The Language Chronicles: El Choro Lingüístico 💬

[Para español, ver abajo.] This article explains two grammatical concepts that share a characteristic - they use particles that are considered optional in most cases, but they provide an  additional   nuance  or  meaning  if used, all while making you sound like a native Spanish speaker ! The use of se for verbs that aren't usually reflexive, which is known as  se aspectual and puts reflexive pronouns me, te, SE, nos, and os to work. And a phenomenon known as  dativo de interés , dativo ético , dativo aspectual , dativo intensivo or dativo concordado, which involves the use of indirect pronouns  me , te , LE , nos, os. Aspectual SE (and its other forms me, te, nos, os) To illustrate the concept, let's use a very common verb: comer . It's a verb that usually doesn't require a reflexive pronoun. You can say "Mi hermana come pizza", and we all understand it's a  habitual action in the present tense, but if I say "Mi hermana se come la pizza"

[For English, see below] ¿Sabías que existe un artículo femenino especial con palabras que comienzan con el sonido /a/ tónico como en “ el agua ” “ el hacha ”, y “ el águila "? Aunque hoy día se considera un vestigio fonológico  del español, en castellano medieval era muy productivo - se trata de la elisión . Un ejemplo en francés es cuando se debe escribir " l'orthographe " en vez de "la* orthographe" para evitar la fusión de dos sonidos vocálicos entre artículo definido y sustantivo, y en español moderno sucede con las contracciones " del " (de + el) y " al " (a + el), aunque no se utilice el apóstrofo para señalar la elisión. Fuera de las contracciones "del" y "al", en español moderno existe la elisión, pero no forma parte del lenguaje formal escrito , mientras que en francés sí es obligatorio plasmarla ortográficamente, principalmente por medio del apóstrofo. Aunque muy difundido, es falso que combinaciones como

[Para español, ver abajo.] In Old Spanish , indirect object pronoun "le" (to him, her, you plural), when put together with direct object pronouns lo(s)/la(s) in the combination lelo/lela , evolved phonetically and naturally, first to diphthong lie(lo) > lle(lo)> gelo (g was pronounced like French j or s in measure), and finally to present day se lo or -selo . Note that this se only looks like reflexive se as in Mi mejor amigo se levanta a las 5 de la mañana , but its function is completely different. That's why, nowadays, we say se lo doy (I give it to him, her, you singular, you plural or them) or dáselo (give it to him, her, you, you all, them). Old Spanish: gelo do (se lo doy). If the context is not sufficient, people specify by adding on: descríbeselo a él, a ella, a ustedes, a ellas, a mi amigo, al profesor, etc. If you speak Italian, you'll notice a similar evolution happened to arrive at " glielo do " (se lo doy). -----------------------

[Défiler vers le bas pour la version en français] In Latin, a "feather" was known by two names: penna and pluma .  Spanish quickly decided to stick with pluma , the meaning of which was extended to include the concept of a writing utensil, and practically discarded penna . This is still the case in several Spanish-speaking countries, especially Mexico and Central America - but it's not the only word used for pen . Old French used penne and plume as synonyms, later broadening the meaning to the writing instrument. Although "penne" died off in French, it had already passed the word "pen" down to English. Although "plume" is no longer used for pen in modern French (today it's un stylo), it is still fossilized in some expressions like nom de plume (pen name), prendre la plume (to begin writing), avoir une belle plume (to have great writing style or nice handwriting), among others. As many of you know, "pluma" for pen may not

Note : If you are looking for a thorough review of how to tell time in Spanish, click  here . Why do we say "es la una"  (singular) and  "son las dos" (plural) in Spanish, but say "it's one" ,  "it's two" (only singular) in English? I love questions like these because they get us to question why we say things the way we do in both the language we're learning, but as important, at least to me as a linguist, in our own language. The answer to this question is quite simple in Spanish. Number-gender agreement : es la una (hora implied - feminine singular), son las dos (horas implied - feminine plural). In the past tense, era la una or eran las dos. Question solved! More than likely, though, that didn't really solve the question. We're really wondering why Spanish respects number agreement  with the verb to be , but English doesn't, at least in this case. The real issue, then, is to be found, not in Spanish, but in English!