Category Archives: spanish

My Favorite Spanish-Language Cooking Blogs

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When I first came to Spain, I didn’t have a kitchen. I didn’t have a refrigerator. I lived in a renovated convent in the midst of Toledo’s casco antiguo.

Then, in Salamanca, I had a small kitchen. Quite adequate, actually. At least I had an oven, which isn’t always the case, I’ve learned. I have always loved baking, so I started baking for Mario, who will never say no to a galleta, chocolate-chip or otherwise. The only problem? I had no measuring cups. Measuring cups are another one of the US’s particularities. Most of the world cooks and—especially—bakes in grams. It makes sense. A cup of all-purpose flour doesn’t weigh the same as a cup of another type of flour. Using grams is more precise.

That didn’t help me, though. I had to use Google to convert all my cups of flour to grams, often dragging my laptop into the kitchen and using flour-stained fingers to type “1 cup of flour to grams” into the search bar. Annoying. There had to be a better way.

I’ve found that following Spanish-language cooking blogs is the way forward. Not only do they use grams and milliliters, they also don’t call for ingredients that are difficult, if not impossible, to find in places like Zamora. (In Madrid, it’s not impossible to find anything.) Moreover, it was a way for me to explore new dishes, ingredients, and flavors. A win-win!

Thus, I’d like to present to you all, some of whom I hope speak Spanish, my favorite cooking blogs written by Spaniards. I hope that you find them as interesting and worthwhile as I do.

ElComidista

El Comidista. El Comidista is written by Mikel López Iturriaga, who started his blog, Ondakín, and was later picked by up El País, one of Spain’s national newspapers. Mikel doesn’t just share delicious, in-season recipes; he also talks about all things related to gastronomy: restaurants, kitchen gadgets, cookbooks, culinary pop culture, etc. It’s always an entertaining read. Check it out:

JaviRecetas

Javi Recetas.  Behind Javi Recetas is José Javier Cabanas, a firefighter and student. Javi always proposes accessible recipes as well as useful information, like how to desalinate salt cod. I like his basic recipes especially.

RecetasdeMon

Recetas de Mon. Recetas de Mon is run by Mónica, born in Barcelona.

CocinandoentreOlivos

Cocinando entre Olivos. Erik pointed this site out to me (and to his other readers, of course). The only problem I have with it is the lack of recipe summaries, so to speak.

Biscayenne

Biscayenne: para golosos irredentos. Since I have one major goloso (person with a sweet tooth) at home, I love the name of the site. I’m not very familiar with Spanish desserts, but I’m learning. Step by step. This site is a great way to learn about the very traditional desserts like flan and, like Emeril, to take them up a notch or two.

A Freír Pimientos. There’s an expression in Spanish: “¡Vete a freír esparragos!” (Literally, “Go away and fry asparagus!” It means, basically, get the hell out of my sight. So I can’t help but think of that when I read this website’s title, which means (in my loose translation)

NoMasTuppersdeMama

No Más Tuppers de Mamá. This blog is run by three guys in their 20s, and it all looks finger-lickin’ good. Their recipes are both simple and elaborate, delicious and simple. Also, they come with recommended playlists, if you’re into that sort of thing. The three guys—Carlos, Marc, and Adrià—met in Manchester during their Erasmus semester abroad. If you don’t enjoy cooking, follow their blog at your own risk—you may be tempted to start.

So there you go, the Spanish-cooking blogs I follow. What about you, any recommendations?

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¿Cómo está usted?

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How are you? Easy question really. I don’t have a problem answering. Neither do my students—“I’m fine, thank you” is their automatic response to my daily question. But recently I got to thinking about usted, tú, and the lack of formal English.

English used to have another way to say “you.” If you have attended church, you might recall the word “thou” or “thy”—“Our Father, who art in Heaven … thy Kingdom come, thy will be done.” Is this ringing any bells? You see, English used to have a formal and informal tense. “Thou” was informal, whereas “you” was formal. Thus, “thou” and “thy” and “thine” were used with God, because was meant to be seen as a close friend and not some distant deity. In the same way, the Spain Spanish Bible uses “tú” when talking to God, and the apostle Paul addresses the people in the “vosotros” form rather than the “ustedes” form, trying to be as informal and friendly as possible.

In the past, I am almost sure, “usted” and “ustedes” were used more frequently in Spain. In fact, my husband assures me that his parents actually addressed their parents as “usted,” a fact I find both mind-boggling and extremely interesting from a linguistics standpoint. I heard my mother-in-law talking to her aunt one day, her aunt who is also her godmother. “¿Cómo está, tía?” she asked. “Queremos visitarla muy pronto.” Of course, that’s not her exact quote, but you get the gist. It struck me as extremely odd, having heard Mario refer to his parents as “tú” and “vosotros” the whole time I’d known him. I referred to his parents as “tú” almost from the first time we met.

DSCN1314

Jesús has always been “tú” for me

I met them in November 2009, and, I admit, I was very anxious to do so. I wasn’t sure how to refer to them, if I should tutear them, but Mario assured me that I should. In fact, I’m not sure I could even have used usted; I was so not used to using that form, having lived in Spain for quite some time. Since that time I’ve learned the use of the formal form is very contested in places like France or Germany. Since then, I’ve come to feel quite comfortable, quite natural when I address my father-in-law in the tú form. I’m not sure how I would act otherwise.

For me, using “usted” is quite difficult. I struggle to use it, because it’s not a daily thing for me. When I hear someone address me in “usted,” I often am not sure if they are talking to me or about a third person, because the “usted” form is the same as the third-person form. If a person from South American uses “ustedes,” I find myself baffled—who are they talking to? I understand how to use “usted;” my problem is putting it into practice. It’s not an everyday occurrence, and so I lack practice.

Maybe someday my Spanish will improve to the point that I am very comfortable using the “usted” tense; however, I feel that will be a long time coming. How about you? Are you accustomed to using the “usted” version on a day-to-day basis? What advice do you have for me or for others in my situation?

Grammar “Mistakes” Spaniards Make

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What? Mario makes mistakes?

We all make mistakes from time to time. For example, do you know how to properly use lay and lie? It’s confusing because lay is the past tense of lay and laid is the past tense of laid. Confused yet? Most people do it “wrong,” and I put wrong in quotation marks because I don’t believe in labeling a person’s way of speaking as wrong or right. Dialects and pidgins aren’t wrong, and grammar snobs are just that: snobs. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love speaking well and even learning about grammar, but since I got a bit more educated, I’ve tried to stop being annoying about “correct” and “incorrect” grammar. (Related: hypercorrection and prescriptive poppycock.)

In Spanish, I am always on the hunt for unknown-to-me phrases/words as well as mistakes. Sometimes I find what I think is a mistake in the newspaper, but I’m not sure whether it actually is. So I ask—who else?—Mario. He almost always knows, but sometimes I mistake a find stumps him. This usually means it’s an error that’s become ingrained in people’s daily speech. I find these linguistics quirks fascinating. So if you do too, please read on to see if you’ve heard these “mistakes” when speaking to Spaniards or reading in Spanish.

Mario would like to note that he helped me with this, and so if you’re a Spaniard reading this, I’m not saying you speak “wrong” in any way, just that I find linguistic curiosities fascinating.

  • “Dile a mis padres” / “Le dije [a Sergio y Víctor] que …”—I love this one. Mario does it all the time. But so does everyone else I know: Mario’s family and friends, teachers I work with, and people on the street. It’s technically wrong; it should be “Diles a mis padres” and “Les dije [a Sergio y Víctor] que …” but it’s usually said like I wrote above. Listen for this one!
  • “Nada de esto hubiera sucedido si él no hubiera hecho lo que hizo.”—This one too is quite common. Of course, the correct way to say it is “Nada de esto habría sucedido si él no hubiera hecho lo que hizo.” It’s said both ways. I’m not sure if there’s a difference in connotation or if it’s simply a way of expressing oneself in a different way.
  • “Fijaros bien” / “Estaros quietos”—I hear the vosotros form a lot, as I work in classrooms where the teachers are always addressing groups of children, so I get the chance to listen and see if they say “fijaros” instead of the correct form “fijaos” or “estaros” instead of the correct form “estaos.” I suppose this comes about because “fijaos” and “estaos” sound a bit odd and are a bit more difficult to pronounce, but I’m no expert.
  • “Hablastes con ella?”—This definitely isn’t as widespread as the above-mentioned examples, but it does happen, although I think people are more aware of the fact that it’s an error. It should, of course, be “¿Hablaste con ella?” The Cervantes Virtual Center speaks of this, citing as a grave error that has even begun to invade the written word. (Oh the horror!) I do love that they call it a “vulgarismo,” a vulgarism.
  • “Sal para fuera” “Sube arriba” / “Baja abajo—These are not errors in such, but rather redundancies. Of course, in English there are many examples of this phenomenon: “free gift,” “end result,” “future plans,” and “safe haven,” just to name a few. We’re taught in composition classes to eliminate redundancies in order to smarten up our writing.

I tried my best not to include obvious ones that most educated people know are incorrect, like the confusion of “b” and “v,” “laísmo” (even though “leísmo” is accepted), saying “habían” when it should be “había,” etc.

Have you noticed any other “mistakes” that native speakers make?

Hablando español

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ElDiaE

Hoy es El Día E, y según el Instituto Cervantes, es “la fiesta de todos los que hablamos español”. Aunque no sea nativa, sí hablo español, así que decidí escribir una entrada en la lengua de Cervantes. Sé que no todos lo habláis y, por lo tanto, algunos no podréis leerla, pero siempre podéis recurrir a Google Translate.

WhatTheHell

Como muchos alumnos en EEUU, empecé a aprender español cuando estaba en el instituto. Mi primer año, conocido en EEUU como “freshman year”, hice japonés. Os estaréis preguntando “¿Y eso?”, pues porque de pequeña daba clases de japonés y cuando tenía catorce años una chica japonesa fue a vivir un mes con nosotros, así que me acabó interesando y decidí estudiarlo. La mayoría de mis compañeros estudiaba español, claro. Pero después de ese primer año, no había dinero para el programa de japonés y tuve que elegir otro idioma. Me quedé con el español. Creo que fue una de las decisiones más importantes de mi vida. Sin haber estudiado español, nunca habría venido a España, nunca habría conocido a Mario, nunca habría vuelto tantas veces …

Una foto mía, hecha cuando estaba en el instituto (y sí, el 4 de julio).

Ya he observado que a muchos no les gusta estudiar un idioma. Es difícil, requiere mucho trabajo y al fin y al cabo puede que no te sierva para nada. Pero os recomiendo que estudiéis español. ¿Por qué?

  • Es util. Actualmente, es hablado por 500 millones de personas. El inglés es importante, obviamente. Pero en EEUU tenemos un alto porcentaje de personas hispanohablantes. Y seguirá creciendo. Según el Instituto Cervantes, en 2050 mi país será “el primer país hispanohablante del mundo”.
  • Es divertido. A mí me gusta aprender. Me gusta aprender expresiones que dejen a Mario atónito. Me gusta sonar más española si puedo. Me gusta mejorar cada día. Para mí este proceso es divertido.
  • Es guay. Cuando me siento capaz de hablar en otro idioma, me siento más inteligente, más guay en un sentido. El español es un idioma bonito. Suena bien cuando lo escuchas. Del español hemos sacado las palabras siesta, fiesta, margarita, salsa, “mano a mano”, cojones (con perdón), y muchas más. Además, muchos de nuestros estados tienen nombres españoles (véase: Colorado (colored), Nevada (snowy), Florida (in blossom), Montana (de montaña, mountain).
  • Ser bilingüe protege el cerebro. En un estudio de la universidad de Northwestern, observaban las reacciones del cerebro de personas bilingües y no bilingües. Las personas bilingües pueden dejar de prestar atención al ruido de fondo y centrar su atención en lo importante: la voz del hablante. También, se supone que puede ayudar a prevenir la demencia senil. Así que, ¡a hablar español!

Según el Twitter, del Día E, las palabras favoritas de este año son las siguientes: entereza, aurora, balbuceo, membrillo, madrugada, con la “o”, lumbre, alegría, animal, panhispánico, “del teatro”, aprender y soledad. ¿Tienes una palabra favorita? Siempre me ha gustado la palabra cencerro.

¿Cuáles son las razones por las que has decidido estudiar español en vez de cualquier otro idioma?

How to Annoy a Spaniard

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After seeing the posts on Matador about How to Piss off a German/Chilean/Italian/Dane, Mario told me I needed to write one about Spaniards. I’m a bit hesitant because writing this post could possibly piss (some of) them off. I’m a much bigger fan of making them think I’m awesome, so … you’ll understand my hesitance. Nonetheless, as I wrote it, I found that in the end it was really a complimentary post. Read on; perhaps you’ll see why.

  • Tell them you prefer the food in the States/England/your home country. Spaniards are immensely proud of their cuisine—and rightfully so. Spanish food is awesome, and I miss it when I’m not here. There’s nothing than can replace my suegra’s cooking. She makes the best lentejas (lentil stew), tortilla de patata (Spanish potato omelette), homemade mayonnaise, pan de queso (cheese bread), carne guisada (a kind of roast meat), pisto (similar to ratatouille, but better), etc. I can’t say enough good things. But still. Sometimes I prefer the States, simply because of the variety. There’s spicy food! There’s spices to buy in bulk, like garam masala and star anise. There’s brown sugar! There’s Thai / Indian / Afghani / Tibetan / Vietnamese—and this is all in my college town of Bloomington. So avoid it. Their food is better (and honestly, it is divine).r_lentejas_s31340053_01

[Source]

  • Refer to American football as just football. Mario loves to joke about this—”Why should it be called football when they just kick the ball when they … punt, you call it? In real football, the players use their feet all the time.” He doesn’t get pissed off, but he’s very hard to piss off, I’ll admit.
  • Tell them soccer is boring. I personally do not believe soccer is boring. It can be boring, and I do prefer basketball (duh!), but I’ve heard many of my countrymen say this. I recommend not saying this in front of any big Spanish soccer fan, at least not without some caveats about how you are an idiot and your opinions don’t matter.

SpainNationalSoccerTeamWinnerofthe2010WorldCupinSouthAfrica

[Source]

  • Prance around in sweatpants. Sweatpants are perfectly acceptable—in your own home. Outside on the streets? Not unless you’re going to the gym, mister. Also, tennis shoes (or trainers or sneakers) probably shouldn’t be worn unless your circumstances fit into the above-described ones. Mario’s mother recently saw him on the street wearing (what I thought were normal, decent-looking) pants and tennis shoes—and let’s just say she was less than pleased. She urged Mario to throw away the pants, pants I found perfectly normal looking. I just don’t get it, I suppose.
  • Insist that cold weather doesn’t cause colds. Even if the research shows differently, Many Spaniards (including my dear suegra) will insist that many weather-related things cause you to “coger frío,” including: not wearing adequate clothing in the winter (sweaters, scarves), drastic temperature changes, drinking cold water in the winter, etc. There is no point in insisting that viruses cause colds, not cold weather. Just wear your scarf, damn it! Cold water is for summer.
  • Insist on subtitles instead of dubbing when watching a movie on television. Spaniards are very used to dubbing. In contrast, I’ve watched very few movies dubbed into English, and, honestly, I hated them. I prefer subtitles, and I don’t mind “reading” the movie, as some see it. But in Spain, almost every movie is subtitled and so are many TV shows—unless, of course, they’re made in Spain. But there are a lot of American movies and TV shows here. In fact, The Simpsons are much more popular here than in the States.

I want to reiterate that this post is all in good fun … but what would you add?

Studying—An Update

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If you haven’t read the comments on my post Advanced Spanish … Where Do I Go from Here?, please do. There are a lot of great ideas in there. Prithika from the blog Fleas and Dogs in Barcelona made a great suggestion, one I’ve been putting into practice—making daily, weekly, and monthly lists.

53562662_33c1115915

Pretend studying my freshman year of college.

Now that I’m fully addicted to my esmarfon, I decided to do my flashcards online. Of course. A friend of mine posted about StudyBlue on Facebook, and I love it. This website allows you to make digital flashcards and store them in your “backpack.” Then you have access to them anywhere—on the web, on your smartphone, on your tablet, and you can even download them and print them out if you so choose (say, a long airplane ride where you don’t to waste precious laptop battery).

The great thing about StudyBlue is the fact that, sometimes, other people have already done your work for you. What? Well, when you start editing your cards, you enter your word into the term space and then tab down to the definition space. If someone else has already worked with this word or term, you can see what they wrote and just click on their card to use theirs. For example, I was working with the word pavonearse, which means to “show off.” (It actually comes from el pavo real, the peacock, an animal that likes to strut its stuff, you know?) And just my luck—someone had already entered that into the box for me! Niiiice, right?

What’s more, you can easily add photos/audio and take personalized quizzes. If you’re so inclined, you can even browse others’ packs to see what they’ve done. You can study just the “wrongs,” which is nice, and not something I often encounter with digital flashcards. I swear, they’re not paying me to write this; I just love the website.

Another thing I like to do—and I admit, I’m lucky—is talk to Mario about the word and see if he can tell me the English equivalent. I really love it when he can’t (I’m so mean), because then I get to teach him something, a rare occurrence.

Ha! Just because you have three degrees doesn’t mean you know everything!

The great thing about what Prithika suggested is that, in her words, “it keeps your lists dynamic.” I oftentimes will study a word, “know” it, and then come back to it later, and have no idea what it means. I’m sure this happens to you too, right? (If not, grrr.)

Anyway, I’m studying for once, and I’m actually happy about it! It’s been a long time since I’ve been this motivated outside of a classroom.

Advanced Spanish … Where Do I Go from Here?

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In case you didn’t know, I’m a perfectionist. If you read all my blog posts about Spanish grammar and trying to improve, you might get that impression, but I’ve tried my best not to come off too crazy. Did it work?

I’m trying to take the DELE, otherwise known as the Diploma de Español como Lengua Extranjera, or Diplomas of Spanish as a Foreign Language. I’d like to take the exam in November, when I’ll already be in Spain. I got this book, El Cronómetro, but the exam format has changed, so I’m not sure just how useful it will be.

Cronometro

So, my question out there to all my Spanish-speaking friends/bloggers:

How do you improve your Spanish if you’re past the point of learning grammar?

I know the verb tenses, the irregular verbs, and how to conjugate. I understand when to use the subjunctive about 95% of the time. I sometimes slip up verbally when using por/para, but I know the right way. My pronunciation is okay, according to Mario. But I still lack vocabulary. However, I swear there are words I read, try to learn, and then forget—and then the cycle repeats itself, which is obviously maddening.

Tell me your strategies. I already have one of those personal dictionaries, and try to speak to him in Spanish, which usually works, unless he switches to English (which he does! all! the! time!).

So Sorry, So Boring

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Do you still read this blog? It’s okay if you don’t. Except you’d be lying. You’re reading this right now.

I realize my life lately hasn’t been all that exciting, but I wanted to tell you all—exciting things are right around the corner. I know, I know; I wish I could post about them now, too, but it wouldn’t be prudent, and, you see, I’m all about being prudent. Bo-ring.

IMG_0494

My cousin, Bailey, and me

So, here’s a few little life updates for you:

  • My super-smart, fantastic boyfriend received some amazing news that he totally deserves because he worked his you-know-what off for four years to get a very difficult degree. He would go to class from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. and then study afterwards. Dedication—it pays off. Good job, amor!
  • My favorite basketball team, the Indiana Hoosiers, are doing super well—and, well, that makes me happy. Go Hoosiers!

Men's Basketball vs. Illinois, 02/09/12_Mike Dickbernd

  • I am studying for the DELE exam, which, for those of you who don’t know, stands for the “Diplomas of Spanish as a Foreign Language.” It’s a diploma issued by the Cervantes Institute in Spain saying you talk real good in Spanish. Okay, it’s not just speaking, it’s also comprehension (reading and listening), and general knowledge of Spanish. I’m going for a tough one and can’t devote a ton of time to it (hello, full-time job!), but I’m going. Slowly. It helps to have Mario quiz me and give me helpful hints. I have my own personal practice examiner!
  • People are getting married: I just attended my cousin’s wedding (congratulations to Bret and  Kelsey) and my brother’s wedding is in September. My “baby” brother. See also: smart, successful, and has a beautiful fiancé! Plus, there are others (who shall not be named)! Also, doesn’t it seem like everyone on Facebook is either heading for holy matrimony or having a kid? When did we get so old?!

I know, lame post, Kaley. But there has been a lot of exciting news lately, not the least of which is that Mario has picked up a new hobby: paddle tennis. This is totally a thing in Spain. Also: he’ll be running a half marathon later this month, most likely (100%) way faster than I could.

¡Vamos Mario!

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Verbosity

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One of the hardest parts of learning Spanish is the verbs. If you haven’t heard, verb is the word. (Lame. Forgive me.) Verbs are probably the subject that even students earning online masters degrees in Spanish have a difficult time keeping straight.

As a fifteen-year-old sophomore in high school, I started learning Spanish and was immediately overwhelmed with the verbs. Not only were there so many of them, there were so many irregular ones—or so it seemed at the time. (Okay, it still seems that way.) Irregular verbs became the bane of my Spanish-language-learning existence.

I’m happy to report that those days are over! Really! After having thought about this for a while, I realize now that I just get it. This … this is immensely exciting, folks! I used to think of verbs as shoes:

If you’re Spanish, you may find this hilarious. I know Mario did when I first showed him. You see, many verbs are stem-changing verbs, but I prefer their informal appellation: boot verbs. You never realized footwear could be used to learn a language, now did you? In fact, this is a very useful way of learning stem-changing verbs. You see, all the verbs that fit in the boot change their stem.

Note: the vosotros form was marked out because they did this in high school! What was their problem? “You’ll most likely never go to Spain.” Chyeah. I see how that worked out.

Verb: Contar
Tense: Present

Yo cuento
Tú cuentas
Él/ella/usted cuenta
Nosotros contamos
Vosotros contaís
Ellos/ellas/ustedes cuentan

You see how only the nosotros and vosotros forms don’t change? That’s because—and solely because—they don’t fit in the boot. Yep. Boots for the win!

And this only the present tense! You Spanish speakers get this since you (obviously) speak English, but our verbs in English are really simple. No need to conjugate for the most part; you just need to add an s in the singular third-person present tense, and you’re good to go. (Thus, I get, you get, she/he gets, etc.)

I used to find this daunting. There were so many verbs to memorize and so many different ways to conjugate them, even if the boot thing did help. What changed? I don’t know, really, but one day it just clicked!

Nowadays, when I see a verb like alzar (and consequently realzar), I know instinctively how to conjugate it, in all the tenses. (Okay, not instinctively. This took a lot of work, people!) By the way, it’s like this:

Verb: Alzar
Tense: Preterite

Yo alcé
Tú alzaste
Él/ella/usted alzó
Nosotros alzamos
Vosotros alzasteis
Ellos/ellas/ustedes alzaron

Now that I have the whole conjugation thing down, it’s my goal to master the immense quantity of verbs. I’ve got my work cut out for me.

(Newest verb learned: desentreñar. Newest non-verb learned: picana.)

But I’m a Girl! … and Other Spanish Language Mishaps

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I really enjoy the discussions that arise from posts like last week’s about my Rookie Mistakes (written in all caps because it’s a BFD).

As you know, I like to think about all the important, totally unimportant things in life.  Although Spanish is important—being the second-most spoken language in the US—the stuff I contemplate is really not. Except to me, thus making it, like, oh my God, super-mega important. Got it?

As you may well know, Spanish has something called grammatical gender, which actually doesn’t have to do with gender; it’s just a name we use. (Confusing? Yeah.) If you don’t know what this is, just think of the terms fiancé and fiancée. One means a man engaged to be married (fiancé), while the other means a woman engaged to be married (fiancée). So if I called a man my fiancée—oopsy, that would be wrong.

For the most part in English, we don’t deal with this, especially since we pronounce fiancé and fiancée exactly the same way (or at least I do). Hence, when we native English speakers learn a language that does employ grammatical gender, we usually have slip-ups. If you don’t, I officially hate you. Don’t call me again; I’ve blocked your number.

Right now, I’m what I’d call an advanced speaker of Spanish. (I’m even better at writing!) But I like to talk fast in English, so I try to speed up my Spanish as well. I hate being the person everyone listens to like, Come on! Cough it up! Right? Don’t you hate that? Naturally, though, this leads to missteps. I often autocorrect myself, because I’m very self-aware in this area, but sometimes I don’t catch it.

The most common way to tell if something in Spanish is masculine/feminine is to say how the word ends. If it ends in –o, it’s likely masculine; if it ends in –a, it’s likely feminine. Ya with me? However, this is not always the case. (See: la mano.) Easy peasy, lemon squeezy?

In my rush to speak, I sometimes call Mario a girl. No, I don’t say, “Eres una chica,” no. I just refer to him with a feminine adjective. I’m sure this sounds rather odd to him, as this whole grammatical gender thing is ingrained in his speech, and has been since he was a wee little tot with glasses. (Cutest kid ever.) So it has to be jarring when I do this. I like to compare it to when my students would refer to males as “she” or females as “he.” Yes, it happened, and it always seemed so weird to me. Don’t they get it? Well, of course they do; they just mix it up—just like yours truly.

Gender is a tricky thing in Spanish. Here are some examples:

  • It’s el agua/águila/arte, but las aguas/águilas/artes.
  • La mano vs. el mapa
  • Words sometimes change meanings, depending on whether they’re preceded by el or la:
    • El cura (the priest); la cura(the cure)
    • El herido (the wounded man); la herida (the wounded woman/the wound)
    • El frente (the front); la frente(the forehead)
    • El capital (the capital [money]); la capital (the capital [of a country])
    • El mañana (the future/tomorrow [but tomorrow is really an adverb]); la mañana(the morning)
    • Sometimes words are both—la/el mar (both are still used) el/la calor (la calor is seen as archaic). Apparently, la mar is more poetic. That’s because females are more poetic, did you know that? (Okay, I lie.)

Okay, I’m going to stop here. I tend to start writing and just keep going and going, because there’s always more I want to say. But I shan’t. Please, tell me about your grammatical-gender-based mishaps in the comments!