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English - Spanish

acid - ácido avid - ávido fluid - fluido liquid - líquido lucid - lúcido placid - plácido rapid - rápido solid - sólido splendid - espléndido timid - tímido valid - válido vivid - vívido

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spanish checklist for a1 (and slightly a2) level: vocab, grammar etc.

hey!

i have completed covering the a1 level of spanish (and also covered 1/4? or less maybe of a2) so here is a checklist with everything i learnt.

note: at the end of the post there's a link with a google doc where every item on the list is expanded as well as i could expand it (for example, you'll find examples for conjugation etc). if you need to track your progress, please make a copy of it (you won't have access to edit it otherwise).

Greetings and basic introductions.

Personal pronouns (yo, tú, él/ella, nosotros/nosotras, vosotros/vosotras, ellos/ellas) and verb conjugation in the present tense.

Basic vocabulary related to daily activities, family, numbers, colors, food, and common objects.

Describing people, places, and objects using adjectives.

Forming questions with question words (¿qué, quién, dónde, cuándo, cómo, etc.) and question formation.

Demonstrative adjectives (este, ese, aquel) and possessive adjectives (mi, tu, su, nuestro, vuestro, su).

Basic verbs and expressions for expressing likes, dislikes, preferences, and opinions.

Telling time and talking about daily routines.

Talking about hobbies, interests, and free time activities.

Basic vocabulary for locations, directions, and giving and following simple instructions.

Regular and irregular verbs in the present tense, including stem-changing verbs.

Basic prepositions (en, con, de, a, por, para) and their usage.

Formation and usage of the present progressive tense (estar + gerund).

Talking about the weather and seasons.

Expressing frequency using adverbs (siempre, a veces, nunca, etc.).

Basic vocabulary for professions, places in the city, and transportation.

Describing daily routines and activities in the past using the preterite tense (preterito indefinido).

Usage of preterito imperfecto.

Usage of preterito perfecto.

Basic vocabulary for shopping, clothing, and describing items.

Expressing obligation, ability, and necessity using modal verbs (deber, poder, necesitar).

Comparatives and superlatives (más/menos + adjective, el/la/los/las más/menos + adjective).

Talking about future plans using the future tense (ir + a + infinitive).

Basic vocabulary and expressions for traveling and making hotel reservations.

Giving and asking for directions using prepositions of location (a la derecha, a la izquierda, enfrente, etc.).

Basic vocabulary and phrases for ordering food and drinks in a restaurant.

Introduction to indirect object pronouns (me, te, le, nos, os, les) and their usage.

Indirect and Direct objects

here is the link (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1WaB3cIyMbnG5uJneX7dF9PAKfU-CTdicr-QZJBqWKls/edit?usp=sharing)

did it help you? i made it for my revision before i begin classes this september and so far it has helped me a lot so i hope it turns out just as useful for you!

adiós, mar <3

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720 days of duolingo. I decided to no longer use it, but that's a hell of a streak. So long, duo. It was great while it lasted to form a habit.

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TEDTalks related to language (learning)

because (sometimes) they motivate me

How language shapes the way we think | Lera Boroditsky

The secrets of learning a new language | Lýdia Machová

How to learn any language in six months | Chris Lonsdale | TEDxLingnanUniversity

Learning a language? Speak it like you’re playing a video game | Marianna Pascal | TEDxPenangRoad

Why We Struggle Learning Languages | Gabriel Wyner | TEDxNewBedford

5 techniques to speak any language | Sid Efromovich | TEDxUpperEastSide

Breaking the language barrier | Tim Doner | TEDxTeen 2014

How to learn any language easily | Matthew Youlden | TEDxClapham

The Irish Language and Beauty | Dónall Ó Héalaí | TEDxBerkeley

How to Talk Like a Native Speaker | Marc Green | TEDxHeidelberg

How the language you speak affects your thoughts

Hacking Language Learning: Dr. Conor Quinn at TEDxDirigo

How learning German taught me the link between maths and poetry | Harry Baker | TEDxVienna

We'r Needin tae Talk Aboot Wir Language | Michael Dempster | TEDxInverness

One Simple Method to Learn Any Language | Scott Young & Vat Jaiswal | TEDxEastsidePrep

Learning a Second Language | Shinyoung Grace Kim | TEDxYouth@AISR

Let me know if I missed your favourite!

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I'm on absolute goblin time on spotify apparently because of the hilarity of my spotify wrapped.

My top 5 is just dominated by Spanish and then random Dua Lipa as a treat.

I also got the spotify thank you messages from alan and the creatures and esteman, which i was able to decently understand. Not a bad year for language learning, I think.

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does. anyone else experience the language learning pipeline of like

yeah why not seems kinda fun -> (optional step) the writing system is crazy bro -> damn theres no WAY im gonna remember any of this shit -> genuine interest and fascination with the differences between languages and needing to Know more

and its because of the stupidest reason for starting learning it in the first place

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Thinking about sesame Street and how every big bird for every place is different and they're all cousins to show that the world isn't just where that kid lives...how neat!

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Astronomy (Spanish)

estrella = star

sol = sun

luna = moon

constelación = constellation

galaxia = galaxy

satélite = satellite

astrónomo = astronomer

telescopio = telescope

cometa = comet

cinturón de asteroides = asteroid belt

planeta = planet

espacio = space

globo celeste = celestial globe

Vía Láctea = Milky Way

planetario = planetarium

nebuloso = nebula

asteroide = asteroid

nova = nova

año luz = light year

supernova = supernova

agujero negro = black hole

.

Patreon

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my friend and i were going to study a language together and wound up having to cancel our plans due to scheduling pressures, but! through research we came across a really cool resource for reading in a TON of languages: bloom library!

as you can see, it has a lot of books for languages that are usually a bit harder to find materials for—we were going to use it for kyrgyz, for example, which has over 1000 books, which was really hard to find textbook materials for otherwise. as you can see it also has books with audio options, which would be really useful for pronunciation checking. as far as i can tell, everything on the site is free as well.

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My brain only wants Spanish song serotonin right now and this is not necessarily a problem but its definitely a "?????" Situation because I want to experience English and Japanese music again but also its just a bit lackluster right now but I don't have a Lot of Spanish songs so I'm listening to the same few songs on repeat because I'm not ready to expand my horizons again just yet.

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language, the building blocks of communication. how could i not want to learn it all?

ughhhh every script, every grammar structure, every word… i love it all so much.

the feeling of when you watch something you used to not understand? when you finally communicate your thoughts after struggling to get your words out? when you meet someone new? when you understand an untranslatable joke? when you learn one word then start seeing it everywhere? when your brain starts to hurt in the good way because its all so confusing? then months later down the line those things come to you like second nature… it’s incredible.

the human mind can do so so so much. why not learn it all? why not at least try?

even forgetting things, making mistakes, and getting embarrassed feels good at this point. it feels like it’s all part of the process.

:)

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one thing about learning languages is that yes, learning in itself is fun but what’s even greater is the fact that all your other interests and hobbies can be looked at with another shade of light. I personally love philosophy and to be able to read another language’s nuances and concepts and understand it more than you ever could with a translation? incredible.

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Baldur's Gate 3 - Non-binary Translation in Spanish

A while back I had mentioned that when I learned how to change language settings for Baldur's Gate 3, I was curious to learn how they would adapt the non-binary [no binario] option into Spanish since Spanish (like many Romance Languages) is very gendered

What I saw actually surprised me a bit

Usually in game translations with different genders, English tends to treat you as a "they" even though it's usually male or female; and in Spanish most of the lines are gendered, or phrased in a very ambiguous way in translation like speaking of your character as una persona "a person" rather than "he" or "she", or "they"

This is one of the first times I've seen the gender neutral -e endings used in an official setting

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For the purposes of this, and any future posts on this, I decided I would try to play as a non-binary gnome cleric. I should also mention that when you start up the game in Spanish and you do the character customization, everything starts you with the base word (i.e. masculine by default, or possibly agender but looks masculine)... as in you can choose to be elfo "elf", semielfo "half-elf", humano "human", semiorco "half-orc"... choose between bárbaro "barbarian", mago "wizard", brujo "warlock" and so on

My default character creation screen read gnomo, clérigo for "gnome cleric"

But the way your character is addressed by others is what changes

The first NPC you interact with is "Us" a little brain thing you can choose to help. If you do it calls you "friend":

Nosotros: Somos libres. Tenemos nuestra libertad. amigue Us: We are free. We have our freedom. Friend [nb].

The word used is amigue

For the sake of understanding Spanish grammar, you probably know amigo/a "friend". The G here is a hard G. The gender neutral ending is E... but the combination of GE is pronounced like an H sound in Spanish [la gelatina "gelatin" for example is like "hel-a-ti-na"]. To preserve that hard G sound, you have to add a UE to it... so amigo/a becomes amigue for non-binary

[if you study Spanish this is the exact same grammar you'll see in turning -gar verbs into subjunctive forms; why pagar would turn to pague]

The next person you come across is Lae'zel:

Lae'zel: Tsk'va. No eres une sierve. ¡Vlaakith me bendijo en el día de hoy! Juntes, tal vez podamos sobrevivir. Lae'zel: Tsk'va. You are no thrall [nb]. Vlaakith blessed me today ["on this day of today"; emphatic]. Together [nb plural], we may (yet) survive.

Interestingly, there's first siervo/a meaning "servant" or "serf" or "thrall"

What I found very interesting was that you have une... un and una being "a" are used for indefinite articles; the non-binary form seems to be une

What threw me off though was seeing juntes... now junto/a is "together" [lit. "joined"] but juntes implies a non-binary plural.

I don't know if this is because in Spanish grammar it would imply that non-binary trumps feminine [the way amigos "friends" could be male+female or multiple male, as opposed to amigas "friends" being all female]... or if it's maybe an error or something else; the game treats Lae'zel as a woman in every other regard so I think it's the first one which is a situation I somehow hadn't considered. I had just assumed it would be juntos ...or juntas if you played female

Next I decided to rescue Gale first because he uses a lot of adjectives/professions and I wanted to see what they looked like:

Gale: No serás clérigue por casualidad, ¿verdad? ¿Médique? ¿Cirujane? ¿Increíblemente hábil con una aguja de tejer? Gale: You wouldn't happen to be a cleric, right? A doctor/medic? Surgeon? Unbelievably skilled with a knitting needle?

First is clérigo/a "cleric" being used in non-binary as clérigue. Similarly we have médique which is the non-binary médico/a for "medical doctor"

[just like above C turned to QUE to preserve a hard C/K sound; you'll see this with subjunctive and even preterites of -car verbs... why atacar "to attack" will turn to ataqué "I attacked" and ataque in subjunctive... because CE has a soft S sound in Latin America, and can be lisped in Spain]

And next is cirujane... the word cirujano/a is "surgeon"

Finally important note - hábil being "able" or "skilled" is a unisex adjective, so there is no change in any gender - masculine, feminine, or non-binary

*Note: I did miss it but at some point someone used the article le to describe my character. The el and la "the" are the masculine and feminine definite articles; le is non-binary "the" which still catches me by surprise because it looks French to me

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I've been told since I made the original post that people have seen the non-binary E ending used in other things, but this was special for me to see. I'm curious how the other gendered languages available treated non-binary options

It was a fun surprise for me, especially for some modern day Spanish linguistics in a VERY big modern game, with non-binary word choices being heavily prominent. It's a bit of a learning experience for me

If I find any more fun examples of NB language being used I'll let y'all know as I go

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I'm feeling such joy right now

I went to eat at a Mexican restaurant and they had a bilingual newspaper. I fully expected it to be only in Spanish but it has English so I can actually check my comprehension without using my phone. And I can understand a decent amount of it! I can feel my brain expanding and I'm frothing at the mouth about it

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Do you even care about your target language if you dont attempt to sing with a song in your tl thats virtually impossible at your current level because it just vibes too hard? Do I need to try to rap in Spanish? Absolutely not but it feels good even if I'm messing up because I'm practicing and its fun and I can laugh at how I mess up this time.

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japanese is such a kind language. like you forget a character it will hold ur hand and tell u that everything will be ok and you can just write it in hirigana and everyone will understand :)

and then chinese is like oh im sorry you forgot a character? youre illiterate. you mispronounce a word? your mother is now a horse

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Really enjoying Duolingo’s gradual progression from “the blue duck wears a big hat” to “if Matthew doesn’t make good on his alimony payments then I’m calling a hitman”