Difficult Spanish words and 'falsos amigos'

The site's section on difficult Spanish words looks at various items of Spanish vocabulary that can cause trouble for English-speaking learners (and sometimes foreign learners in general) because either they look similar to another Spanish word with different meaning, or because they wrongly lull the reader into thinking that they have a particular meaning.

For example, the Spanish word actual, generally carrying the meaning of current, presentday, would virtually never be translated by the English word actual. A carpeta in Spanish is a folder: nothing to do with carpets! Various books for Spanish learners give lists of similar words, sometimes referred to as falsos amigos or "false friends".

However, a problem with the typical list of falsos amigos is that many of these words sometimes can actually carry the meaning of their English counterpart. Many textbooks that give a simple list actually present a misleadingly pessimistic view! So in our treatment of tricky Spanish words on the Español-Inglés site, instead of a simple list of words, we try to give an explanation of how the word in question is used, comparing and contrasting it with the use of its apparent English counterpart.

Comments and suggestions for new falsos amigos or otherwise additions to the section are always welcome and can be left on this blog entry.

Spanish wordsearches/crosswords in PDF format

Firstly, let me offer all users of the Español-Inglés site most hearty Felicidades for 2009!

The first new content of the year is some freely-downloadable Spanish crosswords and wordsearches, available in the new Spanish worksheets section of the web site. The activities are downloadable as PDF files, so you should be able to print them out from any machine that has a PDF reader installed.

The wordsearches and crosswords are organised into various themes, chosen from the basic Spanish section of the web site. Each PDF file includes several activities on the chosen theme, of varying levels of difficulty (small/medium/large grid size). Watch this space for further topics.

New Spanish vocab sections and word games

The following new Spanish vocab sections have been added, along with corresponding on-line crossword games to help reinforce this vocabulary.

Christmas in Spanish: various words and phrases for Christmas and the New Year, including names of Christmas icons and foods traditional in Spanish-speaking countries. A corresponding Spanish Christmas crossword is also available.
House and furniture: the first page of this section deals with how to say different rooms of the hosue in Spanish, then the following page deals with more specific items found in different rooms. A corresponding home and furniture crossword is also available.
Clothes and accessories: covers the Spanish words for general terms such as coat and trousers, plus more detailed vocabulary. A corresponding Spanish clothes crossword is also available.

Dictionary update

The latest update to the Spanish dictionary includes various new definitions and corrections.

Verb conjugations shown in Spanish dictionary entries

The conjugations of many Spanish verbs are now shown in the corresponding Spanish dictionary entries. At present, conjugations are shown for verbs with "interesting conjugations": that is, either arbitrary irregularities in one of their stems, or a more typical vowel change (e.g. pedir > pido). Not every tense is shown:

• the conditional is not shown, as it is completely predictable based on the future tense form (see the grammar sections on the future and conditional tenses for more information);
• the past subjunctive is similarly predictable based on the preterite, so only the latter is shown;
• only a single compound tense is shown, namely the perfect (he hecho etc); other compound tenses, e.g. the pluperfect (había hecho), are predictable based on the perfect.

See the Spanish verb tables section of the site for a list of semi-regular and irregular Spanish verb patterns, with accompanying notes.

Any suggestions or corrections to the verb conjugations displayed either within the dictionary entries or within the verb tables are welcome on this blog entry.