Guide To The Spanish Language
An introduction to Spanish without the grammar - A new and fresh perspective with some interesting items on
language and the similarities between Spanish and English
Before we look at some useful phrases we need to remember that direct translation of phrases is really not much use at all. We have to THINK…..
..................................INTERPRETATION!
This is a very important concept to grasp if we are to learn Spanish.
As an example let’s take the simple question “WHY?” and consider how the Spanish people use the equivalent in Spanish. The Spanish equivalent is
¿Por Qué?
The direct translation is “for what?” which has been shortened from the full
phrase which was “¿por qué razon?” This shortening happens a lot with phrases in both Spanish and English. The direct translation of the full phrase
is “for what reason?” Remember we discussed clichés and sayings in language.
We need to understand that to think about direct translation will cause confusion. It also explains a lot when we see such
words as qué and por used in a different context.
The point is that there is no equivalent word in Spanish for the English word “why”. They use a phrase or sentence, which is a longer way of saying the
same thing. It is longer and more cumbersome and so through usage it has been shortened from “¿por qué razon?” to “¿por qué?” which is two words
written but when spoken because of the effect of “elision” sounds like one
word. This gets even more complicated when in Spanish we want to ask specifically about the purpose of something; “why go if we are not
needed?” in this case we should not use “¿por qué? We should use ¿para qué……….?
By understanding this kind of translation issue we hopefully will accept that direct translation is useless and we will not be too confused when we see
words in Spanish that look similar but mean different things because we will already know that we have to consider the context before we make a decision
about the meaning.
As an example if we were to see the word “porque” - we should not jump to the conclusion that it means “Why”. We can see that the two words are joined
and there is no accent over the letter é and no question marks. So we should be alerted to the possibility that this means something other than “why”.
Porque written like this means “because”.
When we speak such words it is difficult to tell the difference between “because” and “why” or “¿por qué?” and porque. This is because there are no
written indicators to inform us. This is overcome by taking into consideration the context in which it is used and also by the sound made.
When asking “¿por qué? We emphasize the last syllable and end with an upward sound, rather like the way Australians speak. When we use the word
“porque” we do not emphasize the last syllable. Remember think interpretation not translation.
