www.CostaRicaTicas.com

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BOOKS & READING:
International Ch*ldren's Library (free books): http://en.childrenslibrary.org/ - great source of online Ch*ldren's books to practice reading skills.
http://www.spanish.cl/reading.htm
http://www.123teachme.com/learn_spanish/spanish_reading_passages
http://www.spanishromance.com/spanish-language/stories/
http://www.childrensbooksforever.com/childrenpages/Spanish.html
http://www.childrensbooksonline.org/library-translations.htm
http://cnnespanol.cnn.com/ .... CNN in Spanish

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

Great links BD! Me Gusta!

NJ

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If you see me at the bottom, please bring me my running shoes!

In English, you'll hear statements like

"You shouldn't smoke in a hospital"

"They say she is very pretty"

"One never knows when he will turn up."

These are "impersonal expressions". In other words, we don't really have anyone specific in mind when we say "They say..." or "One" or " You". We mean people in general. This is what we mean by "impersonal".

Spanish has a slightly different format for expressing this Impersonal voice. Spanish adds the pronoun se in front of verbs to make general statements. Impersonal voice using se will use a singular verb since the se can be replaced by uno ("one").

How does one say "icecream" in Italian? ¿Cómo se dice "helado" en italiano?
You say (one says) "gelato". Se dice "gelato".
How do you spell "Valencia"? ¿Cómo se escribe "Valencia"?

The Passive Voice in Spanish is normally formed by using se + the third person singular or plural conjugation of a verb, similar to what we did with the Impersonal se. In Spanish there is not a subject - identified or not!


Language........An Active Voice Construction..................................A Passive Voice Construction

Spanish: .......... Los dependientes del almacén hablan ruso. ............. Se habla ruso en el mercado.
English: ..........The department store clerks speak Russian. .............. Russian is spoken in the shopping center.

Spanish: ..........Bob escribe el libro en italiano. .............................. Se escribe el libro en italiano.
English: ..........Bob is writing the book in Italian. ............................The book is written in Italian.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

Impersonal pronouns and the Passive voice:

This is one of the clearest examples of "speaking backwards", which confuses me so much. They speak in these forms as much as English speakers do, but the language (while in the same constructed format) is spoken as "verb-subject" rather than "subject-verb" as we are used to.

Eng: "the cake was eaten." Esp: "Se comió le torta." (literally: "it was eaten, the cake.")

I think it is important to think in this manner, almost aloof in English:

it runs fast, the river. (more literally: "it runs fast, the river does.".) That useless "TO DO" verb usage in English.

it pleases me, the ice cream.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

So basically talk like Yoda would.

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This post is provided purely for entertainment purposes and free of charge on the part of the author. No tourist or travel promotion is expressed or implied. The author of this post was not provided compensation (monetary or otherwise) for this potentially entertaining contribution.

There are at least 3 distinct uses for "se".... as part of reflexive verb and verb conjugation, as a replacement for "le, la, les, las" when the indirect and direct object pronouns are used together, and in the "impersonal" as described above. These can appear in similar areas of the sentence so become confusing because of that. But they are distinct enough that I don't think the intended meaning is unclear...it is just hard to pick up when learning the language.

Actually, I'm not sure what you mean by speaking backwards (i.e. Yoda-speak). The complete sentence would be "EL (o ELLA) se comió la torta." and it translates to "HE (or SHE) ate the cake"... subject-verb.

The key point here is it's OK to drop the redundant subject, given Spanish speakers know it is implied by the "se comió" verb construction.

mh

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mh

You guys are a few semesters (if not years) ahead of me.

Hummpf making small joke I was.

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This post is provided purely for entertainment purposes and free of charge on the part of the author. No tourist or travel promotion is expressed or implied. The author of this post was not provided compensation (monetary or otherwise) for this potentially entertaining contribution.

One more good learning site:
http://berks.psu.edu/StudentServices/IT ... amples.htm

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Softbob

There is nothing either good or bad
but thinking makes it so.
HAMLET

Not correct in this context. The 'English' phrase is "The cake was eaten". "Se comió la torta." is the entire phrase in Spanish. There is no pronoun subject required in impersonal phrases, same as in English.

Also, you would not need "se" in the active voice: "He ate the cake" ... "el comió la torta".

[EDIT] I just read this and I am coming off as a know-it-all in the language. Apologies. What I typed is as I understand things. Perhaps "el se comió la torta" is correct in certain contexts. I sometimes get tripped up by figuring out if and when they are being reflexive.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

I am exchanging whatsapp with a chica, and I have just seen an example of the impersonal phrase "se puede enfermar". I now can understand that she is saying "it makes one sick" ... and not a pronoun form of someone making someone else sick.

Also, she used the phrase "me gusto" (in a sentence), which I am still awaiting an explanation from a native speaker as to the context that it is in. I like to use these messages as insight into the living language.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

Here is what she wrote (remembering that it is always about the money): "COntrario corazón me gusto mucho fue algo bello estar contigo ..."

According to my native-speaking friend, this is correct phrasing as she is alluding to herself as a part of the 'experience'. Forget the silliness of the message, I am learning how to use the language by studying how and what they say. This chica never uses punctuation, but she articulates her words in messages. Most chicas type garbage abreviations that are impossible to understand.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!

What she literally wrote makes little sense "On the contrary, I like myself a lot". But what I think she is saying is "On the contrary, my love, I liked it a lot. It was [very] nice to be with you.

She is using the past tense, but didn't use an accent over the o. They never do. Even some educated people don't use them in emails and texts. The correct way would have been... "Corazon me gustó mucho. Fue algo bello estar contigo."

Ahh. Thank you for a very important distinction. Now if I ever see "me gusto" I will stop to see if this is a past tense statement, or something else entirely.

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bypassin' kinky, and usin' the whole chicken!!!