LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

In my opinion, a word that sometimes describes Spaniards linguistically is hubris : excessive confidence in one’s own abilities. Why do I say this? Because it is not uncommon to hear claims of “perfect English” that do not quite withstand scrutiny. Many people will say, in all seriousness, that they speak flawless English—or that their children do—based on rather limited experience. One hears statements such as: “My daughter speaks perfect English; she spent a month in London washing dishes,” or that someone’s command of the language is impeccable because he works as a translator at a certain firm. Yet, when the chips are down, this supposed perfection often proves less solid than advertised. The gap between confidence and actual performance can be striking. This is not to say that Spaniards are uniquely guilty of such overconfidence, but there does seem to be a tendency, at times, to equate familiarity with mastery. In that sense, “hubris” may not be entirely misplaced. Spaniards spea...

Hearing world leaders speak English on television, I often find myself recalling Donald Trump’s blunt remark: “I don’t understand a word they are saying!” Crude and impolite—true to character—but refreshingly unvarnished. He said aloud what others merely think. Few ever question the actual intelligibility of a president’s or prime minister’s speech delivered in English. Politeness, protocol, and the illusion of mutual understanding conspire to silence doubt. And when two dignitaries meet behind closed doors, both are often equally ill at ease in English, making a true marriage of minds , as Shakespeare would have had it, effectively impossible. Most world leaders feel uncomfortable in English, which only reinforces my long-held belief: people do not want to learn languages—even when circumstances force them to. Competence may be achieved; ease rarely is. A satirical scene circulating on Instagram captures this perfectly. An Asian dignitary addresses President Trump in his own language...

  En castellano, cuando queremos reforzar una afirmación, solemos añadir al final expresiones como ¿no? , ¿verdad? , ¿es cierto?  En realidad, no se trata de una pregunta, sino de una manera de reafirmar lo que acabamos de decir. Por ejemplo: Tu hermano está en Londres, ¿no? Sin embargo, ese “¿no?” debe evitarse siempre en inglés , pues causa una pésima impresión . En inglés se emplean las llamadas tag questions , que siguen una regla sencilla: Si el verbo principal está en forma afirmativa , la coletilla va en forma negativa , con el auxiliar correspondiente ( do, will, did, etc. ). Y viceversa : si la oración principal está en negativa, la coletilla irá en afirmativa. Veamos algunos ejemplos: Inglés Español Your students are good, aren’t they? Tus alumnos son buenos, ¿no? They speak English, don’t they? Hablan inglés, ¿verdad? They will not come back, will they? No volverán, ¿verdad? She must not smoke here, must she? No debe fumar aquí, ¿verdad? I may not dan...

  We meet someone and take a liking to them. Why? Language tells us that, in this case, their goodness, kindness, politeness, and warmth are "written all over their face." Carl Weber writes in his novel Torn Between Two Lovers  (2012) that  “Her disappointment was written all over her face…” and people could see, feel, and recognize her disappointment because it was evident. In Spanish, the parallel idiom is "llevar algo escrito en la frente" with the same meaning. Armando Carranza, in 2003 and in his book Comprender los sueños de los niños , tries to explain the phrase thus: "Lo que una frente muestre en sueños tiene el valor de lo manifestado al mundo, ya sea de carácter digno o denigrante. De aquí la expresión de tener algo escrito en la frente."

When someone tries to sell me a bill of goods, sugars the pill, or gives me the runaround with a lot of fast-talk, I always shoot back with the expression "no matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney". Al Smith, governor of New York in the 30s popularized the expression as a campaign slogan. No matter how you dress it up or envelop it with sweet talk, the meaning is clear: you are trying to pull a fast one on me. I learned the phrase in College when I was about 17 and it has stuck. I am reminded of this when someone tries to get me to read a self-help book."Cut to the chase, buddy because I am wise to you and no matter how thin you slice it, it's still baloney." Hope you enjoy it and add it to your phraseology. "Por muchas vueltas que le des, no deja de ser un timo (bobada, engaño, mentira...)" is my Spanish version. What do you think?

  Observo en mis lecturas y escuchas que el nativo de lengua inglesa se está armando un lío con  "each other" y "one another" y cómo se emplean. "Peter and Mary love each other" porque son dos, se quieren. "Peter, Mary, Gustavo and Robert love one another" porque son cuatro, también se quieren. "Each other" cuando nos referimos a dos, y "one another" cuando hablamos de más de dos, tres, cuatro o medio millón. Y ya está. Una pariente mía, nativa, escribe "... brings us together to learn from each other..." cuando más arriba había precisado que eran seis en el grupo, con foto y todo. Ejemplos como éste abundan más ahora que antaño. Pero nosotros, los que apoyamos un inglés y castellano correctos y cultos, no entraremos en esos berenjenales.      

I had read on the Internet that  English speakers confuse then with than . I found it difficult to believe mainly because the pronunciation of both words is different. Last night, however, I found palpable and visible proof of this in Bill Hayes' s  The Anatomist (2007, Kindle edition). I had read his Insomniac City (2018) mainly because it deals with his relationship with Oliver Sacks of whom I am a literary fan, and was, at that time, reading his On the Move . Lo and behold, I came upon this passage: "... I found something even more illuminating, though it is written so quietly it would be easy to miss: Offered own assistance . Carter than adds matter-of-factly, Gray will let do some ." It sticks out like a sore thumb to the point that my spell checker has underlined than in red as I typed it. Mr. Hayes meant then , not than . So it is true that educated, well-read speakers of English make this silly mistake. What is worse, his literary agent, his editor, and his...

Upon listening to a discourse, I tend to grasp both the meaning conveyed and how it is conveyed. I practice this in spoken discourse, which is less structured and coherent than writing. The way the speaker presents their ideas, the words, and the idioms used are important to me. I am more alert to idioms now than I was before I embarked on my phraseological research in English and Spanish. I often wonder why the speaker uses a particular idiom, and the answer usually is that they have no other way to express their idea or feelings. Count it for joy, one can't win for losing, made of different clay, when push comes to shove, are phrases that express ideas and feelings hard to deliver otherwise.  "Count it for joy" implies finding happiness in difficult situations, which might take several sentences to explain without the idiom. "One can't win for losing" succinctly expresses the feeling of continuous bad luck or failure despite efforts. "Made of differen...

I know that perfection in language is an idle fancy, but I also have my foibles and quirks, and since early childhood, I have been collecting words and phrases and different pronunciations. I am still at it 24/7, as they say now. As far as language is concerned (or otherwise) I am no minimalist! I never have enough and I always want more. Aside from reading aloud, and moving my lips and tongue, I also close the day listening to English or Spanish in bed until grogginess overcomes me. And I have paper and pen in hand to write down whatever expression tickles me, lest I cannot recall it in the morning. Language learning is no walk in the park, at least for me, and we must toil at it constantly.   

  " But men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool’s life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before." 

Bilingual phraseological lexicography is a peculiar craft. It is not about definitions or paraphrasing, but rather paralleling idioms, colocations, turns of phrase, metaphors even, in two languages. I repeat: in two languages. If an idiom appears in English, it must also appear in Spanish. Cross-referencing is vital in this craft, and easier to check when using my unialphabet system. Each idiomatic phrase must be paralleled with the same meaning. This, trust me, is a feat difficult to achieve. If you fall off a turnip truck , you te caerás de un guindo,  for example. If you have a horse-back opinion , es que tendrás ideas de bombero . And as we know the run-of-the-mill native speaker knows all about his language, and objections will always arise, so we must supply citations for the controversial posts. I have been working on my dictionary for over 4 years, 4-5 hours daily. The manuscript has, so far, 730,000 words. (I am just venting, don´t mind me.) 

  Henry Kissinger (1923-2023) reached the United States from Germany in 1938, as a very young man, 15 years old. He served in the U.S. Army and studied at Harvard University. He has just died at 100. Why am I mentioning him? 85 years in America did not erase his German accent in English and to his dying day, he pronounced "we" as "ve", German style. He was indeed intelligent, yet the sounds of English were too much for him. All those who urge you to go to the country to practice a language are given the lie here. There must be more than just hearing a language to reproduce the sounds well. I am baffled and certainly disturbed and have no answers, but I am still convinced that we can master the sounds of a language. If some can do it, why can´t we? Let´s hold on to that simple idea and hope for the best. 

  " The phrase "ponerse el mundo por montera" is a Spanish idiom that literally translates to "putting the world on like a bullfighter's hat" in English. However, its meaning is more metaphorical and doesn't have a direct equivalent in English." This is what ChatGPT tells me and, do you know what? I don´t give a flying fuck what AI says, yo me pongo el mundo por montera . "Th government doesn´t give a fly fuck about them." (The Guardian, June 23, 2023.) "Yo haré lo que me dé la gana. Me pongo el mundo por montera." (Manuel Martínez Mediero, El niño de Belén , 1991.)

Of late, I have fallen into the habit of listening to the radio, late in the day, in bed, in the dark of my room. And I have become addicted to the CBS Mystery Radio Programs of old. Most of them are hosted by the actor E.G. Marshall (look him up) and mostly written by Sam Dan (1918-2004), a scriptwriter and novelist, and professor at Tisch School of the Arts , New York University. I listen attentively to the plot, the dialog, the presentation... and every time I close my eyes in awe at these small gems of art, of writing at its best. I urge all those trying to master the English language, to listen to these radio cameos. You will be instructed, entertained, and will hear good educated English at the same time. This is a small tribute to Sam Dan , a true writer and master of the technique of short writing.          

  I have come to the silly conclusion that Spaniards trip on the same stone countless times and enjoy pounding on the same theme repeatedly, flogging the dead horse of their lack of foreign language savvy. In my last post, I mentioned Mr. Núñez Feijoo ´s admission that his English is inadequate, which prompted his political adversary, the Socialist Party, to cook up a hasty video making fun of him on TV. O tempora, o mores , as the Navaho Indians used to say years ago. The President of Spain from the New Socialist Party, thinks himself a scholar in the language of Shakespeare. He is very daring because he has a lot to be modest about his English speaking abilities. But, unfortunately, he is a Spaniard, to our common regret, and so he believes that his passing acquaintance with English is a skill he should boast about. Not so. His fellow Communist-Socialists should not attack Mr. Núñez Feijoo for his lack of English and should instead send Mr. Pedro Sánchez to an English-language cr...

For 95 percent of the world's population, the sole advantage of learning foreign languages is that it might keep their brains nimble and sharp.  95 percent of the population of the globe is monolingual, with scanty knowledge of their own language. They make do with a limited vocabulary simply because they have no need for more as their daily activities only require simple sentences which are repetitious. For them, acquiring a second language is an unnecessary effort that has no end in itself. However, possibly, trying to master a second language, even in a limited scope, might activate their brains and keep away the phantom of "old timer´s disease", also known as Alzheimer´s disease. Other than that, there´s no valuable purpose in pursuing language studies. Delfín dixit!

Unwittingly, a kind Instagram fellow-user has reminded me of my youth and my studies in English Lit, and the poetry I used to memorize. Those who learn poetry by heart belong to bygone times, to "days that are no more", but I am a pigheaded, stubborn old teacher, and insist on recommending language students to commit poetry to memory. Sooner than later this habit will stand them in good stead. William Wordsworth has a poem I have known by heart for over a century. I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud : I wandered lonely as a cloud That floats on high o'er vales and hills, When all at once I saw a crowd, A host, of golden daffodils; Beside the lake, beneath the trees, Fluttering and dancing in the breeze. Continuous as the stars that shine And twinkle on the milky way, They stretched in never-ending line Along the margin of a bay: Ten thousand saw I at a glance, Tossing their heads in sprightly dance. The waves beside them danced; but they Out-did the sparkling waves in glee: A p...

  In my quest for adding new words to my vocabulary, I find that the definitions given by dictionaries are not enough to grasp the meaning. I have the upper hand because I can rely on bilingual dictionaries also, which might help elucidate the idea the word is trying to convey. Take the word figment which, according to The Random House Webster´s Unabridged Dictionary is: "a mere product of mental invention; a fantastic notion: The noises in the attic were just a figment of his imagination." Can I then say "What you are saying is a figment"? Collins explains: "A fantastic notion, invention, or fabrication: a figment of the imagination." Webster´s New Worl Dictionary defines it as: "To make, device, something merely imagined or made up  in the mind." Can I say that your story is a figment? Elizabeth McCracken published a book in 2008 entitled: An Exact Replica of a Figment of My Imagination: a Memoir . And Shells Walter, also in 2008, published: F...

Of late I have been toying with the idea of going back to school so as to keep my neurons on track and on their toes. I thought I would try La UNED ( Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia ). It is a severe and prestigious university. I must keep up to speed with the times and new tendencies in my field. So I looked at the department´s offering and this subject caught my eye:  Pragmática de la Lengua Inglesa  ( pertenece a la materia denominada   Lenguaje y Comunicación .) The course description is this: "Esta asignatura pretende formar a los estudiantes en el conocimiento de los principios que regulan el uso del lenguaje en la comunicación humana en lengua inglesa. Se hará especial hincapié en las condiciones que determinan el empleo del lenguaje y los enunciados apropiados por parte de hablantes concretos en situaciones comunicativas reales, así como su interpretación por parte de los correspondientes receptores. Por tanto, los estudiantes habrán de fa...

  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.