was the best way to overcome gender discrimination.

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Spain to scrap 'sexist' double barrelled names policy

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In the case that authorities are forced to intervene in a naming dispute, some guidelines have been established. Names should be bestowed "in the best interests of the child", which, according to Ministry of Justice sources cited by Spanish daily El Pais, include the avoidance of any discordant sounds or any combination that might sound rude or improper.

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¿De dónde vienen los géneros de sustantivos españoles? 

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¿De dónde vienen los géneros de sustantivos españoles? 

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Este video explica que el sistema género es muy común en los lenguajes. El lenguaje “Proto-Indo-European” clasifica los sustantivos en animado e inanimado. Las personas se pusieron confundido y desarrollan los géneros para clarificar la clasificación. Solo es una teoría. El alemán y ruso tienen tres clasificaciones como latín, pero francés y español solo tienen dos.

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Hay cuatro tipos de apellidos españoles. El primero tiene raíces familiares. Como el libro mencionó, los sufijos -ez, -az, -is, y -oz significa “hijo de”. El segundo es la geografía. Apellidos como Vega (“meadow”) y Torres (“towers”) vienen de la historia de la familia en la geografía. El tercero es de ocupación. Este costumbre existe en inglés, también. Un ejemplo es Molinero (“miller”). El último es descriptivo. Incluye apellidos como Delgado (“thin”). Estes apellidos no todavía llevan el mismo significado, pero este es la historia.

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Ever wonder about Spanish surnames ("apellido" in Spanish) and how they came to be? Spanish surnames started being used in medieval times, when populations were growing and it became necessary to distinguish between individuals with the same given name.

The 10 most common Spanish surnames today cover about 20 percent of the population in Spain. Some originated from Germanic first names that were introduced in the country by the Visigoths during the 5th to 7th centuries, while others have Latin roots.

The 10 most common first surnames in Spain in 2013, according to the Instituto Nacional de Estadistica, are:

1. García-1,459,677 (3.51%), Pre-Roman, Basque

2. Fernández-914,169 (2.2%), Germanic

3. González-912,511 (2.19%), from Germanic

4. Rodríguez-906,746 (2.18%), Germanic

5. López-858,736 (2.07%), Latin

6. Martínez-822,848 (1.98%), Latin

7. Sánchez-805,889 (1.94%), Latin

8. Pérez-767,962 (1.85%), Latin

9. Martín-489,357 (1.18%), Latin

10. Gómez-482,781 (1.16%), Germanic

People in countries with Hispanic surnames generally have two surnames today, a system that dates back to the upper classes in Castile in the 16th century.

For the most part, people now take the first of their father's two surnames and the first of the mother's two surnames as their own last name. Women sometimes add their husband's surname to the end of theirs or in place of their mother's surname, sometimes with a "de" between the two names. Therefore, a husband and wife generally have different sets of double surnames, as do their children.

In the past, however, Hispanic naming patterns were not as consistent. Sometimes, sons took the surname of their father, while daughters took that of their mother. The Castilian double surname naming system of the 16th century didn't become common throughout Spain until the 1800s.

When researching your pre-19th-century Spanish ancestors, therefore, remember that naming patterns then differed from naming patterns today.

Historically, Spanish surnames can typically be traced back to one of four types:

1. Patronymic & Matronymic. This type of surname started out as a way of distinguishing between two men with the same name by using a father's first name (patronymic) or a mother's given name (matronymic). Sometimes the parent's name was unchanged (as in Alonso, Vicente, and Garcia), but frequently it was used with an added suffix that meant "son of." These include -ez, -az, -is, -oz at the end of a Castilian or Spanish surname and -es, -as, -is, or -os with Portuguese names. Patronymic or matronymic names are some of the most common Hispanic surnames; some examples include Fernandez, "son of Fernando," or Gonzales, "son of Gonzalo."

These were not, at first, surnames that were passed down. In one generation, an individual might be Martin Perez (Martin, son of Pedro). His son would be Juan Martinez (Juan, son of Martin). Eventually, these patronymic names became fixed surnames that passed down in the family through the generations.

Some other names of this sort include:

Dominguez-son of Domingo

Hernandez-son of Hernando

Lopez-son of Lope

Ramirez-son of Ramiro

Ruiz-son of Ruy or Roy

Suarez-son of Suero

Velazquez-son of Velasco

Velez-son of Vela

2. Geographic. This type of Hispanic last name tells you something about where the first person to take the name came from, or where their homestead was. Someone named Aguilar may have originally lived near an eagle's nest; the name refers to a "haunt for eagles." Other common geographic surnames of this type include Medina and Oyarzun (both place names), Navarro ("from Navarre"), Serrano (meaning "highlander"), and still other geographic surnames refer to features of the landscape where a family lived, such as Vega ("meadow"), Mendoza ("cold mountain"), Morales ("blackberry groves"), Torres ("towers"), and Iglesias ("churches"). Some include the suffix "de" to indicate "of" or "from" a place, such as Del Olmo ("from the elm tree") and Davila (from "d'Avila," meaning "from the town of Avila").

3. Occupational. Sometimes a surname that denoted a person's job or trade was tacked on to a person's given name. Felipe Vicario, for instance, was Felipe the vicar. Some other common occupational surnames:

Alcaldo-mayor

Barbero-barber

Cabrero-goatherder

Cantor-singer

Cavallero-horseman, knight

Corredor-runner

Herrera/Herrero-ironworker, smith

Hidalgo-nobelman

Marin-from the Latin "Marinus," meaning sailor

Marques-marquis

Molinero-miller

Romero-pilgrim

Torrero-bullkeeper, fighter

Zapatero-shoemaker

4. Descriptive. This type of surname was based on a quality or physical feature of the person.

Bravo-brave

Cano-grey

Cola-tall

Cortes-courteous

Delgado-thin

Garza (heron)-long legged

Grand-large

Moreno-brown haired, tan

Orejon-big ear

Rubio-blonde

-Leslie Lang Find out what your last name means. Start a free trial today.

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4 Types of Spanish Surnames: Which One Is Yours? - Ancestry Blog

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Ever wonder about Spanish surnames ("apellido" in Spanish) and how they came to be? Spanish surnames started being used in medieval times, when populations were growing and it became necessary to distinguish between individuals with the same given name. The 10 most common Spanish surnames today cover about 20 percent of the population in Spain.

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Este artículo tiene nuevas palabras en español y explica sus orígenes árabes. El libro menciona que después latín y las lenguas pre-romances, la lengua que ha influido el español es árabe. La influencia es un resultado de la ocupación larga de los Moros, desde 711-1492. Las palabras que comienzan con “al” son atribuidos al árabe.

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Considering the relationship that some Arab cultures often have with alcohol (i.e. it's illegal), it's interesting to note that the Spanish word, which went on to influence the English word, originated from Arabic.

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Considering the relationship that some Arab cultures often have with alcohol (i.e. it's illegal), it's interesting to note that the Spanish word, which went on to influence the English word, originated from Arabic.

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Los cambios en la evolución desde latín a español

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Los cambios en la evolución desde latín a español

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Este recurso tiene una lista de las palabras en español, la palabra Latín lo que viene de, y el cambio que ocurre para producir la palabra español. Dice que de las lenguas romances, español es una de las más similar a latín. También, explica que el sistema de sustantivos en español es basado de los acusativos en latín.

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Development From Latin To Spanish

The Spanish language is based on Latin as it evolved in the Iberian peninsula under local influences (especially Arabic, Greek, and Basque). The Greeks colonized the southern coast in the 6th century B.C. The Romans established the provinces of Nearer Spain (Hispania Citerior) and Farther Spain (Hispania Ulterior) in 205 B.C. In 133 B.C. , Roman control extended to the northern coast, and the area was later re-organized under Augustus into three provinces. The peninsula had more mineral resources (silver, gold, iron, and tin) than Gaul and reached its peak under the Romans in the first and second centuries A.D. The following "Romans" were all from Hispania: Seneca the Elder (rhetorician, 1st century B.C.) Seneca the Younger (philosopher, author, and tutor to Nero) Lucan (poet, 1st century A.D.) Columella (from Gades, first century A.D. author on agriculture) Quintilian (from Calagurris = Calahorra, first century author of a book on education) Martial (from Bilbilis, first century A.D. author of epigrams) Marcus Aurelius (emperor A.D. 161-180; author of Meditations in Greek) Trajan (emperor A.D. 98-117; under him the Roman empire reached its greatest extent) Hadrian (emperor A.D. 117-138; known for Hadrian's Wall in Britain) Theodosius I "The Great" (emperor A.D. 379-395) Isidore, Bishop of Seville (7th century A.D. author; responsible for the preservation and transmission of classical culture and learning into the Middle Ages) Although the Spanish language has undergone changes, as have the other Romance languages, Spanish remains one of the most similar to the original Latin. For example, the changes in pronunciation and spelling have been fewer and have been more consistent than the changes in French. In terms of grammar, the Latin case functions of nouns were gradually replaced by prepositions. Thus, the preposition "al" in Spanish replaced the dative case (e.g. indirect object) in Latin and "de" in Spanish replaced the genitive case (e.g. possession) in Latin. The personal pronouns in Spanish still retain separate subject (nominative), indirect object (dative) and accusative (direct object) forms. The forms of most nouns and adjectives in Spanish (as in French also) are based on the accusative, not the nominative, of the Latin. For example:

Following is a list of some of the correspondences indicating the regular phonetic changes that have occurred between Latin and Spanish with sample words as examples (Based on Paul M. Lloyd, From Latin to Spanish).

Beware: Spanish a ( to): Latin ā ((away) from) Spanish fui ( go; be): Latin ( be: past tense "I have been")

For more information see:
Paul M. Lloyd, From Latin to Spanish.
Joseph B. Solodow, Latin Alive: The Survival of Latin in English and the Romance Languages.

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The Spanish language is based on Latin as it evolved in the Iberian peninsula under local influences (especially Arabic, Greek, and Basque). The Greeks colonized the southern coast in the 6th century B.C. The Romans established the provinces of Nearer Spain (Hispania Citerior) and Farther Spain (Hispania Ulterior) in 205 B.C.

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Este artículo explica la pronunciación de c, z, y s en España. Ceceo es la pronunciación de c, z, y s como “th”. Seseo es la pronunciación de estas letras como s. Distinción es la pronunciación de c y z como “th”, y s como /s/. Dice que hay una leyenda sobre el ceceo del Rey Ferdinand, pero el origen del sonido es probablemente español medieval. Los hispanohablantes de las Américas no tienen el ceceo porque los comerciantes españoles que visitaban las Américas frecuentemente fueron de las áreas seseos.

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In my Spanish classes in the U.S., we never dealt much with European Spanish.

I have distinct memories of students asking what vosotros meant, and teachers responding: "Oh, you don't have to worry about that!"

So when I moved to Spain, I had a lot of questions.

Why do Spanish people laugh when I call a computer a computadora?

Or look at me funny when I refer to them as ustedes?

But the biggest question I had when I moved to Spain was: What's up with the lisping s sound in words like hacer (to do) and gracias (thank you)?

The Spanish lisp-called the ceceo in certain contexts (see below), is one of the most distinctive features of Spain's dialect of Spanish.

If you're a U.S.-based Spanish speaker like I am, you might have a lot of questions about the Spanish lisp.

Read on for some answers!

Why Should I Bother Learning the Spanish Lisp?

I didn't bother lisping in my first few months in Spain. Then, one day, I was having a conversation with a friend and she told me about her family from the small village of Siruela.

"Siruela?" I asked. "You mean, like the fruit?"

She looked at me in confusion for a few seconds, then burst out laughing. "No, that's " she said, pronouncing the word for "plum" with a discernible Spanish lisp on the letter c.

That's when I realized: Learning the Spanish lisp could help me avoid lots of confusion when talking to Spanish-speakers.

There are many word pairs that become more easily distinguishable when you use the Spanish lisp. For example, the words casar (to marry) and cazar (to hunt) have practically the same pronunciation unless you're using the lisp.

Learning the Spanish lisp has other benefits, too.

It'll help broaden your comprehension when listening to Spanish speakers talk, or when consuming Spanish media.

Plus, learning regional variations of Spanish is fun! If you're living in Spain, speaking the way those around you speak is part of the immersion process.

What Are Ceceo and Seseo, Anyway?

As you may already know, the Spanish language has many different dialects with various differences in grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation.

The Spanish lisp can potentially affect the pronunciation of three different letters:(when it's followed by an e or an i).

Depending on where you are and who you're talking to, these letters can take one of two sounds: They either sound like an English s or an English soft th, like you can hear at the end of the word "tooth."

When talking about the Spanish lisp, it's important to understand the words ceceo, seseo and distinción. These three linguistics terms describe how you should pronounce s, z and c.

If you pronounce s, z and c like the th in "tooth," that's called ceceo. The verb form is cecear.

If you pronounce all three of these letters like an English s, that's called seseo, and the verb is sesear.

So, the only two forms that constitute the use of the lisp are ceceo and distinción, whereas seseo requires no lisping at all.

What Is the Origin of the Spanish Lisp?

There's an often-repeated myth that King Ferdinand of Spain had a lisp, and that his countrymen imitated him as a form of respect, which led to the development of the Spanish lisp.

Historians and linguistics have refuted this claim, arguing that there's no evidence King Ferdinand had a lisp. Besides, if that were the case, the predominance of distinción (instead of ceceo) in Spain would still not make sense.

It's more likely that ceceo and distinción had their roots in medieval Spanish speech patterns, which developed naturally over time to lead to some areas of ceceo, seseo and distinción throughout Spain.

So, why don't Latin Americans lisp?

Well, history tells us that Seville was one of the most important cities in Early Modern Spain, and it was the peninsula's most important trading hub with the colonies in the Americas.

In fact, a large percentage of early settlers in the New World colonies came from Andalucía and the Canary Islands-both seseo areas. Thus, this linguistic form eventually took predominance in the New World.

Where Do Spanish-Speakers Lisp?

You won't find Spanish speakers lisping in any of the countries of Latin America or the Caribbean. This is also why most Spanish learners in North America don't encounter the lisp in a Spanish classroom.

On the other hand, most parts of Spain embrace the Spanish lisp in one form or another.

Most of Spain, except for the far southern province of Andalucía, embrace distinción, which means you'll hear the lisp on the letter z and on the letter c if it's before the letters e or i, but not on the letter s.

In Andalucía, things get a little trickier. In many areas, particularly around Cádiz, you'll hear people using the ceceo.

Then, there are other areas-especially surrounding the cities of Seville and Córdoba-where the seseo predominates. As explained above, this means that c before e and i, z and s all take on an s sound.

In this respect, these areas are similar to Latin American Spanish in their lack of lisp. TranSpanish has a handy map of Andalucía showing where each variation can be heard.

In the Canary Islands and the Philippines, you'll hear a combination of seseo, ceceo and distinción.

How Do I Master the Lisp?

I could just tell you to pronounce your c and z (and s, if you want to cecear) like an English th. However, it's a bit more complicated than that. English has two th sounds, and it's important to use the right one.

Slate has an article that helps explain the difference between the two th sounds. To feel this difference, put your hand on your throat and say the words "then" and "thing." You'll notice that your throat vibrates when you say "then," but not when you say "thing."

The correct way to lisp is the second way-the one where your throat doesn't vibrate. Some other English words that contain that th sound are "thought," "tooth" and "three."

The Spanish Dude has a helpful video with Spanish lisp pronunciation tips.

Watch authentic videos is a fantastic way to understand how the lisp is used by real Spanish-speakers.

And the best part is, you don't have to travel to Spain to get an immersive experience and hear the Spanish lisp in action. Just use FluentU!

FluentU takes real-world videos from all over the world-like music videos, movie trailers, news and inspiring talks-and turns them into personalized language learning lessons.

It's an entertaining way to immerse yourself in Spanish the way native speakers really use it, while actively building your vocabulary and grammar skills.

How Can I Practice Lisping?

As with most aspects of language-learning, the best way to learn to lisp is to practice, practice, practice. However, here are a few tips for speeding up the process and feeling like a natural-born Spanish lisper:

Sing Along

First, if you aren't already singing in Spanish to improve your pronunciation, now is the time to start. Find a Spanish singer (from Spain, that is) and sing along to one of their songs, paying particular attention to their pronunciation of c and z.

One good place to start is the song "Deshazte de mi" ("Get Rid of Me") by the Madrid-born singer Malú. In the first verse alone, you can practice the words necesitas (you need), vacía (empty), principio (beginning), hice (I made), cerraba (closed) and hacía (I made), all of which include a lisp.

Some other good Spanish songs with ample lisping include "" ("Zero") by Dani Martin and "Quisiera" ("I Wanted") by Frank Diago. Both of these are quite slow, making them good beginner choices. For something slightly faster, check out Enrique Iglesias's "Duele el corazon" ("The Heart Hurts").

For expert mode, listen to some Spanish music by Latin American singers and try to lisp on the correct words even when the singers don't!

Make Flashcards

Another good way to practice the lisp is to make a list of words that showcase c, z and s sounds, and turn them into flashcards.

For example, you could use word pairs like ciento (one hundred) and siento (I sit) or cazar (to hunt) and casar (to marry), or single words that have both sounds such as cesar (to cease) or superficie (surface).

Once you have a long enough list of such words, put them all on flashcards.

Flip the cards and say the words as fast as you can, trying to differentiate between your s sounds and th sounds. If you accidentally use the wrong sound for one of the words, start the deck over until you can get through it all.

Watch and Listen to Authentic Material

One of the best ways to practice is to watch Spanish television, immerse yourself in authentic clips and listen to authentic Spanish audio. If you hear enough native speakers lisping, it'll eventually sound natural and will become easier to incorporate into your own speech.

Hopefully, after reading this article you won't be quite so baffled by the Spanish lisp as I was when I first moved to Spain. With a little practice, you'll be replacing your c and z sound with a th sound like a natural!

If you liked this post, something tells me that you'll love FluentU, the best way to learn Spanish with real-world videos.
Experience Spanish immersion online!

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Thi Theñor: The Spanish Lisp and Its Use

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In my Spanish classes in the U.S., we never dealt much with European Spanish.I have distinct memories of students asking what vosotros meant, and teachers responding: "Oh, you don't have to worry about that!"So when I moved to Spain, I had a lot of questions.Why do Spanish people laugh w

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El video detalla la historia breve de español, empieza con la ocupación Romano. Este explica la influencia latín en la lengua español. Después, explica el periodo de control moro y la influencia árabe. Cuándo Alfonso X fue el rey, castilian se convirtió en la lengua oficial. En 1492, los Moros fueron expulsados. Como resultado de la exploración de 1492, la lengua española difundió a las Américas.

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En inglés, usualmente la persona quien experiencia el evento o la acción es el sujeto. En algunos casos en español, es el opuesto. La persona quien experiencia es el objeto indirecto y el evento o el objeto tradicional, de una perspectiva inglés, es el sujeto. Por ejemplo, cuando usamos gustar, la persona es el objeto indirecto y lo que le gusta es el sujeto. En el libro, la autora menciona que es común en español, pero solo tres verbos tienen raíces en latín.

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Overview of some common 'reverse constructions' in Spanish, in which the 'experiencer' is expressed as the object of the sentence, unlike English.

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Este video explica como puede usar el a personal. Es un concepto no es tan familiar porque no tenemos esta estructura en inglés. Necesita el a personal cuando el objeto directo es humano (o animado) y específico. Esta regla aplica a las mascotas, también. Según al libro, el a personal procede del latín ad.

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The Personal A in Spanish - How to Use It & When to Use It

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Aprendía este acrónimo en la escuela secundaria para identificar las situaciones cuando voy a necesitar el subjuntivo. El libro básicamente dice que necesita usar el subjuntivo cuando algo no es actual o cuando hay duda. El acrónimo categoriza las situaciones en los deseos, las emociones, la influencia (pienso que es para las frases como “recomiendo que”), los pedidos, y la duda.

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Las sintagmas cabeza inicial y cabeza final

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Las sintagmas cabeza inicial y cabeza final

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Este artículo explica las diferencias entre las sintagmas cabeza inicial y cabeza final. Lo da una ejemplo de una sintagma en inglés y, lo traduce y analiza en japonés, español, y inglés para mostrar las estructuras diferentes. Español es una lengua cabeza inicial porque en una sintagma, lo más importante es lo que ocurre primero. Por ejemplo, en una sintagma verbal, el verbo aparece primero.

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Friday Night Linguistics - Language Creation

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Way back at the beginning of the semester, when talking about characteristics of all languages, we learned that language is hierarchically structured: That is, sentences are composed of groups of words. within those groups, you can see smaller groups. Within those groups' there are individual words. Within words, there are morphemes.

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¿Cuál es un uso correcto del "a" personal?
a. Veo a la casa de Carolina.
b. Escucho a los estudiantes.
c. Busco a Pablo.
d. Visito a la ciudad de mi abuela.

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Este recurso da una lista de algunos ejemplos de pluralia tantum. El libro menciona que pluralia tantum describe las palabras que siempre están en la forma plural. Cuando comencé a aprender español, me daba cuenta cuantas palabras siempre están en la forma plural, y pensaba que fue extraño. Sin embargo, no me da cuenta cuantas ejemplos hay en inglés, como thanks.

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12 nouns that are always plurals | OxfordWords blog

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If you, like me, are a half-ashamed watcher of various fashion reality shows, you might be familiar with phrases like I'd like to pair this with a navy pant or Maybe a smoky eye and a red lip.

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Discutimos las palabras que terminan en -a, pero son masculinos y las razones. Sin embargo, no me recuerdo esta razón desde clase o el libro; palabras como agua son masculinos en la forma singular porque el énfasis está en la a, y es más fácil para pronunciar el agua en vez de la agua. Pero en la forma plural, es las aguas. La palabra es femenina.

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Spanish nouns that end with -o are masculine, and ones that end with -a are feminine, right?

Yes, usually. But there are plenty of exceptions to this gender rule, of which the two best known are mano, the word for hand, which is feminine, and día, the word for day, which is masculine.

Key Takeaways

Most Spanish nouns ending in -o are masculine, and most ending in -a are feminine, but there are exceptions.

Some of the exceptions occur because of how the words were treated in other languages, such as Latin and Greek.

Many nouns that refer to jobs or roles of people can be either masculine or feminine depending on the person they refer to.

6 Ways in Which the Rule Is Broken

Exceptions to the a-is-feminine- o-is-masculine rule fall into six categories:

Words that are shortened versions of other words. For example, la foto (photograph) is feminine because it's short for la fotografía.

Words that end in -ista as the equivalent of the English "-ist." For example, dentista can be either masculine or feminine depending on whether the dentist referred to is a man or woman. A few words with other endings, such as modelo for a human model, are treated the same way.

Words whose meanings vary depending on the gender. For example, un cometa is a comet, but una cometa is a kite.

Some masculine words that come from Greek and end in -a (often -ma). Most of these words have English cognates.

A few compound nouns, which are traditionally masculine, even when the noun portion comes from a feminine noun.

Words that are just exceptions, such as mano and día. Usually these exceptions come from the way the words were treated in Latin.

List of Words Violating the Gender Rule

Here are the most common words violating the a/o rule, although there are dozens of others:

Gender for Names of Occupations and Other Roles

Most words that refer to people's jobs or roles, many ending in -ista or -eta, that can be either masculine or feminine are not listed above. Most have English cognates. Among the abundance of words that fit that category are:

Feminine Nouns That Use El

Also not included in the top list are combinations such as (water) and el águila (eagle)-feminine words that begin with a stressed a- or ha- and are immediately preceded by el (rather than la) in the singular form only.

With these words, el doesn't indicate gender but is used instead for ease of pronunciation. It is similar to the way in which English substitutes "an" for "a" in front of some nouns, as the rule applies to the opening sound of the word, not how it's spelled.

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47 Nouns That Break the Main Gender Rule of Spanish

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Spanish nouns that end with -o are masculine, and ones that end with -a are feminine, right? Yes, usually. But there are plenty of exceptions to this gender rule, of which the two best known are mano, the word for hand, which is feminine, and día, the word for day, which is masculine.

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Este video muestra un hombre que está hablando en jerigonzas. El libro menciona que es un juego para los niños. La meta es para hablar muy rápido, pero distinto, en una manera que los otros no pueden comprender. Es fascinante que el hombre en el video pueda pronunciar las sílabas con claridad y rapidez.

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Jeringonza with Carlos Balanta "Baterimba"

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Este artículo describe la evolución de la frase “Yo no hablo” en francés. La frase original fue jeo ne di, pero después el ciclo de Jespersen, la frase se transforma en je dis pas. La palabra “ne” fue eliminado. El ciclo puede repite otra vez. El libro describe el ciclo como una fenómeno en cual palabras negativas específicas son eliminados de frases.

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Registering for my fall classes this morning got me thinking about what it is that I really love about learning a foreign language. It's certainly not conjugating the pluperfect of the subjunctive mood! Instead, it's linguistics and etymology: how we say the things we say, and why it is we say them that way. Today's musing:

For anyone with even a basic knowledge of French, " pas" is a pretty easy word. It means " not" ... right? Well, I'll get back to that in a minute but, more importantly for now, " pas" also means " step" - as in the motion we make when we place one foot in front of the other. Hence, we have the expression "faux pas" - one that we've adopted directly into English - meaning a mistake or, more precisely, a " false step." So, how exactly did a word that means "step" also come to be the most common word in French to mean "not"?
I. Veni, Vidi, Vici
French is a Romance language, so our little story begins with Latin. Latin doesn't use subject pronouns; it uses conjugated verbs to express both the action and the subject that is performing the action. For example, "I say" in Latin is simply " dico." Originally, the Romans formed the negative by adding " ne" before the verb. Thus, "I don't say" was originally "ne dico." The Romans eventually found " ne" too weak, so they added " oenum" (meaning "thing") to the negative form, so that "I don't say" became " ne oenum dico" - literally "I don't say anything" or "I say nothing." With the passage of time, however, " ne oenum" evolved into " non," which subsequently found its way into Old French. Further accentuation over time transformed " non" into " nen" and eventually right back into " ne." Returning to our illustrative example, the Old French version of "I don't say" or, in Modern French, " je ne dis pas," was "."

II. Being REALLY Negative

So, getting back to the question at hand, if they said " jeo ne di" in Old French, where did the modern "pas" come from? Well, the first thing to keep in mind is that it's not really the " pas" that forms the negative in standard French; it's the " ne" that comes before the verb (like in Latin and Old French). (I won't address the "ne explétif" here. That's another story.) Unlike in Latin, however, the " ne" in French occupies an unstressed position between the subject and the verb in the spoken language and, in some phrases, it is hardly discernable at all (for example, " on n'avait" versus " on avait" ). As the Old French " nen" and " ne " became more and more phonetically de-accentuated over time, the French added other adverbs to reinforce the negation, as well as to clarify the sense of the negation:

je ne sais rien : I know nothing
je ne veux que (...) : I want nothing except (...)
je ne chante jamais : I never sing
je ne crois plus : I don't believe any longer
je ne connais personne : I know no one
je ne vais nulle part : I don't go anywhere
je n'ai aucun : I don't have (a single) one
je ne parle guère : I don't speak a lot

They also added certain other negative adverbs, each with a very particular, verb-specific sense. Originally, these adverbs were object nouns, but they eventually became "grammaticalized," merging into the negative meaning of the " ne " adverb and losing their own distinct grammatical function.

je ne bois goutte : I don't drink (a drop) → I don't drink
je ne parle mot : I don't speak (a word) → I don't speak
je ne vois point : I don't see (a point) → I don't see
je ne mange mie : I don't eat (a crumb) → I don't eat

And, of course, there was the star of today's show ...

je ne marche pas : I don't walk (a step) → I don't walk

Eventually, these adverb-verb pairings became devoid of their verb-specific meanings to become generally-applicable negative adverbs (just like ne ... rien, ne ... que, ne ... jamais, etc.). At certain times in French linguistic history, one could even hear such utterances as: " je ne vois goutte" or " je ne marche mie." Although "I don't see a drop" or "I don't walk a crumb" may sound incredibly bizarre to us (in either English or modern French), these means of expressing negation are really no more strange than "I don't walk a point" or "I don't say a step" ... which are what today's " je ne marche point" or " je ne dis pas" literally mean. It's simply that the French have adopted a new semantic sense for these words. With the passage of time, " ne ... pas" became the dominant expression of "not" (along with " ne ... point " to a much lesser degree), and the rest of these very colorful variants faded into history.

III. The Jespersen's Cycle: Only If You're Really Interested in Linguistics

As referenced earlier, because of the phonetically de-accentuated position of the " ne" in spoken French, it is common in colloquial French to drop it altogether, leaving us with the secondary adverb as the sole negative adverb in the sentence (e.g., " je suis pas" ). This step is considered the final step in a process known in linguistics as a Jespersen's Cycle. Interestingly, English has already undergone this evolution and possibly has started the cycle again. Below is an illustration of the Jespersen's Cycle in French and in English for the same sentence: "I don't say." (In each sentence, the verb is underlined and the negation markers (negative adverbs) are in boldface.)

STEP 1-Single pre-verbal negation marker
STEP 2-Pre-verbal negation marker becomes less salient, and a new post-verbal marker is added
STEP 3-Pre-verbal marker is dropped, leaving a single post-verbal marker
STEP 1 AGAIN-Single post-verbal marker transitions to pre-verbal position

So there you have it: the story of why the French use a word that means "step" to say "not." Hopefully there were at least a few of you out there who found this account as engaging as I did. I can't vouch for the complete accuracy of it - I'm not a linguist, after all ... though perhaps I should have been!

© 2011 Samuel Michael Bell, all rights reserved

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Registering for my fall classes this morning got me thinking about what it is that I really love about learning a foreign language. It's certainly not conjugating the pluperfect of the subjunctive mood! Instead, it's linguistics and etymology: how we say the things we say, and why it is we say them that way.

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El libro menciona un lingüisto venezolano se llama Andrés Bello. Este me interesó porque combina la historia con la lingüistica. Andrés Bello fue un escritor, periodista, y diplomático. Propone la idea de reclamar la lengua y la lengua debe ser disponible para todos. Aunque no tuve éxito con las reformas de lengua, fue muy influencial a la movimiento de educacion y universidad. Muestra como la lengua puede reflejar los asuntos de sociedad, como desigualdad.

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Article by Gregorio Weinberg¹
Andrés Bello, an exemplary figure in the history of Latin American culture, was one of its most outstanding educators in the nineteenth century and is generally acknowledged to be its greatest humanist. His robust personality and austere, scholarly way of life made him the embodiment of the maestro, a Spanish term signifying a person of outstanding merit who is recognized as a supreme example worthy of the highest honours. Andrés Bello epitomized all these qualities: his wide-ranging activities, whose effects have been long-lasting, show his concern both for primary education and particularly higher education, in addition to his work as a grammarian, jurist, philosopher and politician. He was born in Venezuela, but the course of events in Latin America in the early decades of the last century caused him to stay for nearly twenty years in London, from whence he went to Chile. His extensive work and lasting influence have given him international stature and the rare distinction of being a figure to whom all Spanish-speakers lay claim. So great is his authority that even international educational and cultural agreements bear his name.
His life in Venezuela
Andrés Bello was born in Caracas on 29 November 1781. His childhood and youth were spent in relatively comfortable and cultivated surroundings in which, from an early age, he took pleasure in reading. His studies brought him into contact first with French and later English. His formal education was marked by the award on 9 May 1800 of the degree of Bachelor of Arts. But other information relating to that time is perhaps even more significant. A few months earlier he made the acquaintance of a foreigner whose presence in the city had an enormous impact and made an indelible impression on the still young and timid student who approached him. This was Alexander von Humboldt, already renowned for his outstanding work as a naturalist, and above all for the vast range of his scientific inquiries. To eke out his slender income Bello began tutoring in his own home for a group of adolescents which included Simón Bolívar, who was destined to scale the heights of history. Decades later the scene was to be repeated in Santiago de Chile, when he imparted his knowledge from a desk laden with books on every imaginable subject to other equally inquiring young people, a small band of whom were to assume their place in history. From the testimony of his students over the years we know of his extraordinary educational and human gifts. Very soon, he improved his financial situation by joining the staff of the colonial administration, where even as a new recruit his hard work, initiative and knowledge of languages made him invaluable for translating the at times alarming news arriving from Europe. Events in the Old World were beginning to impinge on the New, and the most important information was not always conveyed in Spanish, which seems to have been the only language generally understood. During this period his intellectual interests were coming to the fore, and he began writing for the Caracas Gazeta, the first newspaper of his native city. Vigorous articles were even at that early stage associating the name of Bello with the first production ventures of the local press. He was the author of the booklet entitled Calendario manual y guía universal de forastero en Venezuela para el año de 1810 and also of the Resumen de historia de Venezuela, in which Mariano Picón Salas discerns traces of Humboldt's ideas.

Bello's first poetic outpourings also date from that time. E. Rodríguez Monegal notes in the poetry of the Caracas period 'the mastery and ease with which the young poet handles the neoclassical style; his application of the humanistic vision of the eighteenth century to the American world, a vision already partaking of a continental view; and in certain passages, unmistakable signs of the direct contemplation of nature, expressed in neoclassical style but with genuine American feeling'. We have here the burgeoning work of the man of letters who throughout his life was to contribute so much to the intellectual emancipation of Latin America-an aspect whose paramount importance cannot be overemphasized. His duties, experience, background and, as we have said, knowledge of languages, ideally suited him to take part in the mission that the conservative junta was sending to London for negotiations, the delegates being Simón Bolívar and Luis López Méndez.

A long-standing friendship, despite occasional setbacks, was to link him to his pupil Bolívar. In a letter from Quito dated 27 April 1829, Bolívar wrote to José Fernández Madrid, then in London, expressing his serious concern at: 'the wretched financial situation of the legation, which is forcing my worthy friend Bello to leave it to avoid starving. [...] Try to persuade Bello that what is least evil in America is Colombia, and that if he wants to be employed in this country, let him say so and he will be given a good position. His native region should come before everything; and he is worthy of occupying a very important post in it. I know the superior nature of this contemporary of mine from Caracas. He was my teacher, though we were the same age, and I loved and respected him. While his aloofness has kept us apart to some extent, I wish to be reconciled with him and to win him over for Colombia.' The message was sent too late, however, for Bello had already left London for Chile. Among all the influencing factors of the time, I have sought to focus here only on his relationships with Humboldt and Bolívar, owing to the significant influence they were to exert on his life.

To complete this biographical sketch I refer in advance to considerations which will be examined later in greater detail, by alluding to two traits of Bello's personality that are not always fully understood. The first is his humanism which, contrary to general belief, has nothing to do with the 'arid scholarship' of the seventeenth century, caught up in Latin of all types and periods and encumbered by imperfectly mastered Greek. The second trait is the conservatism for which he has also been criticized. To clarify the question of humanism we need go no further than the simple and striking description by Angel Rosenblat: 'Andrés Bello was without doubt the first humanist of our America, a kind of Hispano-American Goethe, at a time when humanism was still the father of science and the humanist was not only philosopher but also historian and poet, jurist and grammarian, and sought to encompass both spiritual life and the mysteries of nature. To this we may add that Bello was a humanist in the history of his era. The conservative yet modernizing thought of Bello-poles apart from any idea of traditionalism or opposition to progress-indisputably owes much to his impressions of life in the United Kingdom as compared with events in the Latin-American Continent. During his long stay in London, he witnessed a gigantic effort of institutional readjustment to the profound economic and social changes brought about by the agricultural and industrial revolution, which in turn emphasized the importance of science and technology in building the future. Furthermore, he was necessarily much3concerned at the role played by Great Britain in the new precarious balance of international relations, which also had its effect on the course of events in the New World.

Constantly concerned with the destiny of Latin America, torn apart and impoverished by prolonged civil wars that were beginning to threaten its very survival, Bello must have seen the unique British experiment as providing a possible formula for new states to channel teeming energies and harness them to their own interests. It was therefore his view that the aim should not be to overthrow an order which was threatened but rather to restore it as soon as possible, making use of education, legislation and trade as the best instruments for that purpose. His ideas were of course not always shared by many of his contemporaries, who opposed him fiercely yet respectfully. What was at issue were different philosophies of history and life. The subsequent course of events made it self-evident, however, that his contribution can be deemed to have been of exceptional value. In any case, we do not believe that these were the decisive factors in making him famous; his fame stems deservedly from his natural genius, and is founded upon his vast and enduring written work and his personal prestige and influence.
His life in England
When he landed at Portsmouth on 11 July 1810, Andrés Bello, who came, as we have just seen, as an attaché with the mission headed by Simón Bolívar and Luis López Méndez, could never have imagined that circumstances would force him to remain in Great Britain for nearly two decades, a period marked by discouragement and financial hardship but also filled with stimuli for the maturing of his talent. Vicente Llorens Castillo, in Liberales y románticos: una emigración española en Inglaterra, providesa well-documented account of the life of the liberal émigrés from the Iberian peninsula at that time, who were condemned to long years of 'poverty and obscurity, hopes and disappointments'. This was also certainly true of the many Latin Americans who, like Bello, faced a similar situation, their ties with their native land severed by fate, without resources and submerged by an uncertain future that was to be made even more threatening by the constitution of restoration movements. However, from the intellectual point of view-setting aside the suspicions which undermined any community feeling among all those uprooted persons-the climate proved stimulating and fertile for those who were willing, and sufficiently humble, to undergo a difficult political and cultural learning process in another environment and another language. The number of gifted and important people in that situation was becoming considerable, and Bello was to establish lasting ties with many of them, as is borne out by numerous direct or indirect testimonies that have come down to us.

He came to know Francisco memoranda, José de San Martín, José María Blanco White, Bartolomé José Gallardo, Antonio José de Irisarri, Servando Teresa de Mier, José Joaquín de Olmedo, Vicente Rocafuerte and a great many others the mere mention of whose names is highly evocative. In the publication Cartas a Bello en Londres. 1810-1829, by Sergio Fernández Larraín, there are some interesting and at times moving testimonies from that period. We also know of Bello's relations with James Mill, who at one point was able to help Bello financially by entrusting him with the difficult task of deciphering the manuscripts of Bentham. The homesick Bello was certainly not able to subsist on the meagre and very irregular payments he received as secretary to some Latin American diplomatic missions or as a subsidy from particular countries (for example, the Argentine Government sent him £150 on one occasion with a promise to repeat the payment annually, which subsequent events prevented it from keeping). He eked out his scant income with private lessons or editing work(he once revised a Spanish version of the Bible), but the sum of his resources barely provided him with the decencies of life.

In any case, he lived with intensity a very special time in the transformation of the Old World, and above all of Great Britain. In the brief space available it is only possible to list summarily a number of factors, protagonists and events of varying importance which coincided with Bello's stay in London. These included news of the fluctuating fortunes of the emancipation movement in Latin America, declarations of independence, restorations, the Battle of Ayacucho, the Congress of Panamá and the recognition of some countries by the United States. In Europe there were the Congress of Vienna, romanticism, and more particularly in Great Britain, whose population had then topped the twenty million mark, there was the production of eight million tons of coal per year and a merchant fleet of some 2.5 million tons which already included steamships. The metallurgical and textile industries were expanding at an unprecedented rate; and the industrialization process necessarily began to extend to the press.

Within a few years there was a spate of daily newspapers and reviews with increased print runs and lower prices, such as The Times, the Manchester Guardian, the Sunday Times, the Evening Standard and the Westminster Review. London became the first city of over a million inhabitants, and from 1812 onwards astonished Londoners and foreigners alike saw its streets become safer thoroughfares as a result of that marvel of marvels - gas lighting. Authors, ideas and books were discussed; Humboldt, the young genius whom Bello had known in Caracas, Goethe, Byron, Shelley, Malthus and Ricardo were news; the issues of authority, democracy and liberalism were debated; news from the Continent suggested that the principle of nationality was prevailing over that of legitimacy.

Despite the difficulties involved, and without disregarding the events great and small taking place around him, Bello set to work single-handed or with a few assistants on lofty cultural undertakings which have left a lasting mark. With Juan García del Río he produced the Biblioteca Americana (1823), which constituted, in the words of Rafael Caldera in the Foreword to the facsimile reprint used by the present author, 'the first and most ambitious "eminently American" cultural work ever embarked upon from Europe'. Brought out by a small group of people educated in the New World, it was intended for all the peoples of America with the aim of contributing to 'dissemination of the true and sound benefits arising from enlightenment and rational freedom'. A quick perusal suffices to establish the broad spectrum of the concerns of its valiant editors: literature, the arts, science, techniques, historical material, and so forth, and the words we have cited are an adequate reflection of the spirit underlying an enterprise that was little short of heroic. The first instalment was headed by the 'Alocución a la poesía' (Address to Poetry), by Bello himself, which features today in all anthologies. A variety of other articles included 'El repertorio americano' (The American Directory) of 1826-27. One notes with admiration that, despite the struggle to earn his living, Bello was always willing to give much of his time to activities directly or indirectly connected with the intellectual emancipation of the New World. Against this background, and this is perhaps one of his outstanding traits, he lived with intensity in an atmosphere of ferment in which ideas and initiatives germinated, and investigations and discoveries were disseminated. Here he formed his personality, accumulated an impressive stock of knowledge, improved his methods, sharpened his sensibility, discovered, prepared and dreamt. Possessing a profound interior life, he felt that he was gradually building up an innermost store of wisdom, at once vigorous and refined, on which he might one day draw in the service of his country.

A brief reference to some of the many components of his substantial culture should include his interest in English empirical and utilitarian thought: also in the radicalism that he came to know during his long stay by the banks of the Thames, not only through his frequent visits as an avid reader to the British Museum and from periodicals, but also, above all, directly through his relations with such thinkers as James Mill. Those schools of thought were little known at the time among Latin Americans, whose philosophical interests had shifted, almost imperceptibly, from enlightenment to ideology, while retaining a backdrop of traditional thinking. These relations may partly explain his lasting interest in the5physical and natural sciences, topical subjects due to the dynamic spread of the agricultural and industrial revolution which was bringing about major changes in the living conditions and habits of town-and country-dwellers alike. These changes may well have stimulated him later to write his Cosmografía and numerous articles such as those collected together in Volume XX of his Obras completas; also some very early articles showing his enthusiastic interest in the work of Humboldt, which was to be lifelong, published in the Repertorio americano. Bello subsequently contributed many articles to El Araucano (see the issues of 16 and 30 August 1831 and 21 January 1832). In one of these he observes, for instance, that 'a course of physics is essential in order to round off preparatory education, because without any notions of what nature is, previously acquired knowledge amounts to very little'. Incidentally, it is my view that Bello's scientific interests constitute a relatively neglected but crucial aspect for a full understanding of his education and the significance of his educational activity. And of course these philosophical influences, together with others such as the Eclectic and Scottish schools, are present in his Filosofía del entendimiento on which we cannot dwell here. Suffice it to recall the authoritative opinion of José Gaos that 'it is without doubt the most important work of its kind in American literature'.

Up to that period the uncertainty of his situation was like a leitmotif which followed him as inexorably as his own shadow. He made repeated attempts to return to the New World, with representations to authorities and friends in Río de la Plata and New Granada, explaining his hardships and difficulties; but for many years it was all to no avail. His relations with Mariano de Egaña, slow to develop because of some initial misunderstandings, eventually became a sincere friendship. Convinced of the potential benefits to Chile of a man of the capacity and experience of the humble legation secretary, de Egaña proposed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of his country that Bello be given an appointment. Once his transfer to South America had been agreed upon, Bello prepared to leave for his new post in a country in which he had never lived. His mixed feelings are admirably expressed in a fragment of a letter written on the eve of his departure and cited by Rodríguez Monegal: 'I am impatiently awaiting daybreak and my departure from this city, which is hateful to me on so many scores and on so many others worthy of my love. 'After the long sea crossing he reached Santiago, accompanied by his family and belongings, of which books formed the bulk. At close on 50 years of age, Bello was beginning a new life.
His life in Chile
When Andrés Bello arrived at Valparaíso from Europe on 25 June 1829 Chile was at a critical juncture of its history, with far-reaching changes in its socio-economic, political and institutional structures, in addition to substantial modifications on the cultural and educational level. Major expansion was then taking place in the mining industry, which was energizing the economy. This unhoped-for wealth helped to restore a climate of greater stability, which soon resulted in a fresh balance between the various interest groups, both rural and commercial. The Battle of Lircay completed a cycle of events: with the liberals (pipiolos) defeated by the conservatives (pelucones), General Joaquín Prieto came to power, appointing Diego Portales as chief minister with a programme basically involving the restoration of law and order. The centralist 1833 Constitution, based on limited suffrage, was a marked departure from the previous more democratic one. It favoured the traditional conservative sectors but, as already noted, its rigour was also of benefit to all the productive sectors, since the advent of an authoritarian republic on firm presidential lines served to consolidate order, organize public finances and discipline the army, at that time a destabilizing influence.

The successful war against the Peruvian-Bolivian Confederation (initiated by Portales, who was assassinated on the eve of the hostilities) was a new factor helping to strengthen Chile's institutions. Peace ushered in a period of prosperity, and gradually relative liberalization made it possible to modernize institutions in addition to offering a more favourable climate to attract intellectuals and scientists (Andrés Bello, José Joaquín de Mora, Guillermo A. Blest, Leopoldo Sazie, and others).Stability and security attracted many political exiles from various places, but above all from neighbouring countries (Juan García del Río, Juan Carlos Gómez, Domingo F. Sarmiento, Vicente F.López, Juan B. Alberdi, etc.), who played an outstandingly fruitful role in education and journalism. To understand the events that followed, we have to take account of various lines of ideological influence and go back, in the area of education, to the existence of the Instituto Nacional, which dispensed higher vocational education; to the old University of San Felipe, in the last stages of decline; and at the secondary level, to the Liceo, imbued with the liberal spirit of its principal, J.J. de Mora, and the more conservative Colegio de Santiago directed by Andrés Bello. All these produced a stimulating climate for the exiles, a profusion of publications and hotly debated issues, and attempts at intellectual modernization reflected in numerous initiatives.

Briefly, it may be said that the Venezuelan Andrés Bello gradually gravitated into a place of ever-increasing importance in Chilean society. The fact that he was formidably well-versed in a variety of disciplines, coupled above all with a very sound education, enabled him to play an outstanding role in political and institutional life, as a senator and senior official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In journalism he distinguished himself as a constant contributor to the combative press of the time, particularly to El Araucano. As regards the important field of education and culture, he was Rector of the University and the author of works of lasting and continent-wide value, such as his Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos (Grammar of the Spanish Language for Latin Americans), Principios de derecho internacional (Principles of International Law), Proyecto de código civíl (Draft Civil Code), and Filosofía del entendimiento (The Philosophy of Understanding), to cite only a few basic works from various disciplines, quite apart from his outstanding literary contributions as a critic and creative writer.
The university
In pursuance of Articles 153 and 154 of the 1833 Constitution, and by virtue of the law of 19 November 1842, the University of Chile was founded on centralist lines following the model generally called Napoleonic, that is, as the body responsible for all educational activities at all levels, a kind of ministry of public instruction, or education as we say today. In this way the foundations were laid of the State as educator. It should be stressed that elevated to this position, the university became the higher body which established policies and organized institutions. A particular feature of the university was that it did not perform a direct teaching function but was confined to the supervision and appointment of teachers. The old University of San Felipé was closing down after a long process of decline that it would be out of place to recount here, and it was replaced by the new university, inaugurated in a splendid formal ceremony on 17 September 1843. Contrary to the commonly held view, there was little continuity between the two institutions despite superficial appearances (incorporation of the professors from San Felipé, the presence of its former rector, Juan Francisco Meneses, on the new university council, etc.). A clean break was made, with a fresh start, as can be easily inferred from the functions, organization and objectives of the newly founded university, and above all from the spirit that pervaded7it. Andrés Bello, whose participation was decisive in the whole operation, was appointed rector and at the same time a member of the Faculties of Law and Political Sciences and of Philosophy and the Arts. Of outstanding importance was the inaugural address delivered by Bello at the University of Chile. It contains a statement of much of his ideas on education, particularly higher education, of a lofty wide-ranging theoretical nature to be expected from a humanist of his calibre but at the same time revealing his urgent reflection on the social implications and specific problems of the university as he saw it at that time and in that setting, that is, firmly rooted in reality. Some passages can only be fully understood in the light of the contemporary situation, as an implicit response to intuitive concerns and questionings. For example:

The question is whether universities and literary bodies are suitable instruments for the spreading of enlightenment. I can hardly conceive of any doubt about this, in an age that is, par excellence, one of association and representation; in an age marked by the proliferation of societies concerned with agriculture, commerce, industry and public welfare; in an age of representative government. Europe, and the United States of America, our models in so many respects, give us the answer to this question. He was thus replying to those who, as recalled by Miguel Luis Amunátegui, were at that time still advocates of the strange theory that 'instruction depraves instead of improving the soul, and fosters fanciful and pernicious pretensions, instead of encouraging people to get down to quiet honest work'. Bello goes on: If the spread of knowledge is one of the most important prerequisites, because without it the arts would do no more than offer a few scattered points of light in the enshrouding darkness, the bodies to which we are mainly indebted for the speed of literary communication are of vital benefit to enlightenment and to mankind as a whole. As soon as a new truth germinates in the mind of a single individual, it becomes the property of the literary community as a whole. The scholars of Germany, France and the United States appreciate its worth, its consequences and its applications. In this dissemination of knowledge, academies and universities all become depositaries continually accumulating all the latest scientific findings, which then spread out more easily from them to reach the various classes of society. The University of Chile has been founded for this special purpose. If it achieves the ends sought by the law that has given it its new form, and fulfils the desires of our government, it will be an outstanding centre of communication and dissemination.

But this foremost concern with higher or university education did not in his view imply any disregard for the primary level: I am certainly among those who regard general instruction, the education of the people, as one of the most important and priority purposes to which the government should direct its attention; as a prime and urgent necessity; as the basis of any sound progress; as the essential cement of republican institutions. [...] I do not say that the cultivation of the arts and the sciences necessarily carries in its wake the spread of elementary education; there is however no doubt that the sciences and the arts possess a natural tendency to spread when no artificial obstacles are placed in their path. [...] But the law, in re-establishing the university, seeks not only to rely on the natural tendency of knowledge to spread, now that the press provides it with unprecedented coverage; the law has also closely linked the two kinds of education, giving one section of the university special responsibility for primary education, supervising its operation, helping to expand it, and contributing to its progress.

Having explained these assumptions and the workings of the proposed new system, he goes on to clarify the basis of his philosophy: The university will also study the special features of Chilean society from the economic standpoint, which presents vast problems calling for bold solutions. The university will examine the findings of Chilean statistics and help to compile them, and will use them to interpret our material needs. For in this, as in other branches, the programme of the university is entirely Chilean. If it borrows scientific deductions from Europe, it is in order to apply them in Chile. All the paths along which it is proposed to direct research by its members, and the courses taught, converge on one point, our native land. [...] Similarly, medical science will investigate the specific modifications that give the Chileans their climate, their customs and their diet; it will lay down rules for hygiene and public health; it will seek to identify the secret causes of epidemics and their ravages; and it will do its utmost to ensure that knowledge of simple means of preserving and restoring health spreads throughout the country.

There is no need for me to list the positive uses of the mathematical and physical sciences, their applications to a nascent industry barely equipped with a few rudimentary skills, lacking properly understood methods, lacking machines and even the most common tools; their applications to a mineral bearing land criss-crossed by veins of metal, to a soil rich in plant resources and nutritious substances, to a soil on which science has scarcely yet cast a glance. However, practical applications should not be confused with 'the gropings of blind empiricism', since only 'general knowledge gives clarity and precision to special knowledge'.

As a humanist, Bello early emphasized the value of the formative disciplines, among which[...] the study of our language seems to me to be of the utmost importance. I shall never advocate an excessive purism that condemns anything new in the matter of language. On the contrary, I believe that the great number of new ideas constantly passing from literary usage to general circulation call for new ways of expressing them. [...] Language can be extended and enriched, and it can be adapted to all the needs of society and even those of fashion, which exerts an unquestioned sway over literature without adulterating it, without vitiating its constructions and without violating its intrinsic spirit. Bello had also previously pointed to the political responsibility of the university in consolidating institutions and in the preliminary remedial action to be taken: 'We must cleanse it of the blemishes it acquired under the evil influence of despotism. 'These few fragments from Bello's historic speech require no further comment but it must be acknowledged that they project something quite distinct from the conventional, mistaken image of a Bello more a friend of the arts than of the sciences, more interested in ideas and theories than in their practical applications, and more concerned with higher than with popular education. Above all, they contrast with the common view of a rigid 'conservative' in matters of language. If we disregard the historical context in which certain ideas are expressed, we may miss their significance, particularly where they were being embodied in the theoretical panoply of the philosophers of education, and might even at times seem 'natural'. This is well illustrated in the speech delivered by Diego Barros Arana on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the University of Chile: Some believed that, by proclaiming freedom of debate, the University was going to endanger the survival of the traditional ideas that were regarded as the very basis of the social order. Others maintained that the new institution, in imposing its doctrines, was going to clip the wings of thought and become, more or less openly, the mainstay of the old intellectual regime that the political and social revolution of 1810 had not succeeded in modifying. Andrés Bello was at pains to demonstrate that between those extreme tendencies lay a vast field of action for the university, and he set the university movement on the only course then reconcilable with the embryonic state of our intellectual culture. His work was one of initiation, paving the way for firmer and more sustained progress.
Primary education
The interest taken by Bello in elementary education was of long standing. Brief reference may be made to an article cited by J.C. Jobet (El Araucano, 5 and 12 August 1836), which we consider illustrates the point very well: ⁹ The right of governments in a matter of such importance can never be excessive. Promoting public institutions for only a small proportion of the population is not promoting education, because it does not suffice to produce competent people for the professions. It is necessary to educate useful citizens and to improve society, and this cannot be done without opening up the field of progress to the bulk of the people. What good would it do us to have orators, jurists and statesmen if the great mass of the people live plunged in darkest ignorance, deprived of their due share of trade and wealth, and unable to accede to the well-being which the people are entitled to expect of a State? Failure to pay attention to the most suitable means of educating the people would be tantamount to taking no interest in national prosperity. This concern, with its broad perspective, was to lead to an extraordinary number of initiatives. To take just one, a competition was held to reward the best work on the following themes: '(a) the influence of primary education on customs, public morality, industry and the general development of national prosperity; (b) the way in which it should be organized, in view of the country's needs; and (c) the best funding system to maintain this education.' The result of the competition is well known, and has been extensively covered by the present writer on another occasion. The first prize went to Miguel Luis and Gregorio Victor Amunátegui for their work De la instrucción primaria: lo que es, lo quedebería ser (Primary Education: What It Is and What It Ought To Be), and the second to Domingo F. Sarmiento for Educación común (Education for All), works which greatly influenced the subsequent development of primary education in Chile.
Other educational concerns
Bello did not overlook secondary education. Indeed, he had a very modern conception of it, as evidenced by his warning that it should not be regarded as 'a mere preparation for professional careers or as a means of reaching university, but as an end in itself'. An exhaustive account of Bello's educational philosophy would require a description of his concern with an education that was South American in character, its linkage with the idea of work, his interest in the content of education and teaching methods, the preparation of textbooks for all levels of the education system and his concern with what we would today call scientific popularization; and so forth. But, above all, there was his notion of education as a right, and its links with production, in order to promote the continuing democratization of society. The following passages put things in a nutshell and speak for themselves: Republican governments are no more than the representatives and the agents of the national will. Being obliged as such to follow the trends of that will, they cannot opt out of the responsibility to achieve the grand design of making individuals useful to themselves and others through education. Furthermore, the democratic representative system empowers its members to take a more or less direct part in affairs; and peoples will not be able to progress along the political path unless education becomes sufficiently widespread to give all individuals a true awareness of their obligations and their rights without which it is impossible to discharge the former or to accord to the latter the value which prompts us to concern ourselves with preserving them. Elsewhere he emphasizes the need to bring education 'within the reach of all young people, whatever their circumstances and way of life; to encourage them to acquire it; and to facilitate its acquisition by increasing the number of institutions and by standardizing methods, as effective means of giving to education the impetus most conducive to national prosperity.'

Angel Rosenblat writes that 'for Bello, language is the instrument of cultural training'. This explains the role ascribed by the author of Alocución a la poesía to the teaching of language at all 10 levels of the education system. When Bello proposed the creation of a chair of Spanish grammar distinct from the existing chair of Latin grammar, he was taking a rationalist stand against those who, while considering it legitimate to study the language of Virgil, were opposed to the same being done for that of Cervantes, arguing that the mother-tongue was learnt 'naturally', thus precluding the need for rules and norms. (Studying and memorizing Latin did not suffice, in Bello's view at least, to consolidate a good modern education.) But giving autonomy to the teaching of Spanish and legislating for the use of new scientific methods to replace the old 'natural' or routine ones, he secured for Spanish that flexibility and grace which it could not otherwise have attained through continued subjection to Latin, or by being 'left to its own devices'.

Bello's ideas on the subject helped to emancipate the Latin American medium of communication. We should remember, however, that emancipation to him implied not a break but a retrieval, on another plane, of a creative continuity. His Gramática, which was then more advanced than that of the Academy itself, adequately illustrates this view. It would not be appropriate to pursue the matter here, or to consider such themes as his lifelong concern for the risk of the linguistic fragmentation of Spanish, or to dwell on his very extensive work as a philologist, grammarian and critic (contained in several volumes of his Obras completas), all of which work is well known and has been aptly studied at length by generations of specialists.

Nor is it appropriate to deal here with Bello's substantial contributions in the field of law, a full understanding of which requires them to be related to his conception of the world and of culture. In this regard his juridical work served, as recalled by P. Lira Urquieta, to give 'a modern appearance to the notions of authority and order which were still expressed in verbose colonial language. Without breaking with tradition, he instilled a love of progress and carried it forward with a measured step. He helped to institute respect for the law, giving the country that political stability without which all other action is enfeebled or comes to an end. 'The profound political significance of his ideas is already to be noted in some of his early works, which otherwise might seem of limited interest. In 1830, on the subject of public trials, he rapidly proceeds to a statement of general principles:

The lack of harmony between new institutions and old establishments means that any complication will worsen our situation by the mere fact of substituting one system for another; that the best remedy for the ailments of a constitution which has not yet had time to become consolidated is to maintain it at all costs, improve it gradually and, above all, make room in it for the other parts of our political organization. We clearly have here-to quote once more P. Lira Urquieta-'in embryo, the main lines of the conception of Portales: to establish a strong government in Chile which will be a kind of prolongation of a monarchy, but with a republican form. 'Much could be also be said about Bello's historical ideas, repeatedly set forth in numerous works and often confronted with those of his disciples José Victorino Latarria and Francisco Bilbao, to whom social romanticism held out new horizons. Any addition to the various aspects covered above, such as his participation in the controversies of the age (on romanticism, language and spelling), some of them memorable on account both of the persons involved and the level of theory attained, would divert us from the essential purpose of this biographical sketch, which is to show the role played by the educational ideas of Bello in his time, and consequently to review their currency today. Andres Bello died in Santiago de Chile on 15 October 1865.
Note
1. Gregorio Weinberg (Argentina). Honorary professor in the Faculty of Philosophy and Literature at the University of Buenos Aires where he lectures on the history of education in Argentina and Latin America. Member of the National Academy of Education, as well as the International Commission set up by UNESCO to prepare a new edition of the History of the Scientific and Cultural Development of Mankind. Researcher with the National Council of Scientific and Technical Research, of which he has been the director. Ex-director of the National Library. His most recent publications include: El descontento y la promesa. Ensayos sobre educacion y cultura [Dissatisfaction and Expectation. Essays on Education and Culture]; Modelos educativos en la historia de America Latina [Educational Models in the History of Latin America] (translated into several languages), and Tiempo, destiempo y contra timpo: ensayos [Time, Mistiming and Mishaps: Essays].
Andrés Bello's writings on education
We are fortunate to have available a remarkable critical edition of the Obras completas de Andrés Bello[The Complete Works of Andres Bello] published by the Venezuelan Ministry of Education in 1952 and undertaken subsequently by the Fondación Casa de Bello. Volume XVIII, Temas educacionales[Educational themes] (Caracas, 1981) consists of two parts, with an introduction by Luis B. Prieto Figueroa entitled 'The educational works of Andrés Bello '.
On Andrés Bello and his educational ideas

Andrés Bello. Humanismo. Americanismo. Historia. Nuestra América, (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Centro Coordinador y Difusor de Estudios Latinoamericanos), N° 5, 1981. (Articles by Arturo Uslar Pietri, Gregoria Weinberg, Leopoldo Zea et al.)

Avilla Martel, A. de. Reseña histórica de la Universidad de Chile (1622-1979). Santiago, Ediciones de la Universidad de Chile, 1979.

Bello y Caracas. Primer Congreso del Bicentenario. 2 vols. Caracas, La Casa de Bello, 1980. (Particularly: Il defonso Leal, 'Andrés Bello y la Universidad de Caracas'.)

Bello y Londres. Segundo Congreso del Bicentario. 2 vols. Caracas, La Casa de Bello, 1980. (Particularly: Alexis Marquez Rodríguez, 'Bello y Lancaster'.)

Bello y Chile. Tercer Congreso del Bicentario. 2 vols. Caracas, La Casa de Bello, 1981. (Particularly: Luis Beltrán Prieto Figueroa, 'Andrés Bello educador'; Enrique Fernández Caldas, 'El pensamiento de Bello y la universidad'; Germán Areiniegas, 'La universidad de Don Andrés'; et Roberto Munizaga Aguirre, 'Actualidad de Bello parauna moderna reorientación de la enseñanza en Latinoamérica'.

Bello y la América Latina. Cuarto Congrese del Bicentario, Caracas, La Casa de Bello, 1982. (Particularly: Guillermo Lohmann Villena, 'La modernidad de las ideas de Bello sobre la educación'; Pedro Grases, 'Bello, humanista y universitario'.

Jobet, J.C. Don Andrés Bello, orientador de la enseñanza de la época'. In: Doctrina y praxis de los educadores representativos chilenos. Santiago, Ed. Andrés Bello, 1970.

Labarca, H.A. Historia de la enseñanza en Chile. Santiago, Imprenta Universitaria, 1939.

Lira Urquieta, P. Andrés Bello. México, Colección Tierra Firme del Fondo de Cultura Económica, 1948.

Murillo Rubiera, F. Andrés Bello: historia de una vida y de una obra. In: Obras Completas de Andrés Bello.Caracas, La Casa de Bello, 1986. [Preface by Pedro Grases]

Rodríguez Monegal, E. El otro Andrés Bello. Caracas, Monte Avila Editores, 1969.

Seminario di Studi Latinoamericani del l'Universitá di Sassari. El pensiero pedagogico di Andrés Bello.Naples, Edizioni Scientifiche Italiane, 1984.

Weinberg, G. Several articles have been published on Andrés Bello in: Sur (Buenos Aires), n° 175, May 1949; Imagomundi (Buenos Aires), n° 3, March 1954; La Nación (Buenos Aires), literary supplement of 21 May 1978; and the present text which reproduces the article appearing in Prospects (Paris, UNESCO), vol. XIX, No. 1, 1989.

Copyright notice
This text was originally published in Prospects: the quarterly review of comparative education (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education, vol. XXIII, no. 1/2, 1993, p. 71-83.

Reproduced with permission. For a PDF version of the article, use:
http://www.ibe.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/archive/publications/ThinkersPdf/belloe.pdf

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Article by Gregorio Weinberg1 Andrés Bello, an exemplary figure in the history of Latin American culture, was one of its most outstanding educators in the nineteenth century and is generally acknowledged to be its greatest humanist. His robust personality and austere, scholarly way of life made him the embodiment of the maestro, a Spanish term [...]

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La autora menciona tres reglas básicas para usar los acentos. Las dos primeras situaciones son para cambiar la énfasis en la palabra. La última situación es para distinguir entre las palabras que tienen la misma ortografía, pero tienen significados diferentes. Pensé que fue interesante que los acentos son muy común en español, pero no hay muchos acentos en ingles. Estes es un gráfico que tienen algunos ejemplos de la última situación.

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¿Por qué es diferente el español de Puerto Rico en comparación con los otros países? Los puertorriqueños no marcan las r's como los otros hispanohablantes. El libro dice que es un sonido en el estilo francés. No sé como el sonido se origina, pero este blog dice que hay otras diferencias, también. Los puertorriqueñas usan los doble negativos frecuentemente, y tiene raíces en la población puertorriqueña en Nueva York y los Estados Unidos.

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El intercambio de palabras entre lenguas

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El intercambio de palabras entre lenguas

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Hay muchas palabras que nos suenan similar en lenguas diferentes. Sin embargo, en estos otras lenguas, los hablantes necesitan cambiar las palabras para que las palabras usen los sonidos familiares. En el libro, hay ejemplos de las palabras, como aisukurimu (helado) en japonés. Este articulo sobre la asimilación de palabras de inglés dice que a veces, no es necesario, especialmente cuando hay palabras en la lengua que ya tiene los significados.

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This blog post is about loanwords, calques, excessive use of foreign words in Italian language, communication issues arising from overuse of foreign words in Italian, the immense beauty of the Italian language and popularity of Italian across the globe.

What's going on with the Italian language? Why is there so much and seemingly uncontrolled contamination of Italian with foreign words especially English? Why do we use so many foreign words even when Italian vocabulary would suffice to convey the message more than adequately? Could it be because it makes us feel more international? Could it be that Italian is less "cool" as a language?

Roughly a couple of years ago, Annamaria Testa (an Italian communication expert), launched a petition (#dilloinitaliano, basically "say it in Italian") on www.change.org with the aim of creating awareness around the ever-growing trend of using foreign words in the Italian language even when there is neither semantic nor lexical need. Her initiative was echoed across Italy. Many famous journalists including Massimo Gramellini (La Stampa), Michele Serra (Repubblica) and other printed media including " Nazione", " Il Resto del Carlino", " Il Giorno", " Famiglia Cristiana" took up the matter. Even the Italian versions of international press such as " Wired", " Vanity Fair" and " Huffington Post " threw their weight behind the initiative.

Luca Bottura, a famous Italian radio host, also picked up the matter. Actually, once a week on his morning show on Radio Capital (Lateral), he has a section called "fastidio", literally irritation or annoyance, in which he jokes about annoying annoying or irritating habit of incomprehensible use of English words or expressions whereas there are perfect equivalents in Italian too.

Back to Annamaria Testa's idea, below is a footage of her speech at the TEDx event in Milan, where she addressed the issue of superfluous use of English expression in the Italian language today.

Far from being a linguistic obscurantist, especially in a language that is not my native tongue (actually my fourth after Kimeru, Kiswahili and English), I also fully support anyone speaking out against this trend that is not only alarming but also totally uncalled for. Though I do not miss the days of linguistic Italianisation, i.e. the voluntary or forced cultural assimilation into the Italian culture and language during the days of fascism, I believe that there needs to be a sensible use foreign words in the Italian language.

A loanword is a word adopted from a foreign language with little or no modification with the aim of filling lexical or semantic gaps in the target language. A language borrows from another either out of necessity or luxury.

Borrowing out of necessity applies to cases where a language assimilates terms and expressions from another language to bridge a lexical or semantic "gap". In most cases, this happens upon the introduction of a new object or concept from another country, culture or language. Think about Italian words like " patata (potato)" from Haitian, " caffé (coffee)" from Turkish, most of IT words currently used in Italian or terminology and expressions imported from sports originating from other countries such as " pick and roll" in basketball or " inning " in baseball etc.

On the other hand, luxury borrowing, concerns words and expressions borrowed from another language or culture though there is no actual need to do so as the borrowing language already has perfectly equivalent terms to express the same concept. Think about the use of words such as " babysitter, weekend, display and manager whereas we have Italian equivalents like " bambinaia, fine settimana, schermo, dirigente " respectively.

The general idea of luxury borrowing lies in facilitating communication even in cases where there is no actual lexical or semantic gap. However, of late in Italy there has been an ever-growing trend of unjustified if not excessive use of borrowed expressions.

Besides occurring at institutional level, which per se would call for a soberer choice of words, this new trend is even more marked in the fields of communication and finance. Sometimes you happen to come across newspaper headlines reading "Alitalia smentisce i rumors, nessun cambio di vertice" (where the word " rumors" can be perfetcly replaced by " voci"), "Il Manager milanese si è recato in procura" (which can be impeccably replaced by " dirigente"). In advertisement, we find expressions like "La nostra fall-winter collection" instead of " collezione autunno/inverno ".

At this point, one wonders how much this massive borrowing actually facilitates communication or whether it has a greater appeal on the readers as it proposes to do? In my opinion, an unjustified and indiscriminate use of English or any other language in the Italian language not only complicates communication but also becomes a source of uncalled for challenges for those expected to use these expressions.

Have a look at this hilarious video of Italian MPs struggling to come to terms with the pronunciation of the expression " stepchild adoption " in a recent heated debate over the civil partnership rights bill in parliament.

This is an example of poor communication as a result of language borrowing. What is a standard news bulletin viewer expected to understand from all this? Maybe the politicians' message would have come across clearer had the people involved used Italian instead. I guess the hilarious effect becomes a source of distraction for the viewer who must have been bent over in laughter instead of paying attention to an issue of such great importance.

Besides the comic effect, we should also consider that the average number of Italians with good grip of English language is pretty low (just 16%). So why use an English expression while the non-speakers of English are an overwhelming majority?

Lastly, there is the feeling that Italians generally tend to underestimate the great things they have and their beautiful language is no exception. A report released last October revealed that Italian ranked fourth among the most studied languages worldwide after English, Spanish and Chinese.

Bearing in mind that Italian can neither count on the demographic figures of the other higher-ranked countries (English has the United states, England and its former colonies, besides being spoken in Spain, Spanish basically dominates South America, while there are almost 1.4 billion Chinese) nor is it an economic superpower, at least not in the same breadth as the US and China, one can conclude that the non-Italians studying Italian do it for the love of the language and not the opportunities it has to offer. Maybe this has more to do more with their creativeness and culture (art, fashion, design, cuisine, music etc.) that people love so much across the globe.

In conclusion, it seems as though the use of language borrowing, especially from English, is more about coming across as "cool", "open minded" and international rather than actually bridging a linguistic gap. Overuse, if not abuse, of English words in the Italian language seems unjustified in most cases. Replacing words that already exist in the Italian language with foreign words leaves an overwhelming majority of Italians (84% as concerns English) in the dark.

Furthermore, even when trying "impress" our audience with "charming" foreign words, we should always bear in mind that the Italian language still ranks among the top-three most romantic languages worldwide (alongside French and Spanish).

As a matter of fact, didn't Thomas Mann actually offer some sort pledge of love for the Italian language in Confessions of Felix Krull? "I am truly in love with this beautiful language, the most beautiful in the world...."

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The use and abuse of loanwords in the Italian language - Neno Language Services - NLS

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This blog post is about loanwords, calques, excessive use of foreign words in Italian language, communication issues arising from overuse of foreign words in Italian, the immense beauty of the Italian language and popularity of Italian across the globe. What's going on with the Italian language?

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En este video, vemos que el bebé que crecía en una casa bilingüe puede procesar los sonidos de los dos lenguas, español y ingles. En el libro, menciona que los bebés desarrollan los sonidos desde sus cuidadores. El video muestra la evidencia de esto. Por once meses, la actividad en el cerebro del bebé muestra los efectos del contacto de dos lenguas.

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Bilingual and Monolingual Baby Brains Differ  in Response to Language

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La autora dice que los signos de interrogación y exclamación de apertura son usados para decir que el tipo de la frase antes de fin. Las otras lenguas tienen sus propias signos de puntuación. En japonés, tienen maru y toten, pero son básicamente igual a los periodos y las comas. La diferencia es en el texto horizontal y los textos verticales. La cultura y los tonos puede afectar el uso de puntuación.

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Punctuation is the salt in the soup of writing. Without all those periods, commas, colons, brackets, quotation and question marks and so on, we'd have a hard time making sense of the words that come flying by. However, even though peppering texts with little ink spots is a common phenomenon, specific languages handle this in quite diverse ways.

Even languages with the same script may have differing conventions. ¿Or didn't you know of the inverted question mark that, quite conveniently, pre-announces an interrogative sentence in Spanish? And don't forget the French custom of leaving a space before an exclamation point, here -> ! Needless to say, Japanese has its own set of punctuation marks too, and a number of special rules regarding their usage.

Let's start with "。" (句点, kuten or マル, maru), the Japanese full-stop mark, and "、" (読点, tōten or just テン, ten), the Japanese comma. What makes things a bit confusing is that these two coexist with "．" (ピリオド, piriodo) and "，" (コンマ, konma), respectively. Use of these latter two is restricted to horizontally written text, whereas "。" and "、" can appear in both vertical and horizontal writing.

Another punctuation mark that is very much like its English version is "？" (疑問符, gimonfu), also known as はてな ( hatena). It is not part of the core set of Japanese punctuation marks, since it is possible (and sometimes stipulated) that interrogative sentences end with a maru rather than a gimonfu. A similar situation applies with "！" (感嘆符, kantanfu), aka ビックリマーク ( bikkuri māku, surprise mark), which, despite its popularity, is not considered a full-fledged Japanese punctuation mark either.

Returning to domestic products, there is "・" (中黒, nakaguro). This one is mainly used for aligning things of equal status in an enumeration or list, such as 小・中学校 ( shō chū gakkō, elementary and junior high school) or 月・水・金 ( gessuikin, Mon./Wed./Fri.). In English translation, a nakaguro can be quite difficult to handle, with the options at hand including a slash, a hyphen, "and," "or" or "and/or." A second frequent usage of nakaguro is within katakana names, as in マイケル・ジャクソン (Michael Jackson) or ヨハン・ ゼバスティアン・バッハ (Johann Sebastian Bach).

Where three or more consecutive nakaguro marks come together, this indicates that something has been left unfinished, like in 申し訳ございませんが・・・ ( Mōshiwake gozaimasen ga ..., "I'm awfully sorry but ..."). Another common function of these dots is to indicate a notable silence when you might expect a response. You'll find them not only in dialogues in novels and other works of literature, but also in the テロップ ( teroppu, derived from "television optical slide projector") subtitles of many TV shows, where even nothing has to be represented as something.

Japanese punctuation includes various types of brackets, called 括弧 ( kakko). Rounded brackets are referred to 丸括弧 ( maru kakko) and they work basically the same way as in English. Also classified as a type of bracket are 「」, called 鉤括弧 ( kagi kakko, corner brackets), which are used to mark quotations and direct speech.

Note that the kagi kakko coexist with more English-like quotation marks (""), called 引用符 ( inyōfu). For quotes within quotes, as well as for titles of books and journals, pairs of 二重鉤括弧 ( nijū kagi kakko, double corner brackets) are used. They look like 『this』.

One more Japanese punctuation mark that is definitely good to know is "～," which is called a 波ダッシュ ( nami dasshu, wave dash). It is used to indicate ranges, such as in 新宿～池袋 ( Shinjuku kara Ikebukuro, from Shinjuku to Ikebukuro) or ①～④の中から最もふさわしいものを選べ ( Ichi kara yon no naka kara mottomo fusawashii mono o erabe, "Choose the most appropriate item from options 1 to 4"), which is a standard phrase in multiple-choice tests. In more casual writing the wave can also be used to indicate lengthening, like in the recent buzz term そだね～ ( Soda nē, "You're right"), a Hokkaido variant popularized by the Japanese women's curling team.

A most critical issue with respect to punctuation is the use (and non-use) of space. For foreign learners of Japanese this is not really a problem, given that the only thing you need to know is that you won't need it anyway: All Japanese punctuation marks come as full-width characters, which means that there is no space at all (except after the not-really-Japanese "？" and "！").

The same spacing rules do not apply in English, unfortunately, which gives Japanese learners of the language a really hard time. Thinking about it, the rules are in fact quite complex, and are rarely explained in English-language instruction in Japan. Anyone who has ever had to correct written assignments by Japanese students will certainly know what I'm talking about.

The toughest job of all, though, is when you have to work with texts that include both Japanese and English writing. So let me take this opportunity to apologize to the editor of this column for always giving him such a hard time deleting and inserting our spaces!

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In written Japanese, it's punctuation, but not as we know it | The Japan Times

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Punctuation is the salt in the soup of writing. Without all those periods, commas, colons, brackets, quotation and question marks and so on, we'd have a hard time making sense of the words that come flying by. However, even though peppering texts with little ink spots is a common phenomenon, specific languages handle this in quite diverse ways.

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¿Está demasiado tarde para aprender español?

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¿Está demasiado tarde para aprender español?

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Este artículo dice que una de las cosas más importantes cuando estás aprendiendo una lengua es para ser humilde y ser preparados para cometemos errores. Puede tener vergüenza, pero es importante para dominarlo, porque este es cuando puedes aumentar el contacto y aprender lo más. Las técnicas de inmersión son efectivos, y como el libro menciona, viajar es la gran motivación para mejorarse.

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A reader recently wrote to ask about a language-immersion program. How in the world do you narrow the choices and figure out whether that program is right for you? Will the Spanish you learn in Mexico be comprehensible in Spain and vice versa? What if you make horrible mistakes and embarrass yourself?

Learning a second language puts you in good company these days, Francois Grosjean wrote in Psychology Today: In 1980, about 11% of the U.S. population was bilingual. Today it's nearly double that.

"The position of prominence that English has in the U.S. is in no danger, but some room is now being made for other languages," he wrote. "This can only lead to a person's personal enrichment, increased ties between generations and cultures, and more diversity in job opportunities."

Some pretty great reasons to undertake this, but before you plunge headlong into this adventure for yourself or your child, consider these factors that you may need to be successful:

►Interest in the language. Taking on a new language isn't easy, but if you have the desire - the interest - your chances are better. (Attention parents who are forcing their kids to learn [fill in blank]).

►Time. Language acquisition takes time for formal classes if you pursue that route, but hanging out with people who are native speakers can be time-intensive too. Both are time well spent, but they are time.

►Resilience. Admitting what you don't know is often more difficult than showing off what you do know.

"To learn a language, you have to humble yourself," said Julianne Bryant, an associate professor of Spanish at Biola University in La Mirada.

So why subject yourself to such an ordeal these days? Aren't there translators that will turn another language into yours? Doesn't much of the world speak English?

Both of these things may be true to a certain extent, but there's also a sense of pride in accomplishment and a sense of belonging to a community that's different from your own.

Further, Bryant said, having a second language can benefit your brain.

Making the commitment may be more difficult than finding the right fit for you, but here are some of the ways you can begin to explore:

►Classes do help. You can do some online learning through, say, extension classes to help with language basics or with such learning tools as Rosetta Stone.

►Immersion helps too. There are different ways to immerse yourself, Bryant and Greenberg said. You might listen to TV programs or watch movies in that language or listen to music. You might hang out with people in your community who speak only that language.

But an away-from-home stint in which you are surrounded by that language may be the best teacher of all, perhaps aided by formal classes.

"Students have greater gains in oral proficiency and higher self-confidence," when they are immersed, she said. "They have larger gains in cultural competence."

Interestingly, buddying up with a person in another country who speaks some of your language is a bigger help than someone who knows none, Bryant said.

How do you begin narrowing the choices?

►Ask friends who have done an immersion. Don't be shy. They have no reason not to be frank.

►If you have a specific language in mind, check with the faculty at a community college or university and get their advice on what works, Greenberg said.

You may notice different words are used in different countries to mean the same thing; just as American and British English differ (trunk vs. boot, diaper vs. nappy), other languages do as well.

How do you adjust what you've learned to the language you'll now be hearing?

Bryant, who studied in Spain, ended up working in a community that spoke Caribbean Spanish. Here are her suggestions:

►If you have the basic structure of the language, you can do two things: learn to tune your ear to that accent or way of speaking and ask questions when you don't understand.

It's less important, she said, to learn strictly the language you will be speaking than to have the framework for it and know you will need to substitute some expressions for others.

►Be prepared to make mistakes.

Having the confidence to speak the language helps you forge ahead, even if you err, such as insisting you need "squid - like you wear on your feet" to the extremely puzzled shopkeeper in Quito, Ecuador, if what you really wanted were socks. Not that anything like that ever happened to me.

►Even knowing you will stumble, be fearless, Greenberg said. Your mistakes are unlikely to be fatal. Unless you die of embarrassment.

He was in Croatia and was ordering a pizza in Croatian, which he read and wrote pretty well, he said. He asked for various toppings, none of which was available. In frustration he asked the woman what was available to put on the pizza.

At least, that's what he thought he said. Instead he had just asked her what was available to put on a specific female body part.

"She cracked up," he said.

He realized what he had done, and although it was cringeworthy, laughter knows no language barrier. Plus he will always have a story to tell.

Like squid. You know. Like you wear on your feet.

Have a travel dilemma or question? Write to travel@latimes.com. We regret we cannot answer every inquiry.

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Learning a language means failure, embarrassment and the enrichment of your life

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A reader recently wrote to ask about a language-immersion program. How in the world do you narrow the choices and figure out whether that program is right for you? Will the Spanish you learn in Mexico be comprehensible in Spain and vice versa? What if you make horrible mistakes and embarrass yourself?

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El efecto de español en nuestros pensamientos

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El efecto de español en nuestros pensamientos

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El libro menciona la idea de las diferencias en las idea de espacio entre lenguas. Este video muestra que las ideas de colores, el tiempo, y los números son diferentes también. Con las comparaciones entre lenguas como inglés, kuuk thaayorre, y español, podemos ver que cada persona puede ver el mismo evento, pero nuestros lenguas afectan las maneras de pensar. Abre la discusión de éticos.

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Transcript of "How language shapes the way we think"

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TED Talk Subtitles and Transcript: There are about 7,000 languages spoken around the world -- and they all have different sounds, vocabularies and structures. But do they shape the way we think?