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Hey everyone, just curious is Costa Rica has some different than normal spellings of Spanish words. I have a “penpal” and I was having trouble with some words until I realized they were merely misspelled. There seems to be a mix up of letters so instead of “quisiera” it was spelled “quiciera” (on numerous occasions) and also mixups of other letters. Perhaps my penpal is just a bad speller?
okay thanks. however, i thought that quisiera was an extremely common word, so that is why i was wondering if there were regional spellings that perhaps I was unaware of.
hennaloungs…I don’t know it isn’t even in my Barrons Spanish at a glance book…what the heck does it mean…trying to learn Spanish.
Terry From Texasit is a conjugate of the verb “to want” and it’s futuro, meaning “i would like/want”. believe me, my spanish isn’t that great, but i’ve learned a lot just practicing with native speakers. when you take classes, you don’t even get into the different tenses until you are advanced, but in real life you talk about the future and the past all the time. that is why i believe there is no substitute for immersion. and by the way, most spanish dictionaries don’t list the conjugates of a verb, they only have a little chart somewhere in the front or back that tells you how to do it, so most verb forms won’t be listed in your book.
Edited on May 24, 2007 15:52
You’re almost right Henna. Don’t feel bad though, it’s actually a tense that no longer even exists in English.
I won’t use “querer” because it’s an irregular verb. How about “comer” (to eat):
Como = I eat
I EAT oatmeal for breakfast.Comeré= I will eat
I WILL EAT eggs tomorrow.Comí= I ate (once)
I ATE chicken last night.Comía= I ate(over a period of time)
I ATE mangos all the time in Costa Rica.Comería = I would eat
If I had to choose between a mango and an apple, I WOULD EAT the mango.Comiera = ???
This is the tense we’re talking about. I can’t put it into English words exactly, because as I said, it (almost) doesn’t exist. You use it when you’re saying something that isn’t.
For instance:
Peanuts would make me sick if I ATE them.
The tense is called “subjunctive”, and only one word in English remains to represent it – “were”, as in “If I were a millionaire…”. My understanding is that, to totally bury subjunctive in English, it is now permissible to say “If I was a millionaire…”. In other words, we simply use the past form of the verb to signify the subjunctive tense.
What’s worse is that after you learn to use all the different conjugations and tenses correctly, you’ll find that many times they’re not employed in conversation.
For instance, “Quisiera tener una casa grande” is literally translated as “I would like to have a big house”. In other words, although the subjunctive form is used, it’s the conditional tense that is implied, albeit with a hint of pessimism. One also hears people use the present tense in Spanish when they should be using future. “Mañana comemos pizza”. “Comeremos” is correct, strictly speaking, but the present tense is commonly used nonetheless.
Language is a funny thing. I taught conversatonal English, and when a student asked why you say it that way, we were directed to give only one answer – “Because that’s the way you say it”.
THanks for the technical aspects on that GringoTico. That same subjunctivo (or whatever, I’m bad with terminology) exists in French today as well. I’m quite certain it also exists in Italian, and probably Portuguese as well. My point is that it is commonly used by Spanish speakers still. I don’t care about English, I’d be happy never to hear modern English spoken again. I think there are many instances when this tense is very appropriate, and it’s a shame that we aren’t still using it in English. I guess we can just have/buy whatever we want here in America (where I am currently), so there is no sense talking in such a dreamy manner. In my eyes, the tense almost takes on a reverent tone, kind of an “inshallah” (god willing) tone. Correct me if I’m wrong, but it is also very polite, as if making your request and hoping that the eyes of God will perhaps notice and make it become true.
But back on spelling, guegues instead of juegues, that’s just a common error, no? And wouldn’t it be tuyo instead of tullo? Again, I feel these are very common words, perhaps my penpal (a Tico)is dyslexic or maybe has a low level of education or is a lazy typist. I just wanted to be sure I wasn’t missing some key difference.
You got it right Henna. But those are pretty uncommon errors, especially “guegues” The g’s are hard, so it’s difficult to see how he got that mixed up with the soft j’s. It definitely sounds like your penpal could use some Spanish classes.
You might be right about the religious reference as well. Just about any future tense sentence in Costa Rica starts with the phrase “Si Dios quiere…”
I’m totally intrigued now about my friend, as he is a native Costa Rican from San Jose and an adult so it must be something to do with his education level. Of course, I would not want to bring this up in a conversation as I feel that would be very insulting. To his credit, he is able to utilize the internet in order to send email…or maybe he is just unfamiliar with the keyboard and doesn’t know how to use backspace… my mother is a sloppy typist and doesn’t bother to correct any of her mistakes either, but it makes it harder for me to absorb his Spanish because I must first go through and correct what I perceive as potential errors.
If I may chime in on the subject I´d like to make a brief comment on the spelling question. A lot of the ¨bad spelling many times is done ïntentionally, very similar to the ïnstant message¨ or internet type of spelling used by English speakers. I have also observed through the years that many tend to spell as they speak (voleto instead of boleto or barias instead of varias, hayga instead of haya and so forth). There are also many bad spellers in rural/farming communities who were not able to attend much schooling due to the need to help their families work the farms/fields. No difference whatsoever than in the US or many other countries.
I understand that point, but he knows I’m trying to improve my Spanish so I don’t think he would intentionally misspell or use contractions. He grew up in San Jose but perhaps didn’t have access to as much education…
I operate a website where I am often in contact with people of other languages. Spelling is a big problem because I often must translate their letters OR mine using Bablefish. The problem I found is that bad spelling is a problem world over and that computer translation programs are not very helpful in this. It was easiest to notice when I translated my letters to other languages and many of my words in English did not translate.
One thing I have found that helps greatly is to use the Foxfire browser. It has form field spell checking (such as where this is being written). I think the spell check is available in several languages.
The other problem is the Spanish keyboard. It is not the same as the English keyboard and that few character displacement can make it a mess. Important punctuation that we use regularly (like the @ symbol) is moved and had to find. I suspect that you will find a mixture of Spanish and English keyboards all over Costa Rica. . .
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