Wednesday, August 6, 2014

Spanish phrases vs English phrases

Our last day of the Trimester is next week.  Over the last 3 1/2 months we've picked up some interesting differences in common phrases/expressions between Spanish and English (some of these are exclusive to Costa Rica): 

Here they say the sun comes out in the morning, we say the sun comes up in the morning.

Here you ask if you can borrow the bathroom, we ask if we can use the bathroom.

Here they say it's raining toads and frogs, we say cats and dogs.

Here, at church, they say "bow your head", we often say "bow your heads".  If they say "bow your heads", that means that a person literally has more than one head. 

The other day after my class I went to find Hannah in her class, and her teacher asked my if I was looking for "my half of an orange".  At first I was confused, but then I realized she meant "my better half". 

To express something that will never happen, we say "when pigs fly", here they say "when frogs have hair".

If someone repeatedly does something wrong and is on the verge of getting in trouble, we might say "you're on thin ice", here they say "you're on the wings of a cockroach".

Finally...though this is not a phrase or expression, it's worth including:
Spelling is so much easier in Spanish.  Hannah, who is not a good speller (and she's not afraid to admit it), is spelling Spanish words very easily.  The reason it is easy is that each vowel only has one sound: an "a" always sounds the same no matter the word or where it appears in the word, the same goes for the other vowels.  And except for the letter "h", nearly every letter of every word is pronounced.  So for the most part if you can hear the word, you can spell the word. 







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