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1500 questions
8
votes
9 answers
Difference between 'mirar' and 'ver'
What is the difference between 'mirar' and 'ver'? I know they both mean 'to see' or 'to watch'.
I checked online but can't find anything that helps.
Tia27
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8
votes
5 answers
La llave vs. la clave
Nevermind the fact that these two words are both irregularly feminine
I was always taught in school that llave is key, like the kind you use to open doors / crank a vehicle, etcetera. Though when I learned one day that llave can also refer to the…
dockeryZ
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8
votes
6 answers
Personal pronouns: When to hook at the end of verb and when to keep separate?
I am learning Spanish with the Michel Thomas Method.
I am a bit confused with when to put 'lo' at the start of a phrase and when to hook it on to the verb. For example:
Why can't you do it that way? ¿por qué no puede hacerlo así?
Here, "lo" is…
big_smile
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8
votes
6 answers
Why are both "Presidente" and "Presidenta" accepted as correct translations?
Duolingo wanted me to choose between multiple options for the translation of "She is the president of that organization".
I chose "Ella es la presidente de esa organización" but it was counted as wrong, because, they say, both that and "Ella es la…
B. Clay Shannon-B. Crow Raven
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8
votes
2 answers
How to emphasize an action as in "I don't ..., but I *do* ..."
En inglés se puede utilizar el verbo 'do' como un verbo auxiliar para enfatizar una acción. Por ejemplo:
You aren't really getting good results at school. - But I do study hard.
(No estás consiguiendo buenas notas en la escuela. - Pero estudio…
user7005
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8
votes
3 answers
Spanish for "breasts"
I have heard the following words in various contexts to refer to breasts: seno, pecho, busto, mama, chichi, teta.
I want to understand what the finer differences in nuances are among their usage while referring to breasts. They cannot all carry…
TheLearner
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8
votes
4 answers
What does "mae" mean? Is it only specific to Costa Rica?
I've seen MAE in Costa Rica used a bit and I was wondering if it is exclusive only to Costa Rica. And also, what is its general meaning?
Context is my girlfriend's brother told me this:
MAE qué buen mensaje
and I'm not sure what it means in this…
Ryan Dennler
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8
votes
3 answers
Palabras en castellano análogas a "safety" y "security" en inglés
Según Google, las palabras inglesas "safety" y "security", traducidas al castellano, ambas significan "seguridad". Sin embargo, "safety" y "security" no significan exactamente lo mismo en inglés.
Por un lado, "safety" es la característica intrínseca…
isekaijin
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8
votes
3 answers
Spanish for "spoon" in Venezuela and Guatemala
I know spoon is cuchara in Spanish. But I have also read that cuchara is a vulgar slang term for vagina in countries like Venezuela, Guatemala, and El Salvador. My question is what's the word one should use for spoon in those countries so as not to…
TheLearner
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7
votes
2 answers
How did "grifo" become the Spanish for "faucet"?
While studying the etymology of the word, I found that it comes from gryphus, the Latin for griffin. In fact griffin also happens to be one meaning of grifo. And as we all know, griffin is a mythical beast with the body of a lion and the head of an…
TheLearner
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7
votes
2 answers
Why does the preterite of "traducir" transform into "tradujo"?
As you will see below the preterite suffers from an odd transformation. Even native speakers make the mistake of conjugating the preterite of traducir wrong. For instance instead of traduje they mistakenly say traducí.
Present:
Yo traduzco
Tú…
Alfredo Osorio
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7
votes
2 answers
Usage of "mueco" vs. "mellado" for "toothless"
The RAE does not have an entry for mueco or mueca, a term commonly used in Colombia to describe a toothless person. However, the expression hacer muecas is understood in the traditional sense as a generally burlesque facial contorsión. Mellado seems…
Jaime Soto
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7
votes
2 answers
¿Por qué Buenos Aires se abrevia Bs. As. o B.A. y no BB.AA. como debería ser?
Las abreviación de palabras en plural se hace usando dos veces la misma letra, por ejemplo EE.UU. por Estados Unidos o II.BB. por Ingresos Brutos. ¿Por qué no se utiliza la misma regla para Buenos Aires?
Eduardo Molteni
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7
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1 answer
Origin of the phrase "la quinta ..." to denote an undesirable or faraway place
The Colombian phrase la quinta porra denotes an undesirable or faraway place. For example,
¡Váyase a la quinta porra!
conveys the same meaning as
Go to hell!
The earliest use I could find in a superficial search in Google Books was from 1921 in…
Jaime Soto
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7
votes
3 answers
Is there a connection between "cuchillo" and "cuchara"?
Do these two words have any common root?
I looked up in the RAE, and didn't find there any connection between these words. According to the RAE, cuchillo comes from Latin "cultellus", and cuchara comes from verb "cuchar".
So it looks like there…
Igor Milla
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