LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  En el prólogo a mi libro Escribir y comunicar en inglés , escribe el profesor  Felipe Fernández-Armesto sobre su método de aprender idiomas, que consiste en memorizar poesía. Dice en ese prólogo el profesor de Notre Dame, insigne historiador y gran conocedor de los idiomas inglés y castellano: “ My own method of learning languages ought to disqualify me from introducing this book. I teach myself by reading poetry. Verse is memorable, because repetitive and often rhyming. And most cultures have a stock – a common culture – of poems familiar to everyone educated in the language concerned. So foreigners who quote them instantly forge the sort of bond of sympathy that enhances every experience of communication. ” Y yo añadiría a la poesía, la letra de canciones también. ¿Lo ponemos en práctica? Tenemos poco que perder.

 Tengo a mi alrededor gente a la que le encanta ponerme de los nervios, pincharme para que salte y pierda la calma. Esto, en román paladino, se llama buscarle las cosquillas a alguien o hacerle rabiar . Lo malo es que lo consiguen. Por mucho que trate de mantener la calma y no darles el gusto de verme sulfurado, they push my buttons, and I take the bait . Por ejemplo: Mi amigo Peláez sabe exactamente cómo hacerme rabiar hablando de política, lo que en inglés podríamos traducir como: My friend Peláez knows exactly how to push my buttons by talking about politics. Me gusta esta expresión inglesa porque lo de 'buttons' nos recuerda a 'tecla',  que en castellano también se usa figuradamente: tocar las teclas de alguien. He encontrado las siguientes citaciones de uso, para que no se diga: — “… but you don’t want to push his buttons because he can turn very vicious.” Sporting News , September 8, 2006. US. — “… and Jimmy would keep pushing her buttons until she’d lose her te...

Yesterday, someone who knows no English congratulated me on my mastery of the language. I have also been told that my Spanish is good. I take these compliments with a grain of salt, since they come from unqualified experts. The question of language proficiency is one I often ponder. The study of a language is a lifelong endeavor, and there is always something to learn, correct, or improve. If my reader is studying Spanish, allow me, by way of digression, to offer three pieces of advice: 1. Avoid the passive voice whenever possible. Do not say David ha sido visto when the more natural Han visto a David will do. Spanish often prefers the active construction where English readily resorts to the passive. 2. Use the progressive form only when it is needed. Do not say Estoy yendo a casa when Voy a casa expresses the same idea more naturally. The progressive is not a substitute for the simple present. 3. Learn the subjunctive thoroughly—and use it. Do not automatically translate as far as...

 I believe I have already mentioned the truism that society has taken great strides forward in its attitudes toward marriage and births out of wedlock. What was considered a sin and looked down upon a few generations ago may today pass without raising an eyebrow. The expression born on the wrong side of the blanket refers to someone born outside marriage. It is an old-fashioned, somewhat euphemistic way of describing what was once regarded as a social stigma. Given the changes in society's attitudes toward such births, one might assume that the expression has become obsolete. And yet, it continues to appear in literature: “I was born on the wrong side of the blanket.” Anya Seton, Winthrop Woman , 1958. “… those royal romances which always seemed to involve births on the wrong side of the blanket.”   Time magazine, February 21, 1969. “… born on the wrong side of the blanket.”  Barbara Kingsolver, Demon Copperhead , 2022. These examples might lead us to question whet...

Escucho y leo a literatos, profesores, periodistas, hombres de letras, que explican en artículos y entrevistas, que poseen en casa enormes bibliotecas con muchos, muchos libros. Es más, creo recordar que había un programa televisivo donde el reportero recorría bibliotecas privadas de famosos, cuyas estancias estaban  atiborradas de libros, colocados en estanterías, debajo de las mesas, en la cocina, en la bañera. Vi la de Amando de Miguel y Luis Alberto de Cuenca, y quizá otros cuyos nombres se han borrado de mi memoria senil. Arturo Pérez Reverte se ufana en las redes de tener 32.000 volúmenes en su casa. Recuerdo el horror de ver tantos libros desperdigados y apilados de mala manera. Un verdadero sinsentido. Aparte de la sabiduría tradicional, eso implica polvo, mucho polvo.  Saco mi ábaco y calculo: Si tengo 30.000 títulos y leo uno a la semana, sin saltarme ninguna semana, leeré 52 al año. Para leer los 30.000 libros necesitaré 577 años en números redondos. Claro que si le...

Postscript Whatever happened to Lewis Perelman, the man who predicted the demise of conventional education? He did not disappear immediately after publishing School’s Out in 1992. He continued to write and work on policy issues, and an interview published in 1997 shows him still defending his thesis.  Yet today, Perelman seems to have faded from public discussion, while the schools he declared obsolete are still standing. His predictions deserve revisiting. Perhaps that, too, is a lesson in the unpredictability of the future. Perhaps Dr. Perelman's mistake was not to predict that school would disappear, but to underestimate its capacity to survive. Or perhaps the real revolution is still to come. Dr. Lewis Joel Perelman, born in 1946, passed away on March 10, 2026. 

Has the internet and technology truly changed traditional classroom education? Are students learning more, and learning better? In 2002, while preparing the fourth volume of my English in Action , an English grammar for Spanish speakers ( hispanohablantes ), I wanted to make it a chrestomathy of educated English: a selection of passages designed to help learners master a language. I included poetry, short stories, newspaper articles, and literary essays. During my research, I came across a review in the Financial Times titled “Is Education Outdated?” It discussed Lewis Perelman's School's Out: Hyperlearning, The New Technology, and the End of Education , published by William Morrow in 1992. I found the review sufficiently persuasive to obtain permission to reprint it. According to the reviewer, Perelman argued that conventional education was obsolete and that investing in school reform was like investing in the horse and buggy at the dawn of the twentieth century while ignorin...

  Juan Antonio de Zunzunegui: notario imprescindible de la España franquista Sobre la novelística de Juan Antonio de Zunzunegui (1901-1982) escribí mi tesis doctoral en los años 1963-64 , bajo la dirección de Joaquín de Entrambasaguas . Obtuve la calificación de sobresaliente , pero, más allá del valor académico, aquella investigación me abrió una ventana privilegiada a la España de la posguerra y la larga dictadura, a la que Zunzunegui sobrevivió. Quien quiera entender la atmósfera social, moral y política del régimen de Franco debe leer a Zunzunegui. Sus novelas -a veces ásperas, otras llenas de ternura, siempre veraces- registran lo que la historia oficial callaba. Zunzunegui observó y reprodujo con precisión las miserias y grandezas de la vida cotidiana y supo dar voz a una España que sobrevivía entre las sombras. Muchos ahora hablan del franquismo sin haberlo vivido; Zunzunegui lo noveló casi como notario.  Algún día escribiré aquí sobre nuestras pequeñas tertulias, en...

Some people on social media insist on challenging readers bilinguistically, telling them that certain words in Spanish or English do not exist in the other language. One such word is "apetecer" which dictionaries translate as feel like, craving, or even how about.  ¿Te apetece una pizza esta noche? / Lo siento pero no me apetece dar un paseo largo hoy. / ¿Seguro que te apetece? Segurísimo. Would that mean that the exact feeling or idea does not exist in the other language? Certainly not. The richness of our two languages is out there to be explored and studied. If we make the effort. The words may differ; the human experience does not. In English, we can translate the above three Spanish sentences: Ar e you up for a  for pizza tonight?  / Sorry, I am not up for a long walk today.    /  Are you sure you are up for it? Absolutely.   In a nutshell:  Be up for something = Apetecer and, of course, feel like and how about. 

The cruelty of human nature is well known. The cruelty directed at people with physical disabilities has a long and ugly history. Today, we congratulate ourselves on showing a certain degree of humanity in the way we refer to someone who limps or is missing a leg. Spanish has a particularly rich, and sometimes brutal, repertoire of colloquial expressions for such people. The following are examples: Patapalo Patachula Cojo Cojitranca Pataescombro Cojo de mierda Patituerto Patamula Today, euphemisms and more respectful expressions are increasingly the norm: persona con discapacidad motriz, persona con movilidad reducida, persona con cojera . We are now expected to say that David tiene movilidad reducida rather than call David a patachula or a cojitranca . Language changes, and so do our ideas of what is acceptable. Whether this change reflects greater humanity, greater sensitivity, or simply a different set of social conventions is another question.

I have made it a habit to watch the Princess of Asturias Awards on television every year, straight from Oviedo, Asturias. I enjoy the pomp and ceremony, the Asturian bagpipes, the Royal Family, the fanfare, and listening to the speeches delivered by some of the awardees. I also appreciate the fact that people’s efforts in the humanities, science, sports, and other fields, as well as the work of certain institutions, are recognised, publicised, and discussed in the media. And I am all for indulging another of my habits: learning, discovering new people and institutions, and finding out about the progress they are making. Yesterday, I discovered Patti Smith, the singer and writer. Imagine that, at this stage of my life! Timothy Garton Ash was also new to me, and I intend to read his work. His speech made me want to do so, which is surely one of the best things a speaker can achieve. Julian Barnes was not exactly brilliant in his short speech but, truth be told, I was listening to the dub...

 These days I am irritable and touchy. I feel like everyone is trying to push my buttons to see which way I'll jump. And I jump sky-high, lose my cool, and watch my blood pressure rocket up. As I live in Spain, what people are doing to me would be called hacer rabiar or buscarle las cosquillas . Of course, English has plenty of ways to describe people who are easy to provoke, and I am apparently one of them. I turn vicious when someone pushes my buttons. Whatever the case, learn this idiom and try not to rise to the bait.

 Hay expresiones que nacen en los tribunales y terminan en la calle, donde adquieren una vida mucho más amplia que la que les dieron los legisladores. Con premeditación y alevosía es una de ellas. En el uso corriente, viene a significar que algo se hace con malas artes, con intención deliberada y sin dar al otro la menor oportunidad de defenderse. No es poca cosa. El artículo 22 del Código Penal español, aprobado por la Ley Orgánica 10/1995, define la alevosía en estos términos: «Hay alevosía cuando el culpable comete cualquiera de los delitos contra las personas empleando en la ejecución medios, modos o formas que tiendan directa o especialmente a asegurarla, sin el riesgo que para su persona pudiera proceder de la defensa por parte del ofendido». Una definición que, dicho sea de paso, no se distingue precisamente por su ligereza. La premeditación, que figuraba en textos legales anteriores, desapareció como circunstancia agravante autónoma del Código Penal de 1995. La alevosía, s...

 The more I hear people express their thoughts in English and Spanish in everyday life, the more convinced I become that we need speech training. I have mentioned reading aloud before as an excellent exercise. Actors constantly practice and train their speech, and I believe we should also train ourselves to speak well every day. After all, the way we speak says a great deal about who we are and how we present ourselves to others. My recommendation is simple and easy to follow: read aloud for five to ten minutes a day. Read slowly; savor the sounds, pay attention to points of articulation, how you articulate each sound, and experiment with stressing sentences in different ways. Do not rush or stumble over your words. Easy does it. You may notice the results in a few weeks, perhaps even sooner. Your interlocutors will appreciate the difference. Try it. You have little to lose and much to gain. 

¿A dónde vamos a ir a parar? / What Is the World Coming To?   It’s the all-purpose sigh. Nobody expects an answer. You say it when the news is grim, when a scandal breaks, or when the kids do something that surely signals the end of civilization: Wars, wars … what is the world coming to? Or, if you’re reaching for the Spanish: Guerras, guerras… ¿a dónde vamos a ir a parar?   Examples: --“No sé a dónde vamos a ir a parar.” — Rosario Ferré, La batalla de las vírgenes (1993, Puerto Rico) --“No sé dónde vamos a ir a parar.” — Manuel Martínez Mediero, Las largas vacaciones de Oliveira Salazar (1991, Spain) --“Alice watched the little girl leave and muttered: What is the world coming to?” — Charles Martin, Thunder and Rain (2012, US) --“… Lord, have mercy! What is this world coming to?” — Mary Monroe, Bad Blood (2016, US)

ChatGPT me dice que, por "to rage bait", debería usar "provocar indignación, buscar el cabreo ajeno, provocar polémica, cebo para la indignación" en castellano.  Sé que no debiera "rage bait" al pobre ChatGPT, que anda corto de fraseología comparada y hace lo que puede con lo que tiene o con lo que le han enseñado. También es cierto que esta expresión es muy nueva en inglés para describir lo que en lengua española experimentamos con "hacer rabiar a alguien" o "buscarle las cosquillas a alguien". Claro que, como todavía no lo he publicado, ChatGPT no ha podido copiar mi Diccionario Fraseológico, español-inglés.  Ejemplo: Amelia did not answer because she suspected David was trying to rage bait her - Amelia no contestó porque suponía que David le estaba buscando las cosquillas. Amelia no contestó porque suponía que David la quería hacer rabias.

 Me van a permitir soltar un par de clichés lingüísticos y sociológicos: todo cambia, ya nada es como era en mis tiempos… Hablemos de los políticos. Pedro Sánchez le ha dado un vuelco al idioma en más de una ocasión con aquello de «mentir no es mentir, es cambiar de opinión». También ha quedado trastocado aquel viejo dicho que rezaba: «lo prometido es deuda», que los ingleses traducían literalmente como « promise is debt» . Este político, muy comunista él, promete a las masas empleos dignos y bien retribuidos, casas por doquier, más dinero para los pensionistas, transporte público de calidad y barato, frenar a la ultraderecha, canalla y maldita, y ponerla en la picota. Todo vale, porque ahora lo prometido ya no es deuda. Lo prometido no vale nada: es papel mojado, palabras que se lleva el viento y que pronto se olvidan. Y yo, que vivo en Las Batuecas, todavía creo en la palabra dada, en el honor, en la amistad, en la integridad; todavía creo que lo prometido es deuda.

 ¡Españoles y españolas! Hoy comparezco ante vosotros, no solo como presidente del Gobierno, sino como un hombre que cree en el futuro. Y os pregunto: ¿qué es el futuro sino el presente que todavía tenemos que mejorar? Hemos conseguido mucho. Muchísimo. Pero debemos hacer más. Porque hacer más no consiste simplemente en hacer más, sino en hacer lo que hay que hacer, cuando hay que hacerlo y para quienes hay que hacerlo. Algunos dicen que tenemos un problema. A quienes dicen que tenemos un problema, les digo: el problema no es que tengamos un problema. El problema es creer que un problema no puede convertirse en una oportunidad. Y nosotros convertiremos cada problema en una oportunidad, cada obstáculo en un peldaño y cada crítica en una prueba de que estamos avanzando. Porque España merece más. España exige más. Y este Gobierno, mi Gobierno, el Gobierno de todos los españoles, seguirá trabajando sin descanso, día tras día, noche tras noche, dejándose la piel, por una España más prós...

Reading some poetry by the brand-new Nobel Prize winner in Literature, Anne Carson, I was reminded of Guillermo de Torre, the Spanish ultraist poet, and of how Julio Casares took him to task in an article titled   «Hélices, por Guillermo de Torre» . Casares discusses ultraist poetry with considerable humor and a good deal of sarcasm. The article dates from 1920, 106 years before Carson won the Nobel Prize. Yet the two poets have something in common that is worth pointing out. Casares quotes a poem by de Torre entitled «Fotogenia»: Rostros, Muecas, Visajes Acordes faciales de la emoción iluminada Gestos dardeantes... Now consider these lines by Anne Carson: It's good to be neuter. I want to have meaningless legs. There are things unbearable. ................................................. It is curious how poetry repeats itself. A century separates these two writers, yet both seem to challenge our expectations of what a poem should say, and how it should say it. One was ridiculed ...

  “There is no problem that the mind of man can set, that the mind of man cannot solve.” I have always attributed this quotation to Dr. Samuel Johnson; however, it seems I was wrong. I have been unable to authenticate it from Johnson’s writings. Where, then, did I get it from? Google led me to Dr. Terence Meaden’s CV, in which he attributes these very words to Dr. Johnson. Misquotations abound, as do misattributions, but what are we to do about them? Must we double-check every quotation we encounter for the first time? I suggest that, when we cannot trace a quotation to its original source, we should at least identify the source from which we have taken it. In this case, we might write: “As Dr. Terence Meaden attributes it to Dr. Johnson in his online CV: ‘There is no problem that the mind of man can set that the mind of man cannot solve.’” It is not proof that Johnson said it, of course. But at least we are being honest about our source. Is that not preferable to perpetuating a po...