Welcome to the Insta Spanish Newsletter Volume
87
Part of the Spanish Learning Blog - your weekly lessons with mp3 files, as well as links to Spanish travel spots and more. ¡Feliz día del pavo! In honor of turkey day, we're dedicating this issue of our newsletter to animals, both sounds and idiomatic vocabulary.
Have you ever read a Spanish cartoon strip? They can actually be a helpful way of learning the language! They always have imagery, are always pretty short - and often times the words used are common words that may be slang that you would not learn in a textbook. One thing you find frequently in comic strips are animal sounds, and what sounds like "woof woof" to us in English, to the Spanish speaking world, is "guau, guau" - a bit more like BOW WOW :)
This week we’re going to take a look at the sounds that animals make “in Spanish” or according to Spanish speaking people. And instead of featuring a Spanish artist, we’ll feature a “spanish speaking” animal character: Leo Verdura. One of the few in the history of spanish cartoons.
We are now up to nearly 4,000 members in our online forum - and this week there was also a lively chat session, which will hopefully become a weekly occurrence. You can see the chat schedule here. I didn't get too many bites on my movie discussion forum last week - but if anybody has a movie they'd like to discuss - let me know and I'll try to watch it. ¡Vámanos gente! :)
I'm also working overtime on a new e-learning section of Insta Spanish that will contain the entire Musical Spanish program as well as Learn Spanish Verbs Fast, the Spanish Online Tutorial, and some other products we've been working on - as well as an interactive quiz section where you can track your progress. This will be $9.99 per month although I'll be offering a discount to all current members of the newsletter and websites. Stay tuned as I'll have screenshots and coupons available in the next couple of weeks. And we finally ARE doing a new podcast this week - Maite Padilla will be helping me, so for once you'll get to hear 2 voices. Bueno ya empezamos con la lección de la semana!
Mimicking Animal Sounds in Spanish
¿Qué hace el perro? ¿Qué hace la vaca? We’re going to pay attention to the verb and to the representation of the sound, known as "onomatopoeia." So as we've already discussed above, in English we use the term "woof, woof" for a dog barking. Let's go over some of these sounds - so that you'll be prepared when somebody says "pío pío", you won't be totally clueless as to what they are talking about.
El perro ladra (ladrar). El perro hace "guau, guau."
Dogs bark. Dogs say "woof, woof."
La vaca muge (mugir). La vaca hace "muu."
Cows moo. Cows say "moo."
El pollito pía (piar). El pollito hace "pío, pío."
Chicks chirp. Chicks say "chirp, chirp."
El gato maúlla (maullar). El gato hace "miau, miau."
Cats meow. Cats say "meow, meow."
La oveja bala (balar). La oveja hace "bee."
Sheep bleat. Sheep say "baa."
El búho ulula (ulular). El búho hace "uh, uh, uh."
Owls hoot. Owls say "hoo, hoo."
There are some animals that have a similar sound both in English and Spanish. For instance:
lions and tigers roar - "grrr."
El león y el tigre rugen (rugir). Hacen "grrr."
External Link: Article about Spanish Animal Sounds (with more examples)
Animal Idioms - Modismos con Animales
Here are some modismos involving animals that I found on the Colloquial spanish - speak like a spaniard blog online (gracias!)
"Estar de un humor de perros" - to be in a bad mood
"Tiempos de perros" - bad or beastly weather
"Poner el carro delante de las mulas" - to put the cart before the horse
"Más raro que un perro verde" translates to "Rarer than a green dog"
"Ser patoso" means "To be awkward or clumsy"
"La edad del pato" - an awkward age
"Pagar el pato" - to foot the bill
"Oveja negra" - black sheep (as in the black sheep of the family)
"Como quitarle un pelo a un gato" - "Like a drop in the bucket".
The Complete Musical Spanish
Learn Spanish the fun and easy way - 4 CD set (2 audio CDs, 2 CD-roms) teaches the basics of Spanish through songs like La Bamba, Guantanamera, and Cielito Lindo. Sales support the newsletter as well... Check out all of the buying options including downloadable version here.
Spanish Cartoon Leo Verdura
Leo Verdura was created by the late spanish cartoonist Rafael Ramos (1943-2000) in 1986. It would appear once a week in "El Pequeño País", the youngsters supplement of the "El País" sunday paper.
As you must have guessed by his surname: "verdura". (Which translates as either "vegetable" or "greenery"). Leo was a very unconventional lion: Vegetarian, enviromentalist, and a family man. I don’t believe he ever roared. His friends and companions were Raad, the leopard, and a baby gorilla, along with his carnivorous wife Katya and his two sons, Stanley and Livingstone.
And finally. Does the name of the spanish city of León stand for "lion"?
Not exactly. Despite the portrayal of a lion in its coat of arms. The origin of this denomination lies in the name of the Roman city of Legio VII Gemina. Originally a roman military camp. León derives from "legion".
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León, Spain
León is famous for its Gothic León Cathedral and many other monumental buildings, such as the Real Colegiata de San Isidoro (which holds the Royal Pantheon, a mausoleum in which medieval Kingdom of León's royal family were buried, and also has one of the world's best collections of Romanesque paintings); Casa de Botines (an early work of Spanish architect Antoni Gaudí, nowadays occupied by a bank); San Marcos (originally the Military Order of Santiago's home, built in the 16th century); or the new MUSAC, the Castile and León Museum of Contemporary Art. León is also known for its "fiestas", like Easter. Leonese processions are declared to be of International Interest and, on those days, many people from all over the world visit León to see and participate in its traditions (from Wikepedia).
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Insta Spanish Newsletter Volume
87 ,
Nov 17, 2007  |
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