What's with the question marks?

There are a couple of punctuation marks used in Spanish which are not seen in English, namely the upside down question mark and exclamation mark '¿' and '¡'. They can look a little confusing at first, but are simply used to begin the question or exclamation. Often they come at the beginning of the sentence, but this is not necessarily the case. The upside down symbol appears at the start of the actual question or exclamation even if this is mid-sentence.

A few examples -

¿Como estás? - How are you?
Y la restuarante, ¿donde está? - And the restaurant, where is it?
¡Qué lástima! - What a shame!

Slightly irregular -ar verbs

Yesterday's conjugation of the week was 'contar' - 'to count' or 'to tell'. Like most Spanish verbs with an 'o' in the second to last sylable it is conjugated slightly irregularly. In verb forms where the 'o' is stressed it becomes 'ue', with the 'u' being pronounced a bit like a 'w' in English.

There are many verbs which follow this pattern. Here are a few of them -

costar - to cost
descontar - to discount
recontar - to recount
probar - to prove, to test, to try
aprobar - to approve, to pass (an exam or a law)
acordar - to agree, to remind
acordarse - to remember (using the reflexive form of acordar which is something for another post)
recordar - to remember
mostrar - to show
rodar - to roll
sonar - to sound
soñar - to dream
soltar - to release, to let go of

Conjugation of the Week - 3. Contar - To count or to tell

Like last week's example, 'contar' is an -ar verb, so it has the same endings as andar and other regular -ar ending verbs. However it is slightly irregular, like many Spanish verbs that have an 'o' or an 'e' in the second to  last sylable. More on that tomorrow. See previous posts in this series for more about conjugations.

Contar - To count or to tell (a story)

cuento = I count
cuentas = you count (sing. fam.)
cuenta = he/she/it counts, you count (sing. formal)
contamos = we count
contáis = you count (pl. fam.)
cuenten = they count, you count (pl. formal)

Useful Website - Word Reference

When learning a language a good dictionary is invaluable, and these days they are found online as much as in the bookshops. My personal favourite is WordReference.com. This site has a wealth of resources in many languages. There are bilingual and monolingual dictionaries, verb conjugators and specific dictionaries such as a legal dictionary. If a word is not found in the bilingual dictionaries you can search the monolingual Spanish dictionary and there will always be a link to search the RAE (Real Academia Epañola) dictionary which is the official authority on the Spanish language.

In addition to the various dictionaries, there is also an active forum for language questions. This can be a great way to find out how a word or phrase might be used or translated in real life. There is often some discussion about the different ways a word might be used in different parts of the Spanish speaking world.

Finally there are a few useful extras including iPhone and Android apps and a mini-site which can be embedded into a website (which may well make an appearance in this blog's sidebar very soon).

Correction - Andar

Just a quick correction - or note - to the Conjugation of the Week post on Andar. Andar isn't actually a completely regular verb as I said it was in the post. It is regular in the present tense though, which is the only one I posted, so all regular -ar verbs are conjugated this way in the present tense. It is irregular in some other tenses though (the preterite past for example) so I probably should have used a different verb as an example of a perfectly regular verb.

A big D'oh from me. And a mental note to check more carefully what I write, especially when there are hundreds of regular verbs to choose from.

Apologies to all the readers.

Andorran Elections

Reading newpapers or watching news reports can be a great way to learn Spanish, but it can be difficult to follow the news if you don't know the political background of a country.

Starting with where I am right now, Andorra has just held a general election, and has had a change of government as a result. For such a small country (there are just over 20 000 voters out of a population of around 90 000 as many residents do not hold Andorran nationality) there are a lot of political parties. The most significant, at least this time around, are the Social Democrats (Partie Socialdemócrata - PS) to the centre left of the political spectrum, and the Democrats for Andorra (Demócrates per Andorra - DA) to the centre right. Despite the similarity of names the parties seem to have quite different policies with PS taking a more interventionist approach than DA.

In the recent election, the result was a substantial win for DA, making Toni Martí the new head of the government (jefe del gobierno). DA are the orange (naranja) party here, so the papers were talking about a sea of orange.

You can read more about the Andorran election (in Spanish) in this article from El Periodico.

Using TV and Films

Image: digitalart / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Watching films and TV can be a great way to learn and practice your Spanish. Once you reach a level where you can follow a Spanish film without subtitles it is very satisfying (although obviously some films are easier than others). However if you just throw yourself in at the deep end and try to watch a Spanish television channel or film it can get very frustrating very quickly if you do not understand enough to get the gist of what is going on.

Fortunately, modern technology gives you more options to help you out - namely a selection of languages for both audio and for subtitles. For me, the easiest way to watch the television and still learn some Spanish is to watch English programmes or films with the subtitles in Spanish. Many Spanish language channels and lots of DVDs offer this option and it is an almost effortless way to expand your vocabulary. Just read along in Spanish and work out how the English phrases are translated. It is great if you want to learn a few more colloquial phrases as well, although bear in mind that the translations are probably equivalents rather than literal.

If you want to challenge yourself more, I find watching Spanish programmes with Spanish subtitles very useful, as it helps me with any words that my ears miss. I find it is sometimes different to separate the words when people speak quickly, so subtitles can really help.

You may have noticed that I didn't suggest watching a programme in Spanish with the subtitles in English. This is because this method never worked well for me. Perhaps because I am more of a visual than an aural type of learner I find it really hard to concentrate on the Spanish audio if I can see the English translation in front of me. That is not to say that you shouldn't try it - we all learn differently after all, and what works for me is not what works for everybody. The great thing is that with a few presses on a remote control you can try all the combinations and see what works for you.