Spanish1 Blog Entry...

learning spanish is not a easy task. however with the help of others and with numerous days/hours of practice i think it's something that can become easily apprehensible. One of the first things that has helped me with understanding spanish phrases that were diffulcult to make out, was the help of cognates. Cognates are the words that stand out to you making them reconizable and easy to translate from spanish to english and visvirsa. For example, if i am reading a sentence that is hard for me to understand but in that same sentence i see the word diccionario- then i would immediately know that the word means dictionary. I could analyze other words being used with that reconizable word and perhaps guess or get a sense of what the text or dialogue is trying to say. although a lot of words in spanish look the same in english we must be careful because often times they do not share the same meaning.

Also, in many cases the American culture is the most well known for having a different approach when meeting and greeting people. some interesting facts about the spanish culture that i did not know about, is that they like to hug and kiss when initiating a conversation upon meeting or seeing someone. In american cultures we do not just do that to any and everybody. Its almost like a sign of respect in the spanish cultures. growing up i always wondered why my puerto rican friends would do that to girls they hardly even knew. I had just thought they were trying to holla at each other and there was some mad chemistry going on that i didnt know about.... i guess now i know the real meanings behind the hugs and kisses..