Category Archives: Spanish

De Colores

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Today’s Spanish tip is about colors: los colores. (Lohs Coh-lor- res)

We use colors to describe many things. Here are the colors in Spanish and English. Many of them are gender specific when describing an object. For example, to say: ‘the black dog’ it is ‘el perro negro’, for ‘the black chair’, it is ‘la silla negra’. Rosa and Naranja are exceptions because they are also objects in and of themselves (rose and orange). So for a masculine pink object (is that an oxymoron?), it would be rosado. For example: the pink telephone: el teléfono rosado. The orange shirt is ‘la camisa naranja’ but the orange hat is ‘el sombrero anaranjado‘.  The ones that don’t end in “a” or “o” like verde, azul, café, you don’t have to change, unless it is plural. The blue tables: ‘las mesas azules’, the green knives?: ‘los cuchillos verdes’.  

Rojo=red
Gris =grey
Azul =blue
Negro =black
Café =brown (actually means coffee)
Rosa =pink (or rosado)
Verde =green
Blanco =white
Naranja =orange (or anaranjado) naranja is also the name for the orange fruit, just like in English. Except in Puerto Rico (and maybe elsewhere), where the fruits are called chinas.
Morado -purple (I’ve also heard púrpura and violeta)
Amarillo -yellow (Now you know the meaning of the Texas city!)


(For some reason, in this image the colors of the words do NOT correspond)

There is also a very famous song sung in most Spanish-speaking countries called ‘De Colores’. It’s a very pretty song. Plus it sings about chickens! How great is that?! The commonly sung lyrics are here for you to enjoy. The translation to English is not great (I’m not sure who did it), but you get the idea at least.

Spanish Version

     De colores, de colores
Se visten los campos en la primavera.
     De colores, de colores
Son los pajarillos que vienen de afuera.
     De colores, de colores
Es el arco iris que vemos lucir.

 

     Y por eso los grandes amores
De muchos colores me gustan a mí.
     Y por eso los grandes amores
De muchos colores me gustan a mí.

 

     Canta el gallo, canta el gallo
Con el quiri, quiri, quiri, quiri, quiri.
     La gallina, la gallina
Con el cara, cara, cara, cara, cara.
     Los pollitos/polluelos, los pollitos/polluelos
Con el pío, pío, pío, pío, pí.

 

   

  Y por eso los grandes amores
De muchos colores me gustan a mí.
     Y por eso los grandes amores
De muchos colores me gustan a mí.

 

     De colores, de colores
Brillantes y finos se viste la aurora.
     De colores, de colores
Son los mil reflejos que el sol atesora.
     De colores, de colores
Se viste el diamante que vemos lucir.

 

    Y por eso los grandes amores
De muchos colores me gustan a mí.
     Y por eso los grandes amores
De muchos colores me gustan a mí.

English Version

     In colors, in colors
The fields are dressed in the spring.
     In colors, in colors
Are the little birds that come from outside.
     In colors, in colors
Is the rainbow that we see shining.

     

And that is why I love
The great loves of many colors
     And that is why I love
The great loves of many colors.

     

The rooster sings, the rooster sings
With a cock-a-doodle, cock-a-doodle-doo.
     The hen, the hen
With a cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck, cluck.
     The chicks, the chicks
With a cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep, cheep.

     

And that is why I love
The great loves of many colors.
     And that is why I love
The great loves of many colors.

    

 In colors, in colors
Brilliant and delicate is dressed the dawn.
     In colors, in colors
Are the thousand gleams the sun treasures.
     In colors, in colors
Is dressed the diamond we see shining.

     

And that is why I love
The great loves of many colors.
     And that is why I love
The great loves of many colors.

    

 Now you can ask for “De Colores” when you go to a Mexican restaurant and there is a Mariachi band.  

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Daisies and More

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Today after work I was hanging out in the yard with the animals admiring all the plants in the yard, but especially the daisies. I would like the whole perimeter of our yard to be filled in with flowers and plants like this patch of daisies. Hardy ones to combat the chicken scratching and pecking.


Schnoodle and Omelette with Daisies

We also have a lot of food plants, like these peppers, but also tomatoes flowering all over!

The front yard is filling in really nicely with some perennial wild flowers we planted as seeds when we put new plants in there.


Zinnia and Baby’s Breath


Mmm I love basil with cheese and tomatoes! And this is purple -extra mmm.


Football and Henrietta up close and personal

And for fun, here is a song called Daisy by one of my favorite bilingual musicians, Kevin Johansen

 

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Spanish Tip of the Month- Body Parts (Partes del Cuerpo)

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This month’s tip is about body parts. I thought of this because I once heard a woman explain that the only Spanish her daughter ever learned was from the Spanish version of the song “Head and Shoulders, Knees and Toes”. I thought, well, at least it is somewhat useful. If you are in pain or otherwise need to point out something on your body, it could be rather helpful to know the word for it. So here are a few of the more commonly used ones:

The Body = El Cuerpo (El coo-er poe)

The Head = La Cabeza (lah cah bay saw)
The Shoulders =Los Hombros (lohs ome bros)
The Knees = Las Rodillas (lahs roe dee yas)
The Toes =Los Dedos de Pie (lohs day does day pee ay)
The Foot = El Pie (el pee ay)
The Leg = La Pierna (la pee air nah)
The Arm = El Brazo (el bra so)

The Face = La Cara
The Eyes = Los Ojos (lohs oh hoes)
The Ears = Las Orejas (lahs or ay hahs)
The Mouth =La Boca (La Boe kah)
The Nose = La Nariz (Lah Nah dees)
The Hair = El Cabello (El cah bay yo) -this refers to hair on the head, elsewhere it is ‘pelo’
The Tongue = La lengua (lah laing gwa) -this can also be a word for language which has a similar root in English.

In the song it is “Cabeza, hombro, rodilla, pie” (sometimes pierna (leg) is in place of rodilla) in order for it to fit the rhythm of the song, but that literally translates to: Head, shoulder, knee, foot.

 

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Spanish Tip of the Month -AR verbs and ATE

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I’ve decided to add a new feature to this blog, a Spanish tip of the month. On the first of each month I am going to try to share some useful tidbit about Spanish, a Spanish phrase, Puerto Rican or other Latin American slang, a unique Spanish word or two, or some useful tips on Spanish.

For this month, I thought I’d share a fun one about -ar verbs. AR verbs are verbs that end in AR. They are usually pretty standard and conjugate fairly easily. Some of these include:

cantar: to sing
bailar: to dance
sentarse: to sit (yourself down -the se is reflexive)
pensar: to think

There are many, many -ar verbs out there. But if you are looking for an easy way to know a few Spanish words off the bat and you are an English speaker, look to English words that end in -ate. These words transfer almost perfectly into an -ar verb in Spanish, for example (por ejemplo):

educate: educar (in Spanish educar also means to instill manners)
celebrate: celebrar
manipulate: manipular
perforate: perforar
investigate: investigar

And on and on! Which ones can you think of?

To put it together in a sentence, you could say:

I like to ________ (3 syllable ate word)
I like to decorate.

Me gusta _____________ (take off the -ate and change it to -ar for a Spanish -ar verb)
Me gusta decorar.

-Or-
I am going to _________(-ate English word)
I am going to communicate.

Voy a _________ (-ar Spanish word)
Voy a comunicar.

Generally speaking this will work for practically all 3-syllable or longer verbs, but not all. With one and two syllable verbs it may or may not work.  Do not attempt this with words that are nouns (like classmate, candidate etc) it will not work. Also, while this should be obvious, I just want to point out that the pronunciation is different! Why does this work? Because most of these English words have their etymology in Latin, and of course Spanish is a Latin (Romance) language.

Here is a list of English words that end in -ate.  Not all of them will work (some are nouns not verbs), but you can play around with them.

Let me know what you think of this Spanish tip of the month and of the feature in general!

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