I have my Spanish final tomorrow.
Spanish has altogether too many verb tenses.
Or maybe Americans are just too lazy. Because if you tried to tell an American that there were going to be different tenses for formal and informal commands, and within those commands different tenses for an affirmative and negative commands, he would laugh at you.** "Ha! Ha! Good one. I don't think so. I will stick with my past, present, and future***, thank you very much."
This is a lame post. I suck. But all I have in my head right now are Spanish verb forms. And apparently Spanish verb forms and humor are mutually exclusive and I can choose but one. And for the sake of my passing this semester, I'm going to go with Spanish.
* "I am grieved for the lame post" according to Altavista.
** Particularly if he was one of the southern states. They are WAY too smart to get drawn into the whole "proper grammar" thing and recognize it as a crutch for the weak.
*** Yes, all you English majors, I know English has more than just those three tenses. But trust me, Spanish still has more. A ridiculous, un-needed amount.
Monday, April 25, 2005
Estoy Apesadumbrado Para el Poste Cojo.*
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16 comments:
True indeed. Which is why I failed Spanish in college. Don't follow my example.
You fail Spanish? Esta Unpossible.
Does Spanish have that ever-popular "it"? He, she, it... I think German has that. A tense for all those androgeneoous people out there. Better than French where everything is either male or female i guess.
Si Heather es muy hermosa, después AMG es muy hermosa también.
androgenous. stupid spellchecker.
One more thing...
GEEZ, that's the best quote ever!
The only phrase I remember from spanish class is "Donde esta la vaca?"
"La vaca esta en tu garaje"
Enjoy - good luck on your test
AMG: What level are you in? Actually, we have about as many tenses in English; we just arrange the helping verbs differently and use a consistent form. "I study," "I studied," "I will study," "I had studied," "I have studied," "I would have studied," "I will have studied," etc. We've still got the conditional, the conditional perfect, the past perfect, and so on...
Andrew: Are you using online translators again? What did I tell you about that? "Después" means "then" in the context of time. Like "after" or "later". Try "pues". Actually, just make it a lot easier on yourself and say "Heather y AMG son muy hermosas."
joslik: Who keeps cows in their garage?
Sorry, I know how annoying this whole comment is, but GOSH, I love Spanish!
Heather, I took four years of Spanish in high school and I'm on my third year in college. I was just teasing about the verb tenses - I know we have a similar number in English. But do you really need three different ways to command someone to do something (formal commands use third parson subjunctive, informal affirmative use third person present, and informal negative use...shoot I'm going to fail because I forgot. The "tu" form of the subjuntive, or something).
Anyways, I love Spanish too...it's just that day-before-test frustration.
Yeah, I took 3 years of Latin in high school, 2 years of required Spanish in college, and still all I remember is "bonjour mon petit pamplemousse." And picking up that bit of French was just by accident.
I say three is enough. Really.
Thanks for commenting on my blog. I hate it when people sneak-peak and don't leave comments.
Anonyomous -
I think that it's important to remember that Americans do have familar and formal addresses. We just use a preface before the "you" instead of two different words for "you."
You can choose from the formal "Hey asshole, you (verb here)" Or the more familiar "Hey buddy you (verb here)".
AMG: In that case, I was just kidding, and I bow to you, the goddess of the Spanish language.
...Except I wasn't kidding about Andrew sucking at Spanish.
Spanish is definitely not one of my killer skills. GOSH!
"Heather y AMG son muy hermosas"
... and you could both drink whole milk if you wanted to.
BELATED GOOD LUCK AMG!!
If it's over (It is, isn't it?) then I hope it went well.
I know no Spanish so will not be joining the list of people who have taken this opportunity to display their Spanish skills. Or ability to use a Spanish translator.
Despite how witty that would be.
*
P.S. Hey Boutros,
I thought you were just giving out the other day about people not all speakin' English now you are making the effort with the Spanish?
Ah.
There's hope for us all.
*
AIG
But Russia's the centre of the world, I thought I-
Oh wait, that was-
Wrong blog.
Fine.
Yeah but Chinese, I mean, that's just so- I mean the symbols don't represent sounds!! They represent ideas!
Which is great if you want to read to yourself and come across a new word; you can figure out the meaning from the symbol but if you wanna know how to say it, it has no value whatsoever!
That's just how they do things and never the twain etc. etc.
But Spanish is good.
Tell us how you did AMG!
*
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