The Spanish Civil War - Guerra Civil Española

75 years ago this week, on the 18th July 1936, the Spanish Civil War began, entering Spain into four years of war and forty of facist rule under General Franco. Although in Europe and worldwide, World War II still casts a long shadow, the Spanish Civil war probably cast an even longer shadow over that country. The Spanish had to wait until the mid 1970s before they had a vote again. Their war was particularly nasty in that it pitted neighbour against neighbour, and even family members against each other. The depth of feeling the war and the Franco era still evoke can be seen by the number of comments on this newspaper article - http://www.publico.es/espana/387587/una-sombra-larga-que-se-proyecta-hasta-el-presente.

It is easy in hindsight to paint one side as the bad guys, but the truth is that both groups did some pretty bad stuff before and during the war, and that either side could probably have averted the war if they had wanted to pursue a diplomatic solution. Wikipedia has a good article covering the causes and events of the war in a lot of detail - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_Civil_War

Notes on the simple past

Yesterday's conjugation of the simple past gives a way to express the past. Harder than learning the verb forms though, is learning when to use it. The good news is that if you use the wrong past tense you will nearly always be understood, in the same way that a foreign person speaking English will often make mistakes but still be understood. The simple past is used to represent a single event, a point in the past, never for something that is ongoing.

Therefore 'tiré' can translate 'I threw', but never 'I was throwing' or 'I used to throw'  which would be translated using the imperfect tense - more on that in future posts. However, 'I threw' is not necesarily translated as 'tiré'. 'I threw a ball every day' would also be translated using the imperfect tense because it refers to a repeating, ongoing event. Practise of reading and listening is the best way to learn when Spanish people would use each tense.

There are another couple of points which are important to note. Firstly the pronuncuation - it is important to stress the accented sylable, otherwise the words will be heard as the present tense. The stress in the simple past falls nearer to the end of the word in most cases.

Secondly, the first person plural ('tiramos' / 'we throw') is the same in the present and simple past tenses, so the context has to be relied on to indicate which is meant.

Conjugation of the week - 13. Tirar - to throw, simple past

This week it is back to the regular -ar verbs with the simplest of the many past tenses in Spanish. The simple past tense is also known as the past historic tense or the preterite tense. It is similar to the simple past tense in English, but is perhaps used less. It refers to a specific event in the past, that is now finished. See previous posts in this series for more about conjugations.

Tirar - to throw, simple past tense

tiré = I threw
tiraste = you threw (sing. fam.)
tiró = he/she/it/ you (sing. pol.) threw
tiramos = we threw
tirasteis = you threw (pl. fam.)
tiraron = they/you (pl. pol.) threw

Telediario en 4 minutos

I have mentioned RTVE's four minute online news bulletin before. I find it is a great way to keep my Spanish from getting too rusty if I am not using it, as well as keeping up with events in the Spanish speaking world. I thought it was worth mentioning again here as I have just discovered that I can now watch it on my Android phone. I don't know whether it is down to a change on the site, or an Android browser update, but when I tried previously I could not view the video.

I have no idea if it works with other phones. The site uses Flash to show video, so I suspect iPhone users will be out of luck. I should mention that this is not a mobile site and is therefore quite bandwidth intensive. You will need to use wifi to view it unless you have a really good data plan. I guess you need an up-to-date version of Android with Flash enabled as well. Even so, I find it is great to watch over breakfast without having to drag a laptop to the table.

Pedido - order/ordered

I was halfway through a sentence on the phone today when I realised that I didn't know the word for an order. I knew the verb 'to order' ('pedir') and hence how to say 'I have ordered' ('he pedido') but the noun escaped me. It turns out, after a quick check on Word Reference, that it is 'pedido' - a word I could perhaps have guessed at but didn't. I am not sure if there is any advice to avoid that situation when it happens, although usually it will be possible to think of another way to say something. When asking a more complicated question it is often worth mentally rehearsing it in your head, but it is impossible to do this in a conversation if you want to sound fluent.

Despedirse - to dismiss oneself

Reading the Spanish news coverage (above on www.rtve.es) of the recent demise of the News Of The World, an interesting phrase I came across was 'News Of The World se despide'. This is a good opportunity to mention reflexive verbs, as well as the verb 'despedir', which has a few related meanings.

Basically 'despedir' means 'to dismiss'. Depending on the context this can mean anything from 'to say goodbye' to 'to sack/fire somebody'. A 'fiesta de despedido' is a leaving party for example. Used reflexively (when the verb refers to itself - me despido, se despide etc.) it means to dismiss oneself. Usually this means to quit, leave or resign. In this case of course it means the newspaper is closing itself down.

Ojalá - Hopefully

Yesterday I mentioned the simlilarity between Spanish and other Latin based languages. In addition though, Spanish has been influenced by Arabic over the years. This is not surprising given that Spain was occupied by the Moors (los Moros) from northern Africa for over 700 years.

One of the commonest examples is 'ojalá', meaning 'hopefully' or 'God willing'. This is derived from the commonly used Arabic phrase 'insha Allah' meaning 'God willing'.

A few other examples of Spanish words with Arabic roots are -

aceite - oil
azucar - sugar
rincón - corner
barrio - neighbourhood
sofá - sofa
naranja - orange