Thoughts on the Spanish Language

Stormtroper

It's the Argentine version of this:



Dunno about the Shulk thing.

glennmagusharvey

How does "fichines" mean something related to videogames?

Stormtroper

First time I hear that word.

From a quick Google it means "arcade" in Argentina.

glennmagusharvey

jugar = (v) to play
juego = (n) game
jugo = (n) juice
lugar = (n) place
luego = (adv) later/soon/therefore
Lugo = (n) (a city or province in Spain)

Latin:
ludus = game
locus = place

glennmagusharvey

crujientes de papa sagrado

glennmagusharvey

if something-ón is a bigger something, then what is a wontón and what is a nyoro~n ñorón?

glennmagusharvey

Something I've been curious about for a while:

* Venezuela
* Valenzuela

Are these two names related?

glennmagusharvey

Re:Zero tiene un doblaje.

Este vídeo compara los doblajes en japonés, inglés y español.

Stormtroper

Something I've been curious about for a while:

* Venezuela
* Valenzuela

Are these two names related?

Both are based on a place name (Venice* and Valencia respectively) plus the "zuela" suffix (or its equivalent in italian).

* Because of these. Alternatively it means "big water" in Añú and the resemblance is a coincidence.

Stormtroper

TIL "usted" must not be used when referring to the king of Spain.

Majestad es el tratamiento protocolario que designa el Real Decreto 1368/1987.1​ En lengua oral, sin embargo, es usado el de señor.2​ Si se emplea la dignidad mayestática, el tiempo empleado debe ser la segunda persona del plural; por el contrario, si se emplea señor, se emplea la tercera persona del singular.3​ En ningún caso puede ser tratado de usted.2​

glennmagusharvey

#formalitycreep

glennmagusharvey

I know that talking about location should use estar, e.g. "¿Donde está el gato?", but what kind of sense is implied (aside from someone being a noob at Spanish) if someone says "¿Donde es el gato?"? Or more generally, is there some sort of poetic or other meaning to assigning location as an inherent quality to something?

Stormtroper

I can't think of any context where doing so suggests anything besides misuse of grammar.

If for some reason one wants to assign it some other meaning, in an extremely generous way I think one can interpret that "ser" as a synonym of "existir" and get all philosophical about it.

glennmagusharvey

Stormtroper wrote: »

What do you mean? The only ones I can come up with are Argentina, (República) Dominicana and China (Can't think of a non-country example).

Descubrí otro: Noruega.

glennmagusharvey

¿Cuál es correcto, and por qué?

"los componentes, que han hecho posible mantener la cobertura forestal"
"los componentes, que han hechos posible mantener la cobertura forestal"

Stormtroper

The former. "Hechos" is the plural of "hecho", i.e. facts, but the word there refers to the conjugation of the verb "hacer".

glennmagusharvey

Oh, it's just used as a conjugation and not as a participle and is thus not declined, I see.

Also, TIL, "pingas" means "penises" in Spanish.

Stormtroper

Yup. I've always figured that was the point of the meme.

Anyhows...

glennmagusharvey

So how is a sweetened carbonated beverage named? =P

Stormtroper wrote: »

Yup. I've always figured that was the point of the meme.

Pretty sure it has more to do with "pingas" sounding like "penis" in English.

Stormtroper

Here we call them "refrescos", though I guess by default one can't go wrong with "neutral" TV Spanish, in this case either "gaseosas" or "sodas".

Stormtroper

¿Cual dialecto del español hablas?

I got 1. Venezuela, 2. Canary Islands, 3. Colombia

glennmagusharvey

> TV advertisement for Babbel.com

¡La cena estaba deliciosa!

Should this be "estaba" or "era"?

Stormtroper

"Estaba" (or "estuvo") is correct, " era" is not. I don't think there's a particular reason why that's so.

glennmagusharvey

Does it depend on whether it's past vs. present tense, or whether it is about the meal or the individual food item itself?

Stormtroper

It doesn't depend on tense ("estuvo/esta/estara deliciosa"). It does depend on it being a specific meal rather than the food item itself ("el pasticho de ayer estuvo delicioso" vs. "el pasticho es delicioso, lo como siempre que puedo"). I'm not sure how that fits into the whole ser vs. estar thing.

Assume there are tildes wherever there should be one.

glennmagusharvey

Maybe it's because a meal is a temporary process in time but a food is a static concept? Or is it not really this at all?

Stormtroper

Yeah, probably.

fourteenwings

Maybe it's because a meal is a temporary process in time but a food is a static concept?

I do like how metaphysical language becomes when you try and analyze it.

Stormtroper

My mother (who knows philosophy) claims that us Spanish speakers have an edge in philosophy due to the ser vs. estar* thing.

I doubt it's true.

* tl;dr: both literally mean "is", but "ser" is used when something is essentially true (is that the right term?), as opposed to circumstantially true which is when "estar" is used. Except when it's an exception (which is often).

glennmagusharvey

Do adverbs generally come first in Spanish?

e.g. "Ahora no tengo bastante dinero."?

I'm asking this since the placement of "now" can affect English meaning:
"Now I don't have enough money" = something just happened to cause my cash to be insufficient*
"I don't have enough money now" = these past several days/weeks/months I've had little money left over

*(Also there is another usage of "Now, ", as a sentence opener, a la "So, " or "Well, ", but this isn't the meaning I'm referring to.)