La eterna pregunta: "¿Se escribe con H o sin H?"

  

En español, la letra H  es muda, es decir, no se pronuncia. La excepción son algunas palabras extranjeras, como hardware o hámster, donde se pronuncia como una J suave. El hecho de que la letra H sea muda en la mayoría de las ocasiones, se traduce en una dificultad considerable para los estudiantes de español, pero también para los hablantes nativos de la lengua. Por ello, es muy importante conocer las reglas para el uso de esta letra:

		EJEMPLOS:	EXCEPCIONES:
REGLA Nº1 Se escribe H en las palabras que comienzan por…	hum- + vocal	Humano, húmedo, humilde, humor	Umbela, umbilical, umbral, umbría
REGLA Nº2 Se escriben con H las interjecciones:	¡ah!
	¡bah!
	¡eh!
	¡oh!
	¡huy!
	¡hurra!
	¡hala!
REGLA Nº3 Se escriben con H las palabras que comienzan por…	herb-	herbolario	Olga, ermita, ermitaño
	herm-	hermano
	histo-	histórico
	holg-	holgado
	horm-	hormiga
	horr-	horror
	hosp-	hospital
	host-	hostal
REGLA Nº4 Se escriben con H las palabras que empiezan por las siguientes raíces de origen griego:	halo- (sal)	halógeno	Omóplato
	hecto- (cien)	hectárea
	helico- (espiral)	helicóptero
	helio- (sol)	heliocéntrico
	hema-, hemo-, hemat- (sangre)	hematoma
	hepat- (hígado)	hepático
	hepta- (siete)	heptágono
	hetero- (distinto)	heterogéneo
	hexa- (seis)	hexágono
	hidro- (agua)	hidrógeno
	hiper- (superioridad, exceso)	hipérbole
	hipo- (inferioridad, escasez)	hipopótamo
	hipo- (caballo)	hipódromo
	hol- (todo)	holografía
	homeo- (semejante)	homeopatía
	homo- (igual)	homosexual
REGLA Nº5 Se escribe H...	tras la secuencia inicial ex en las voces exhalar, exhausto, exhortar y exhumar, así como sus derivados
REGLA Nº6 Se escriben con H...	todas las formas de los verbos cuyo infinitivo se escriba con H	haber, habitar, hablar, hacer, hallar, hervir, hincar, honrar, humillar, hundir, hurtar
REGLA Nº7 Se escribe H delante de los diptongos…	/ue/ y sus derivados y compuestos	huevo	De huevo: ovario, óvulo, ovoide, ovíparo, oval De hueso: óseo, osamenta, osificar, osudo De hueco: oquedad De huérfano: orfanato, orfandad
	/ua/ y sus derivados y compuestos	marihuana
	/ui/ y sus derivados y compuestos	huir

Esperamos que esta entrada les haya resuelto muchas dudas, pero queremos apuntar que en una lengua no todo es teoría, por lo que hay palabras con H que no se rigen por ninguna regla. Nuestro consejo es que lean mucho, ya que es como mejor se aprende. Sabemos que la letra H puede ser sinónimo de pánico o pesadilla, pero… ¡todo se consigue!

Un saludo del equipo de Spanish Language Route.

Interpreting: a uniting way between cultures

A promise is a promise, so here we are telling you about the second part of last week post: interpreting. Interpreting isn’t related to theatre; it isn’t playing a role. Rather, it is the interaction a person knowing languages (and more) between two or more people. Interpreters facilitate communication among people: they know languages as well as cultural facts from the countries implied in the act of communication. But let’s analyze it step by step.

What’s the point of an interpreter? Well, have you ever thought about what happens if a person goes to hospital and doesn’t speak the same language doctors do? You may be thinking that a kin will solve the problem. But, how do you think multilingual meetings in the international context work? In these cases everything implies a professional level, so they don’t count on amateurs. These are a few situations where an interpreter is needed.

You may think that a translator can be an interpreter and vice versa. But that’s not always true. Personal skills –as well as other acquired skills– are rather different. Translators tend to be autonomous people working alone in one project which will have to be submitted at a specific deadline. They have the time to look up every single difficulty they find, think, rethink, and make decisions that can be changed in the very last moment. A translation can be reviewed by another translator, so that it can be perfect.

However, interpreters perform their work at a precise moment. Their translation decisions of a phrase or word must be instantaneous; there is no time to think too much, or get a second opinion. Moreover, interpreters must posse some skills that translators may not have: communicating skills in front of an audience. It is not about the accurate translation of a word it is about interpreting the message that is being expressed by one speaker into the second speaker’s language. Let’s see how it works into the different types of interpreting.

There is consecutive interpreting. In this kind of interpreting one speaker starts to talk for a while and then it is the interpreter who communicates with the other speaker reproducing the ideas expressed by the first one. The interpreter uses a technique of taking notes so that all the information can be transmitted. Interpreters write ideas down on pads; they are structured, linked and represented into a code (symbols help to keep as much information as possible in a short period of time).

Consecutive interpreting can be performed in front of an audience or in a meeting between two or more people. In the first case, in spite of not being anything established as a rule, it is advisable to perform and modulate one’s voice according with what one is saying. Here the first person singular can be used. However, in a meeting where there are many interactions between two people, the third person singular is more frequent. This kind of interpreting is also called bilateral interpreting. As an example, let’s imaging a meeting between Obama and Rajoy, where Obama says to Rajoy: “It’s a pleasure to be here”. The interpreter would say: “El señor Obama dice que es un placer estar aquí”. That’s the way “reported speech” works.

Simultaneous interpreting tends to be more popular among people. Interpreters here are invisible, this means they are in booths, from where they translate as the same time as they hear. It is possible thanks to a headphones mechanism. Interpreting skills here are different from consecutive interpreting skills. Interpreters are not seen, so they don’t face an audience and they don’t have to behave in front of it. A disadvantage of this is that they must express all the ideas just with words, gestures won’t help them. Moreover, they tend to work in team, with a booth partner, who usually writes down the specific data that the speaker is saying in order that his or her partner can incorporate them to his or her speech.

It is fair to say that interpreting is always easier into your mother tongue, because one speaks it better that any other learnt language. A thing that interpreting shares with translation is that being bilingual is not the only requirement to perform this kind of work. This can also be learnt. Culture also plays an important role here. And it is even more difficult to transfer cultural aspects here because of the simultaneity of the job. The research part plays also an important role among interpreters, because it is not only about the moment of interpreting itself, it is also about the work of researching at home. Interpreters must explore all possible areas that might be mentioned in a specific meeting.

What do you think now about this job? Isn’t it interesting?

www.slroute.com 

La Tomatina

Gigantes y Cabezudos

La Tomatina accidentally began in 1945. The last Wednesday of August 1945 it was organized the Gigantes y Cabezulos festival in Buñol.  A group of young people wanted to participate in this famous festival around Spain and, considering that they were not allowed to, they pushed the participants and took tomatoes from a nearby stall and threw them to the participants. It ended in a big brawl where all people of Buñol were involved. The Police arrested the group responsible for the fight and made them pay for the damages. The following year, these young people repeated the same “battle” bringing their own tomatoes but the Police stopped it again.

La Tomatina

In the fifties this festival was forbidden by the Town Council but thanks to the TV program “Informe Semanal”, it became well-known in 1983. Nowadays the Town Council is, in fact, the responsible for buying and paying the tomatoes.

If you want to see the photos of La Tomatina 2014, click here: http://bit.ly/1tNbpBt

CONOCER VS SABER

If you want to translate the verb "to know" into Spanish, you have two verbs to choose from: saber and conocer. Both mean “to know” in English but they are not interchangeable. Knowing which verb to use depends on the context.

Rules, Uses & Examples

Conocer

We use the verb "conocer" in the following situations:

• to express familiarity with a person, place, or object:

Conozco muy bien esta calle. (I know this street very well.)

¿Conoces a mi primo? (Do you know my cousin?)

Nos conocemos desde siempre. (We have known each other forever.)

Conoce la arquitectura francesa. (She is familiar with French arquitecture.)

Saber

We use the verb "saber" in the following situations:

• to express knowledge, or lack thereof, of information about something

No sé donde está. (I don't know where it is.)

Sabe la verdad. (He knows the truth.)

¿Sabes cuántas estrellas hay en el cielo? (Do you know how many stars are in the sky?)

Sé que no quieres ir a la fiesta. (I know that you don't want to go to the party.)

• to express knowledge, or lack thereof, of how to do something or perform a skill (saber + infinitive)

Sabe encontrar buenos precios. (He knows how find good prices.)

No sabe bailar bien. (He does not know how to dance well.)

Sé cocinar como un chef. (I know how to cook like a chef.)

No sabemos llegar a la casa de Pedro. (We don't know how to get to Pedro’s house.)

• to express that one knows, or doesn't know, something thoroughly

Sabe todas las reglas de ser y estar. (He knows all of the rules for ser and estar.)

Sé todo el alfabeto en español. (I know the whole alphabet in Spanish.)

via enforex.com

Spanish words that have no translation into some languages

Cojo/tuerto

These words do not exist in English and that’s the reason why they use the long periphrasis “one-legged woman” (coja) and “one-eyed man” (tuerto). A bit long, aren't they?

via cultture.com

Maruja

There is not any word in French that defines a late middle-aged housewife that likes soap operas (maruja).

via http://asociaciongastronomicabarcarrotena.blogspot.com.es/

Trapicheo

This word that comes from cattle. In German “trapicheo” would be “Kuhhandel”, that means literally “trade of cows". However this word has a different look: it is used in politics, finances and arm dealers while in Spanish it is used for drugs and in street markets.

via madridparla.blogspot.com

Chapuza

Chapuza is the work done without taking great pains. Although “chapuza” is a shoddy piece of work in English or fazer una gambiarra in Portuguese, they do not express exactly the Spanish meaning as we can see in the picture.

via chapuza.com

Ojiplático

In Arabian it doesn't exist any word or expression and in order to express it we would have to say:  “عندما يفاجأ شخص من شيء وضعو العيون الكبيرة و المستديرة مثل الصحون”, that means “when someone is surprised and they are wide-eyed."

Do you know any other word that has no translation into another language? Do you have any idea of how to translate the previous examples?