Word of the Day
-
To Pretend: Hacer como que
“When Joseph saw his brothers, he recognized them, but he pretended to be a stranger to them and spoke to them harshly…” Genesis 42:7 NET1 While I would be inclined to agree that, for academic work, I would have to demonstrate that this word is actually difficult to translate, I will only briefly do so here. If you are like me, you have enough experience in Spanish to know that the common output of interlingual dictionaries and online translating apps “fingir” is not quite right; native speakers do not often say “fingir” in the same contexts in which we would say “pretend” in English and, if they occasionally do, it…
-
The point is / my point is :: La cuestión es / mi cuestión es
I have often said “mi punto es” in Spanish and people seem to understand, even those unfamiliar with English. Still, as we were driving down the rather uncongested M-30 towards either (if my memory serves me well) Fuente del Berro or Goya in downtown Madrid for a lunch and sobremesa, and discussing the then recent retirada of the American military from Afghanistan (I will discuss that more in a moment), my partner and her father said that the expression “mi punto es” is not really used. They insisted that they understood what I meant by it and that I should continue but I made a point to stop and discuss…
-
Face of the earth: Faz de la tierra
As he was walking down the street and looking around at the overgrown yards, dusty windows, weeds protruding through the cracks in asphalt. The playful does trotting through the onboarding ramp to the highway, the overhead metro trains fallen off the tracks; a feeling hit him: he might be the last man on the face of the Earth. / Mientras estuvo caminando en la calle y mirando los jardínes descuidados, ventanas polvorientas, maleza saliendo del asfalto quebrado. Las venadas trotando alegres en la rampa de entrada a la carretera, los trenes de metro elevado caídos de los carriles; sintió de súbito: puede ser el último hombre en la faz de…
-
Suerte: sort/kind/type
This is the other suerte. Spanish speakers of a certain level are likely familiar with the word "suerte," which one says when describing the alignment of circumstances in a favorable way for whomever he is ascribing the "suerte" to. You know, luck. It is used in the same way a speaker of British English might use "lot," ...
-
Irrisorio: Laughable
"...what inspired me to write this post was the following rarity."
-
Encimar: to stack
I stacked the books on top of one another. / Encimé los libros uno sobre otro. Encima means on top (of). And Encimar means to stack, or place on top of. Isn’t that a tidy bit of language?
-
A chunk of words about rocks and rocky edges
Barranca: ravine or hillside. Peña: crag. Peñasco: big crag. Cantil: ridge; ledge; shelfAcantilado: bluffEscarpa: escarpment, slopePrecipicio: cliff/precipice
-
Aquellos: one of those
Fue una de aquellas noches en las que, a pesar de que nada te previene de dormir, para nada no podés hacerlo. / It was one of those nights in which, despite the fact that nothing prevents you from sleeping, you just can’t seem to do it. A veces me encuentro con aquel pensador que no te permite ninguna premisa de tal modo que la conversación ni tiene un punto de partida. / Sometimes I find myself with one of those thinkers that doesn’t allow any premise, to such an extent that the conversation doesn’t even have a starting point. Once again, this is one of those words that the…
-
El establishment: the establishment
“There are millions and millions of people who are tired of establishment politics, who are tired of corporate greed, who want a candidate that will help lead a mass movement in this country…” / “Hay millones y millones de personas que están hartas de la política del establishment, que se cansan de la codicia corporativa, que buscan a un candidato que les ayudara a guiar un movimiento masivo en este país…” I’ve heard this usage in Argentinean media—I say this in case it is a regionalism. I’ve seen other translations, like establishment: el statu quo and el establecimiento but I’ve never heard anyone say either of those. I suppose “la…
-
Pensar si: to wonder whether; to wonder if
I wonder whether we could train parrots to interpret between birds and humans.Pienso si podríamos entrenar al loro a interpretar del ave al humano. “Wonder whether / if” is usually translated as “preguntarse” or “quiero / me gustaría saber.” I think preguntarse entails a self reflection or awareness that wondering does not usually and to want to know connotes more resolve than does wondering. Wondering is a very vague or loose way of questioning a topic—not to be cliché, but it is much like letting the mind wander. “Pensar si” is just as vague.Unfortunately, things get a bit more complicated when you consider “wondering why…” Pienso por qué…? Honestly, I’m…
