LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

  Say with an edge / Decir algo con rintintín (retintín) The English expression to say something with an edge conveys a tone sharpened by irony, irritation, or subtle hostility. Its Spanish counterpart, decir algo con rintintín (or retintín ), captures much the same nuance: a remark tinged with intention, often suggestive, mocking, or faintly malicious. Examples: David answered the question with an edge. David ha contestado a la pregunta con retintín. “The woman asks with accented English, now with an edge to her voice.” Pam Jenoff, A Hidden Affair (2010) “Y añadió con retintín: ‘Eres apuesto, sí, pero bajito.’” Terenci Moix, El arpista ciego (2002) In both languages, the emphasis lies not on what is said, but on how it is said: tone becomes meaning. The Spanish retintín often leans toward irony or sly provocation, while the English edge may range from mild sharpness to open annoyance. In either case, the speaker’s intention cuts just beneath the surface of the words.

  BILINGUAL BICULTURAL   In the early fifties, as a young boy, I crossed the Atlantic aboard a TWA Super Constellation propeller airplane from Madrid. After many hours, we landed at Idlewild Airport in New York. A tallish, thin, blond young boy reached America and immediately felt at home. “This is home at last”, I said to myself, and thus started my love affair with this country. What was it about Idlewild, the Greyhound bus that took me to Pittsburgh, a nine-hour ride, the people around me… It was a feeling of contentedness, of a certain joy, of adventure and emotion. All seemed new, fresh, and different, so different from my adopted city of Madrid, where I have never truly felt at home to this day. I had my first Coke, my second Coke, my third Coke during that long trip through Pennsylvania to Pittsburgh, the Smokey City, as it was then called. I was better off than most because I spoke English and was able to understand and make myself understood to the astonishmen...

Don´t take any wooden nickels - que no te engañen - my grandfather used to say to me. That was long ago (and I have taken plenty since then) but now I see that just about everyone is trying to hand me and my fellow humans, plenty of new wooden nickels under different guises and forms: Learn a language in 15 days. Read literature classics in one easy paragraph. Become happy reading a book. Get an AM just by opening your laptop a few hours a week. Sound like a native speaker with our app. Wooden nickels, 3-dollar bills, scams, frauds, rackets... duros a cuatro pesetas . Most of what we are told about languages and the brain has no scientific basis.       

Perhaps you have noticed that I tend to stress the need to care for one´s native tongue. You may exclaim that it is silly because, after all, you are a native speaker of, say, English and have been speaking it since birth. That settles it! But, no, that does not settle anything. I cannot tell you how often in my classes I have been asked to translate a word into the speaker's language only to meet perplexity on the part of the student because she did not know that word in Spanish or English, in her own tongue. If we do not study our own language, we will never be able to acquire a second one well. This may seem puzzling but in my experience it is true. Never overestimate the level of knowledge of your own language and be humble. You will never go broke underestimating the span of your vocabulary, grammar, and even syntax in your native tongue. You have nothing to lose improving it while mastering a second one. Thank you for your attention.  

  Phraseology, I hold, is the epitome of the full development of language. Language unleashed flows into phraseology. It deals with feelings, mindsets, and imagination. To go straight, to go taking the shortest route becomes as the crow flies .  The next town is thirty miles from here, as the crow flies . It is not true that the crow flies in a straight line, but it matters not because language, phraseology, does not have to be scientific or logical. Bear this in mind. 

  Es el lenguaje una herramienta de necesidad vital: la herramienta básica del ser humano. Sin ella, creo, nada es posible; pocas cosas hubiesen sido posibles. Y es curioso que a pocos les parece un utensilio importante, ni asignatura básica en nuestros colegios o universidades. Francamente, no se toma en serio, como todos sabemos. Será, acaso, porque como todos somos nativos y hablamos el idioma desde pequeños ¿para qué molestarse? Pero nosotros nos molestaremos, y estaremos siempre preparados para mejorarlo, perfeccionarlo y expandirlo. ¿Verdad?

Verbally I dwell in a two-story linguistic house. Let us say that on the ground floor I have placed my Spanish language where I keep the traditions, feelings, attitudes, fears, hatred, love, and memorized poetry that I have been hoarding all my life. Upstairs, I have the English language and tradition, the history, literature, feelings, and likes and dislikes, and also the poetry I have committed to memory, that this tongue has fostered during my life.  And I go up and down often, running away or hiding in either one of them. When I become angry with Spaniards for whatever reason, I take refuge and solace upstairs, and vice versa, of course. I might even have a linguistic split personality, who knows. But I even have a garret where I have stored linguistic odds and ends: French, Velenciano, bits of German and Latin, a smattering of Portuguese. Sometimes I visit the attic and dust these languages and brush them up a bit and lament the lack of time to really bring them up to date. To...

  Some time ago I had an article published (Viva Fifty) entitled "Every day to a more powerful vocabulary" in which I made a rundown of books inciting readers to expand their vocabulary in a brief period of time. The quiddity of it was that the "powerful" vocabulary was made up of unusual, recondite, and useless words. Of late I have been receiving emails from "Stream of Words" very apropos of this. They want the recipient to choose the right word for a sentence. The choices are: "alacritous, balter, incisive, contrapositive, vituperative, ripost, lipomatous..." and such. Of course, I am all for improving and enhancing one´s trove of words... but words with which we can actually communicate with an average educated person, and not words nobody has ever heard of.  Improve your vocabulary, not from lists, but from your readings, in context. 

  V erbally I dwell in a two-story linguistic house. Let us say that on the ground floor I have placed my Spanish language where I keep the traditions, feelings, attitudes, fears, dislikes love and memorized poetry that I have been hoarding all my life. Upstairs, I have the English language and tradition, the history, literature, feelings and likes and dislikes, and also the poetry I have commited to memory, that this tongue has fostered during my life.   And I go up and down often, running away or hiding in either one of them. When I am crossed with Spaniards for whatever reason, I take refuge and solace upstairs, and vice versa, of course. I might even have a linguistic split personality, who knows. I even have a garret where I have stored linguistic odds and ends: French, Catalan, bits of German and Latin, a smattering of Portuguese. Sometimes I visit the attic and dust these languages and brush them up a bit and lament the lack of time to really bring them up to date. To o...

Siempre que me dan la oportunidad explico que el lenguaje es el más importante y mejor invento del cerebro humano para comunicarse con otros cerebros. Pero, al ser el resultado de los esfuerzos neuronales, es caótico, impreciso, ilógico, imperfecto y personal. Esta manera de comunicación debe perfeccionarse aunque, hoy por hoy, es lo que tenemos y no se le puede pedir más. Sí creo que debemos tratar de pulirlo para que sea más preciso, menos ambiguo y más "científico", si es que se puede aplicar esta palabra a los idiomas; por lo menos al escribir, que es donde hay posibilidades de corregir, editar, cambiar y pulir. El minimalismo riguroso en la escritura debe imponerse; reducir al mínimo la expresión para comunicar conceptos con claridad.

Yes, I am borrowing the title of this post from William James because there are many experiences in both religion and language. Probably as many as there are people on earth. In the case of language, the final goal is communication, but there are many ways to achieve this end. In fact, there are 6500 different languages in the world. 6500 methods for brains to get in touch with other brains. And each language has its own varieties, and propably each variety has yet another variety. How many varieties of Spanish are there? Which one should I try to learn? Goodness gracious! The only answer I would venture to give is that the best variety is the one easiest to understand. After all, the idea behind language is to be understood.  

Aprender un idioma es como sacar agua del mar con un cesto, o hacer de Sísifo ( Sysiphus ), que por su maldad fue castigado a acarrear una roca hasta la cima de una montaña, que rodaba hasta la falda, y tenía que comenzar de nuevo, toda una eternidad. O sea: laborar y empeñarse en conseguir un imposible. Es el cuento de nunca acabar. Pero hay que hacer el esfuerzo y debemos intentarlo porque sabemos que el futuro está en manos de aquellos que, al convertirse en eternos y recalcitrantes estudiantes de la lengua, pueden expresarse mejor, comunicar mejor, convencer mejor y comprender mejor que los demás, siempre. Las cosas no vienen dadas. Y esto se aplica al político, al humanista, al vendedor, al filósofo, al biólogo, al amante, al médico. No se escapa nadie. Y tampoco se escapa ningún idioma.

OF (se pronuncia “ov”, no como "f") De. The leg of the chair, la pata de la mesa. The hair of the dog, el pelo del perro. Of good family, de buena familia. He died of old age, murió de vejez. A dress of silk, un vestido de seda. The city of Philadelphia, la ciudad de Filadelfia. The Queen of England, la reina de Inglaterra. One of them, uno de ellos. She is tired of working, está cansada de trabajar. It was terrible of him, fue terrible de su parte. OFF (se pronuncia “of”) Fuera de, alejado de, de. Off duty, fuera de servicio.  Off course, fuera del rumbo.  A day off, un día libre. Off también es apagado, como on es encendido: The TV set is off but the radio is on, la televisión está apagada pero la radio está encendida.

No matter what your line is, there is a basic tool all professions, trades, activities, endeavors, use. That basic tool is LANGUAGE. Language is the tool that permits a brain to contact another brain in order to communicate something. Language is used by medical doctors, engineers, computer scientists, enterpreneurs, sportspeople, mathematicians, actors, politicians... and yet, it is not deemed an important tool, so much so, that few truly command it well. Why is this? Because there is a misconception. People (educators) think it is an easy tool to master. No dice! It is a complicated instrument, and we have to study it, all our lives, in order to convey our ideas plainly and well. No easy task, let me tell you. Notice I repeat and emphasize the word TOOL and that I am refering to LANGUAGE, be it Bambara, English, Filipino or Farsi. The better we command language, the more chances we will have to "sacceed" in life. I may be flogging a dead horse, but I am compelled to. 

To keep your brain nimble and fit, go to this article, please. https://www.vivafifty.com/play-chess-keep-brain-sharp-6990/