LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

Beside es una preposición que significa al lado de, junto a, a la vera de: He sat beside her , se sentó junto a ella. You’ll find the book beside the box , encontrarás el libro al lado de la caja caja. They had a picnic beside the river , hicieron una comida campestre a la vera del río. Pero ojo con las siguientes expresiones: To be beside oneself , estar uno fuera de sí. To be beside the point , No venir a cuento. No tener nada que ver con algo. Una etimología simple nos puede ayudar a comprender: be + side , estar al lado. No confundir jamás con besides .

  English-speaking people are more prone to making small talk about the weather than Spanish-speaking people of any latitude. Still, because they are copycats at heart, they mimic the conversation chit-chat of England and the USA.  And as winter is approaching, the whole Spanish-speaking world and his mother are reminded of how cold it is. This is an entry from my Phraseological Dictionary: Hacer un frío que pela (te cagas, te mueres, que corta los cojones, de mil demonios, de muerte, espantoso) Be cold as charity (hell), as a witch’s tit, as ice, as marble, be bleeding cold Hace un frío que pela hoy It’s cold as charity today — “En Erzurum… hace un frío que corta los cojones.” F. Sánchez Dragó, El camino del corazón , 1990. Esp. || “Aquí hace un frío que pela.” Paloma Pedrero, Invierno de luna alegre , 1989. Esp. || “Además, hace un frío de muerte.” Eduardo Mendoza, La verdad sobre el caso Savolta , 1975. Esp.

  Cierto es que los ingleses han dicho que "everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it", y también es cierto que en verano se habla del calor y en invierno del frío. Ahora vamos a entrar en invierno y estamos ya medio ateridos. Para que puedan ustedes ponderar el frío que hace cuando hablen con un anglófono, les reseño esta entrada de mi diccionario fraseológico en ciernes: As cold as charity (a witch’s tit, ice, marbles, hell, the dickens) Frío que pela (que te cagas, que te mueres, que corta los cojones) It’s as cold as charity outside Hace un frío que pela ahí fuera — “My Dad says it’s as cold as a witch’s tit today.” PatrickTaylor, An Irish Country Girl , 2010. US. || “Cold as hell out there, right?” Lucky, 2011. US. || “Cold as the dickens.”  Daniel Black, Twelve Gates to the City , 2015. US. || “Eyes as hard and cold as marbles.” Savanna Welles, The Moon Tells Secrets , 2016. US.

To face the music es hacer frente a las consecuencias o castigo de las acciones cometidas. “I had desperately wanted to rush outside and leave the whole wretched affair behind me but something told me I had to stay and face the music.” Michael Falk, Part of the Furniture. (London: Bellew Publishing Company Ltd, 1991, pp. 1-146.) To keep a straight face es poner cara de poker, de juez, no inmutarse. “She tries to keep a straight face but she keeps cracking up.” Nigel Watts, Billy Bayswater. (Kent: Hodder & Stoughton Ltd, 1990). (Aquí cracking up significa desternillarse. ) Cuando estamos enfadados o contrariados ponemos a long face , cara larga: “No player, at a moment that mattered, ever saw Herbert Chapman with a long face.” Stephen Studd, Herbert Chapman. Football emperor. (London: Peter Owen Publishers, 1981). To lose face , perder credibilidad, avergonzarse. To make a face, to make faces , hacer, poner caras, muecas. Face to face with , cara a cara. On the fac...

Believe it, I am still teaching and think I am a better instructor than I was five years ago. My main purpose in class, aside from grammar, phonetics, and practice, is to keep my students motivated. Motivation and enthusiasm are the bedrock of language learning, which tend to whither with time, especially as students reach what they think is a plateau when they erroneously perceive no advance and feel stagnation in their studies. My method for motivating students is:  to congratulate them boisterously when they remember vocabulary or finally master or overcome a grammatical hurdle, or the enunciation of a difficult sound. I cheer loudly, clap my hands, congratulate them effusively, and make a big deal of their accomplishments. I also tell them that if others can be bilingual, and many people are, so can they. Why not?  Tips I pass on: 1. Daily study, even 15 or 20 minutes. 2. Approach vocabulary in context, in a sentence. 3. Repeat words and sentences out loud. 4. Memoriz...

I abhor   being patronized. I checked Blinkist  out of curiosity and went through some sort of entrance exam only to feel like a moron after completing it. Blinkist is supposed to be the tool to make you the smartest guy in the block. We are told that the pack leaders read 50 books a year. 50 books a year average about 1 per week which is pretty hefty. However, the people of Blinklist compress books that they digest for you down to 15 minutes.  This reminds me of Reader's Digest of old and their compressed books, except that it took longer than 15 minutes to read. Reader's Digest did a good job with  Friedrich von Hayek 's Road to Serfdom which reached millions of readers. But Blinkist is a horse of a different color and it is trying to sell us a bill of goods which I, for one, will not buy. Instant savvy, education, and culture, do not jibe with my way of seeing things. Speedwriting, speedreading, and speed culture are going to lead us to the ditch of ignorance b...

Parece ser que hoy, 23 de noviembre, celebramos el Día internacional de la palabra "con la finalidad de destacar la importancia de la comunicación en la sociedad a nivel mundial", nos dice Google. Esto me recuerda lo que decía mi profesor Mario Pei quien venía a decir que con los idiomas no se entiende la gente, y citaba la revolución rusa y la guerra civil española, donde los contrincantes hablaban la misma lengua pero no se entendían. Es ilusorio pensar que "hablando se entiende la gente", como dice el dicho español, y si no que se lo digan a palestinos e israelitas. Esto lo compruebo yo todos los días, en escritos, en charlas, conversaciones, cuando noto que los corresponsales e interlocutores no me entienden, o no quieren entenderme. Cierto es que ya hablo y escribo un castellano e inglés anticuados y pasados de moda, pero no difieren tanto del moderno y adelantado hablar de los jóvenes de ambos idiomas. A pesar de ese fallo en la comunicación, debemos intentar...