Thinking in Spanish . . .

First, the past tenses are the cause of much frustration among Spanish students. We have memorized the fine points of when to use which one, but have been told that it is really just a matter of speaking and listening to hone our usage of the two past tenses. With ongoing actions, descriptions, and narrations, you use the imperfecto tense, and with actions completed in the past, you use the preterito tense. Within those two tenses, there are some verbs you use that, when used with one or the other of those past tenses, their meanings are completely changed.

My tutor, who absolutely LOVES his language and teaching it, tells me the past tenses in Spanish are beautiful and he likes them very much. He laughs and adds that they help feed his family, because many students come to him for more explanation or practice with them. I will admit that upon first learning them, I only considered them quite ugly because they tricked me every time. What I thought was an action completed was instead a description, or vice versa. Now I think they are a little bit attractive. One day, I know they will be beautiful to me, too! : )

More differences:

If you have lost your keys and wonder where they are, you would say, "I wonder where my keys will be." The future tense is used.

If you wonder if someone lied to you or did some other action in the past tense, in Spanish you would use the conditional tense: "I wonder if he would lie to me."

It is tempting to think that a word in Spanish which sounds like a word in English means the same thing. There are many in which that is exactly the case. However, we have to be careful of the ones that are different in the two languages. For example, the verb desepcionar doesn't mean to deceive, as we English speakers would think, but to disappoint or let down. Embarazada doesn't mean embarrassed at all, but pregnant.

We are finishing up a unit on participles, which are very important in Spanish, and in English are verbs ending in -ed or -en. However, there is a group of participles that is "regular" and a group that is irregular, and some of the participles in the irregular group have two participles, one regular and one irregular. Some of those "irregulares" have two very different meanings. As with many subjects that we study in learning the language, our teachers smile at us and say, "I'm sorry, you just have to memorize these." And then, my grammar teacher, who has a great sense of humor, chuckles to herself and adds, "Pobrecitos," which translates, "Poor things."

Oh well, off to study. . .