I have already touched upon how our simian relatives seem to be making strides in communication with language here. Now word comes from the Ivory Coast that it appears that the Campbell’s monkey in the Tai National Park there is able to take its simple calls (“hok hok hok!” or “boom boom”) and combine them [...]
Posts Tagged ‘grammar’
Monkeys Can Now String Words Together to Make Sentences
Wednesday, December 9th, 2009More on Proofreading
Tuesday, October 13th, 2009In my last post I covered how a professional proofreading covers the aspects of style, cohesion, and grammar in a work of any size. There is one other aspect that I failed to mention that definitely does deserve a mention: clarity. Translators and, to a lesser extent, editors can easily get lost in the content, [...]
What Does Proofreading Really Mean
Tuesday, October 6th, 2009The term “proofreading” is bandied about in our industry when dealing with translations or simple publications of writings in one language that are not translated. Yet many of the people I have encountered have no real training in the craft, so it is important to establish exactly what a professional agency would be looking for [...]
Happy National Punctuation Day!
Thursday, September 24th, 2009Let us take this time to celebrate National Punctuation Day, wherein everyone must take a little extra time to focus on proper grammar usage and not fill the world with poor style and embarrassing mistakes. Visit the website to brush up on anything if you need to. Someday, I hope that we will live every [...]
Triphthongs in Spanish
Monday, September 21st, 2009A triphthong is a sequence of three vowels making up one syllable. Some examples in Spanish would be: a – pre – ciáis, co – piéis, buey. For a triphthong to exist, two closed atonic vowels (“i” or “u”) and, between them, an open vowel (“a”, “e”, or “o”): anunciáis, guau, miau, confiéis.
Sequences of closed [...]
Unique Languages: Maltese
Monday, September 7th, 2009It is often discussed here and in many other places how English is such a unique language due to the confluence of languages from separate families that were brought together into one. This is not the only case in the world, obviously, and it is useful to highlight other examples of how cultures can collide [...]
Writing Years in Spanish
Friday, September 4th, 2009Continuing on the topic of writing dates in Spanish correctly, regarding the use of the article “el” (which includes the contraction “del“) before the expression of years, these are the proper protocols:
a) For years between 1 and 1100, it is common to use the article, at least in spoken Spanish: Los árabes invadieron la Península [...]
More on Dates in Spanish
Thursday, August 20th, 2009Dates in Spanish can be spelled out in their entirety, written in a combination of letters and numbers, or only with numbers:
a) It is not common for dates to be expressed completely in words: Veintiocho de septiembre de mil novecientos noventa y seis. This generally only happens in very official documents, public decrees, notarial acts, [...]
Expressing Dates in Spanish
Friday, August 14th, 2009As established in the Real Academia Española, Spanish-speaking countries use, generally, the ascending order when they write out dates, i.e. day, month, year, with no commas separating any information: 31 de diciembre de 1992. Between the day and the month, as well as between the month and the year, the preposition “de” is used. For [...]
Uses of the Word Senior in Spanish
Friday, August 7th, 2009I was thumbing through the dictionary of the Spanish Academy (RAE) the other day and I thought it would be useful to share the official accepted uses of the word “sénior” in Spanish.
The word itself comes from the Latin word “senior”, which is a comparative adjective meaning older and its use in Spanish has recently [...]
Ending Sentences with Prepositions in English
Wednesday, August 5th, 2009To review: English does not have an official governing body that dictates what is right or wrong. Instead, it is based on a set of standards and accepted truths as far as what is the “best way” to properly communicate. Given that fact, there are many different avenues to take when it comes to expressing [...]
Demonstratives in English and Spanish
Friday, July 17th, 2009Demonstratives are used to point to another element that they depend on to achieve their full meaning. If they point backwards, it is known as an anaphoric reference; those that point forward are making a cataphoric reference.
In English, we work with two degrees of proximity (“this”, “that”), while Spanish offers three (“este”, “ese”, “aquel”).
Demonstrative adjectives, [...]
The Newest Grammar Hounds
Friday, July 17th, 2009Grammar hounds, and I include myself in this list, are those who are so obsessed with proper presentation of a language that even the slightest mistake or oversight in a sentence invokes a twitchy reaction and a move to whatever “Edit” button is available. The Internet is a bastion of poor grammar and spelling mistakes [...]
The Use of the Period in English and Spanish
Friday, July 3rd, 2009The period (full stop) is the punctuation mark that marks the grammatical and logical end of a sentence.
The main difference comes from its greatest use in English. In Spanish, the period generally signals a pause or separation; the relationship is generally expressed with the comma and the semicolon.
English uses the period before conjunctions, adverbs, or [...]
Two Different Internal Logics
Friday, June 19th, 2009In English, we use concision (many short words or phrases) as well as an economy of language (fewer words), the preference we demonstrate for the impersonal vision of reality (objectivity), our calls to evoke feelings (appeal to the senses, images), the abstract analysis and the lack of naming of the agent of an action (passive [...]
The Use of the Dash in English and Spanish
Friday, June 12th, 2009This punctuation mark is, in Spanish, the equivalent to parentheses, though it does have one function that differs: marking off asides that are suggestive, ironic, or emotional, and the effect is stylistic. It must always be placed at the end of the aside, even when it is the end of the sentence.
In English, a single [...]
Parataxis, Ellipsis, and Litotes in English and Spanish
Friday, May 15th, 2009In English, I feel that I encounter parataxis more often than in the Romance languages (though I have no good evidence to back this up). Parataxis is putting together sentences without any coordinating conjunctions to spice up a text, make it move quicker, and not repeat the same conjunctions over and over. I find that [...]
The Use of Quotation Marks
Friday, May 8th, 2009The principal function of quotation marks is to mark quotes and dialogues. In Spanish, there are two formulas for dialogues: dashes and quotation marks. The latter are used when dialogues are incorporated in the paragraph or within a dialogue that is marked off by quotation marks. Quotation marks are also used with memories and thoughts.
When [...]
The Extension of the Period and Links Between Sentences
Thursday, April 30th, 2009The custom in English today of having expository clarity give precedence to short sentences that are separated by periods, whereas in Spanish the are considered as subordinate elements within a main sentence.
The greatest extension of the period in English in relation to Spanish is seen in the capacity of English to construct a series of [...]
The Use of the Article in English and Spanish
Wednesday, April 29th, 2009In English, unlike Spanish, uses the indefinite article before the generic predicate. The article plays its essential role, which is to singularize an object among the class designated by the noun, which is a possibility that does not exist in English, since it uses the article in both cases. The individualization becomes apparent, and in [...]
