Foreign Native

A good many Mexicans, when returning from an extended stay in Spain, get into the habit of saying “hubiese” instead of “hubiera,” “hablase” instead of “hablara” – and some even pronounce the ‘s’ almost as an ‘sh.’ Now if there’s one thing that’s liable to get friends and family wound up, it’s talking as if [...]

With the change in the weather come the coughs, colds and sneezes which are impossible to dodge when you live in a city of 20 million. The capital’s army of independent  vendors are quick to catch on to the pecuniary opportunity afforded by the suffering, adding individual packets of Kleenex – two for the price [...]

As well as its two verbs “to know,” and two verbs “to be,” Spanish has two different words that can be translated as “for” and which occasionally cause some confusion for people learning the language. The principal difficulty can be illustrated in the following phrases: Lo compré para ti (I bought it for you); Lo hice por [...]