#also like... it just doesn't make any sense... if medusa used to be human explain her sisters

[milowing]

"in the original myth medusa was a rape victim!" i'm literally banging my head against the wall

[spanishskulduggery]

When did you first start learning Spanish? And any basic learning tips? I have a few Spanish speaking coworkers but I get so nervous trying to practice my Spanish with them.... and and, when you were first learning Spanish, did you have any little things you found especially fun/funny?

Oh gosh it's been decades now. To give some backstory and you can do your own math here, this blog started in 2013 when I was still in college getting my degree in Spanish

I started in what I think would be middle school when Spanish became a mandatory class, but I didn't start really studying and understanding things until high school. It wasn't until even after college that I REALLY felt like I understood Spanish because there were so many native speakers and people interacting with me.

One thing that totally changed my perception and how I perceive Spanish was there was a question on the preterite and imperfect, and I'm giving my answer and trying to explain some bits about how a lot of times both are potentially correct but it's how you mean it that matters

And someone mentioned that "imperfect" in its linguistic etymology means "not yet completed"; that "perfect" is "done thoroughly" where the -fect is probably related to hacer "to do"... and "imperfect" thus means "not yet done", and just a huge lightbulb moment

I remember thinking "I WISH one of my teachers had known that or said that to me because it makes so much more sense now"

And I still mess up but usually it's followers like "oh we say THIS here" or "that's not the word we use but it reminds me of this thing in my country"

-

A few funny things in Spanish based on mistakes that I've made or things that I learned:

You haven't truly begun your Spanish journey until someone tells you that embarazado/a means "pregnant" not "embarrassed" (avergonzado/a).... similarly no one mentions that embarazoso/a means "awkward" or "unwieldy" in a way

querer means "to want", but it can also mean "to love" or cherish; similarly querido/a means "dear", but la querida can also kind of mean "side-piece" like someone's affair partner woman so if you see someone talking about their querida without a name or a noun they might be talking about an affair

el pelo is "hair", el cabello typically means "hair on the top of the head" like a human... and el cabello is NOT el caballo "horse"

the word for "eye-catching" is llamativo/a and NOT miradizo/a which miradizo/a is one of those old words but it kind of means "awestruck" or "makes you stare in wonderment" in a weirdly poetic way

sartén as "frying pan" can be masculine or feminine depending on country

there are too many words for beans

there are three main words for "purple" - la púrpura usually means "red-violet" or Tyrian purple and also the mollusk you get purple from; morado/a is often "dark purple" related to la mora which can be "blackberry" or "mulberry"; lila is "light purple" meaning "lilac".... you can also say violeta that's fine too

people say naranja for "the color orange" more than anaranjado/a but not everyone has the patience to explain that naranja which comes from the fruit doesn't change for gender

same with rosa as "pink", where rosado/a "pink" is also valid and usually what's taught

regionalisms. regionalisms everywhere

If you're in a really immature class, someone is going to laugh at puse

the word for "jellyfish" in Spanish is la medusa and that makes me happy

similarly, a male "horseman" is often el jinete; a female "horsewoman" or "rider" is sometimes la amazona and that also makes me happy

la macedonia is sometimes "fruit salad", so one assumes that Macedonians were just throwing fruit together in a bowl or something

Except for two big exceptions, most words ending in al- in Spanish are from Arabic origins [the exceptions being anything related to el almuerzo "lunch", and la almendra "almond"]

la manzana can mean "city block" in some places - probably because in a feudal society people lived in "manses" and the biggest house was the "mansion" where the lord lived, and it has nothing to do with apples

la montaña rusa is "roller coaster" literally "Russian mountain" because Russian people used to make little roller coasters by shaping ice mountains and putting tracks on them

la paja rusa does NOT mean "Russian straw", it is extremely NSFW and do not google it on a school server...... in fact don't look up any kind of paja because it's just as NSFW and it means "straw" if you're not talking about sex so otherwise don't worry about it

someone told me that linguistically para is just por+a, so parais literally "for the purpose of" or "for/so that to" and I've never been the same

the word for "ladybug" in Spanish is la mariquita which is "little Mary" because red used to be associated with Virgin Mary and the spots were said to be 7 and represent the joyful/sorrowful mysteries - many languages have a religious connotation to "ladybug"... also English, because the "lady" refers to Mary, like "Our Lady"

The Spanish alphabet used to be different where CH and RR were their own separate letters... it made looking things up weird; I also don't know how I feel about L vs. LL as separate letters because it's a whole other sound but it IS technically two L's

The word for octopus is el pulpo... the word for "pulp" is la pulpa; don't be like me and mix up asking for orange juice with no octopus

I cannot stress this enough but el pollo is "chicken" or "poultry"; la polla is a NSFW word meaning "cock" and as soon as you say you want cock for dinner you will die some on the inside

I don't know what the deal is with ahorita or what it means without hearing the tone of voice and neither does anyone else, it could be anything

caber is the worst verb, but ir/andar are also up there

every so often luego/pues means "thus" or "therefore" and it's going to throw you off

every so often el hacha (technically feminine) means candle or torch, and in any other situation it means "hatchet" so imagine my confusion when I read about people carrying axes around to see

all my life everyone told me never to use gustar without an indirect object and a friend from Puerto Rico says gusta to mean "cool" all the time and it made me question everything