Comments on: Learning Spanish from Taxi Drivers!

By: Vero

Vero — Mon, 31 Aug 2009 18:10:23 +0000

Yo diría que más usual es decir: “te clavan”, “te sablan”, o “te pegan un sablazo”, por lo menos entre los jóvenes, así que ya teneis nuevas expresiones para quejaros!! jeje ^^

By: Ben

Ben — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 18:47:05 +0000

@Sandy, some of our slang might not translate to Latin America, but the wonderful thing is that people from other Spanish speaking countries will love to hear the Spanish from Spain version, then they’ll teach you all their slang too! All our other Spanish is totally translatable to all countries in South America.

By: sandy

sandy — Sun, 12 Jul 2009 15:48:49 +0000

Dear Ben and Marina,
I adore you! I love the podcasts more than any Spanish learning tools I have used in my quest to learn the language that I hear spoken more and more in my home state of Florida. (One-third of the schoolchildren speak Spanish at home in the county where I live, which is the Orlando area.)

My only worry about the slang I’m learning from you two, though, is that it may not be used or even understood correctly in Latin American Spanish. Any thoughts on how to deal with this?
Sandy
PS Thank you so much for the free stuff you provide! I’m buying the non-free stuff as soon as our recession-blasted business starts making money again!

By: Jason

Jason — Tue, 23 Jun 2009 00:39:37 +0000

Controversy??? Who comes to this site to debate English grammar?? Who cares…no one is here to learn the finer points of English. Brian, get out of your little world and come to Spain….no pasa nada tio, tranquilo, todo esta bien. Nobody here really cares about I vs me…I’m more concerned about mixing up pollo and well, you know… and things like that. Jason – Zaragoza.

By: Sarah

Sarah — Sun, 21 Jun 2009 00:55:00 +0000

I agree with this great advice. On a trip to Peru two years ago, I always sat in front while my husband and daughter sat in back. Most of the drivers were very friendly and interested in learning English. I had many mini-intercambios. My husband and daughter, who both spoke much less Spanish, also picked up on a lot from listening and having me translate interesting portions of the conversations. I definitely would have felt differently about these exchanges had I been single though.

By: Ben

Ben — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 10:35:01 +0000

@Sasha – both!

By: Britta (sífide)

Britta (sífide) — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 20:10:53 +0000

Thanks, Brian, for explaining “you and I / you and me”.

Because of my being German I didn’t know there are two possibilities and always thought one form had to be wrong. I couldn’t look it up anywhere and here I’ve just bumped into the answer after so many years.
So there’s nominative (subject case) or dative/accusative (object case) and it’s easy and logical. One must only know.

Thanks a lot!

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 15:48:42 +0000

Why are some people writing ‘you and I’ and others writing “you and I”. I thought the latter was only used with direct speech.

Anyway Ben, what I would like to know is how would you have written this in Spanish ?

By: Ben

Ben — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 08:54:51 +0000

@Thanks Kathy, and Elizabeth! And everyone else of course! I knew as soon as I wrote ‘you and I’ there would be trouble, but seeing as the post was about learning Spanish, not English, I didn’t worry too much about it!!

By: Elizabeth Davies

Elizabeth Davies — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 02:05:42 +0000

Ben – regardless of the ‘me/I’ controversy – [ I am reminded of 'glasshouses] I, too, think you are fabulous so in conjunction with the previous comment’s author, that makes at least two of us!! If anyone feels like having a grammatical ‘poke’ at that sentence, please feel free. Greetings to all from New Zealand. Elizabeth