Spanish dictionary update

Today's update to the Spanish dictionary adds various new words and terms and improves the definitions of various common words.

Users of the dictionary may also be interested in an article I published a few weeks ago on improving your Spanish reading and dictionary skills.

Spanish chemistry terms

In what will be a new series on Spanish technical vocabulary, a new section has been added to the Spanish vocabulary section of the site giving various instances of Spanish chemistry terminology.

The page starts with Spanish terms for various basic concepts such as atom, molecule, ion, bond. Then the names of different types of chemical and functional groups is given (the Spanish terms for aldehyde, ketone, ester etc).

The section on the Spanish names of chemical elements gives a list of common elements, some of which have traditional names which have undergone sound changes and are thus more difficult to predict (e.g. iron, derived from the Latin ferrum, is nowadays hierro in Spanish; sulphur is azufre). However, the names of many other elements can actually be dervied from a few simple rules, such as the fact that the ending -ium is practically always -io in Spanish.

A final section looks at how to describe chemical reactions in Spanish, including terms for different types of reaction and a few useful terms for describing chemical formulae.

Spanish dictionary update

Well, after a slight hiatus while I caught up on some translation projects, the site's Spanish dictionary has been updated to include various new words and phrases. Notable words include patochada, the official Spanish word for "constructing a duck house at the public's expense", plus various medical terms (yes, I've been watching too many episodes of House recently).

Some new sections to both the Spanish and English grammar sections are also in the pipeline. Watch this space...

Book review: Correct your Spanish Blunders

Beginner to intermediate level Spanish students (or those teaching Spanish at high school level) will be interested in the review of Correct your Spanish Blunders (McGraw-Hill) now available on the Español-Inglés site. As with its French counterpart, the book takes a particularly straightforward, practical approach to Spanish grammar that some students will welcome. It's probably fair to say that the book assumes that the reader has a small amount of previous knowledge of Spanish and basic grammar terms such as verb, tense etc. But with that in mind, the book covers most of the grammar you're likely to need at high school level in a compact, no-nonesense way.

As mentioned in the review, the main caveat is that more advanced students will be looking for something a little more in-depth, such as Butt & Benjamin's New Reference Grammar of Modern Spanish, which covers more advanced topics such as regional and stylistic variation in Spanish, use of literary forms such as the future subjunctive, more detailed treatment of Spanish pronominal verbs, and in general a more "discursive" approach to grammar.

For many students, though, Correct your Spanish Blunders will hit the nail on the head in terms of providing just enough detail in just the right way. See the review for more details.

Spanish pronunciation and rhythm

Users of the Español-Inglés site may be interested in an article I wrote recently entitled Improve your Spanish pronunciation: Getting the rhythm. The article looks in particular at how Spanish speakers divide their speech into syllables. The rhythm of speech can be an important factor in making it easier to understand. The article looks at some subtle cases that you may not have considered, for example, that the Spanish word usual is generally pronounced in two syllables, whereas its English counterpart generally has three.