Ajedrez.....

Way way back on this blog I wrote about following your interests in Spanish... almost anything you might possibly be interested in will be out there in SpanishLand...books, videos, music, blogs, films and so on.

To show you what I mean, I am interested in ( amongst other things) chess... and there's loads of that in Spanish ( but not quite so much as there is in German!).

There's loads of Spanish-language chess books for a start... including the best chess book ever, My 60 Memorable Games by Bobby Fisher... yes, there is a Spanish version....MIS 60 Mejores Partidas... and lots of others.



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MIS 60 Mejores Partidas

[ Sorry about the advert for Kindle.. it seems to be part of the image so I can't get rid of it... Kindles... I hate them, they will be the death of books]

Here's an odd little Spanish chess book...



Odd because it uses a very strange notation for the ( short) games... it took me a while to sort out how it worked.

There is also "The Flanders Panel" which I have mentioned beofre... a spanish mystery novel based on an ancient chess position.... gripping stuff if you like Peres-Reverte.

For more immediate gratification, there are lots of Spanish-language videos on the net... from Instrucional videos to reports of top-level games, to coverage of important 9 or not so important) tournaments... and even if you aren't interested in chess, the spanish is interesting to listen to ( mostly)... for example..

Here’s a short but nice clip about a simultaneous display where lots of young people get to play against a top player…


This next one is an instructional video about playing a famous chess opening with a Spanish name… the Ruy Lopez!


Here’s a video about Traps in the Opening…

This is one of a massive set of instructional videos called “ Las Pasion del Ajedrez


If you want to, you can play chess online against Spanish-language players... there are numerous sites, and you can simply choose opponents who display the flag of a spanish-speaking country.... it is quite normal to write about all sorts of things while the game progresses.

And as for the music, it's a song by Elli Noise called TuRbiNa.... probably aimed at the younger end of the audience...



here's them words..

No pienso creer en algo
q no puedo ni mirar
q esta lejos de mi comprensión,
De repente t apareces tan distinta
y diferente creo q no puedo confiarme
Llevo tanto tanto tiempo así
y es por ti terminaste con la luz
nanana nananara

He encontrado una razón en mi camino
y se va alejando como lo hago yo
Basta con tener conciencia de quien soy
y q me espera
esa es nuestra diferencia hoy
Llevo tanto tanto tiempo así
Find More lyrics at www.sweetslyrics.com
y es por ti terminaste con la luzz
basta ya de indiferencia

Y es por ti que emprendo este viaje hoy
falta mucho por recorrer
solo quiero alejarme de una vez
Llevo tanto tanto tiempo así
y es por ti terminaste con la luz,
basta ya de indiferencia y es por ti
es mejor dejarte a ti

Por q lejos de tanto dolor
poder ser, tener mejor
la distancia, todo cambia de color.

Hey... I've bought a ( very cheap) MP3 player! It works!

Lady Gaga turns into Zebra Live Onstage!

Another weird and wonderful way to stretch your Spanish a bit is to try to translate newspaper headlines.

And I don't mean the dead boring ones like " International Monetary Fund to charge Greece 18% interest on Bailout loans."

No... I mean the tabloid ones... short, sharp, blunt, cheeky, daft, alliterative, punning!

There are tabloid headlines to suit all ability ranges...although they can require a bit of thought and creativity as well.

In the interests of in-depth research, I went out on Monday and shelled out a whopping 30p on a copy of the Sun... I told the Librarian what I had done and she said that she understood, but it shouldn't happen again.

So here is selection of what Monday's Sun had to offer... .. in a handy easy-to-difficult-to-near-impossible format

[a] TYPE 1... short and sweet... fairly straightforward

... May Hotting Up
...Lotta Lolly
...Singer Turns Up In Coffin
...Tack Attack
...Doom Lens
...Off With Ex
...You're Fired!
... Rich Richer
... Drunk Driver, 9
... Ultimate Betrayal

[b] TYPE 2.... a bit of thought needed here...

...Plane Stupid ( about the government scrapping Spy Planes )
...Hotel for Nudes
...Dannii was Axed ( about Dannii Minogue getting kicked off X Factor)
...Kelly Rowland Lined Up ( about her potential replacement)
...Payback Time ( about getting banks to pay back some of what WE are owed!)
...Lotta Lolly ( This is actually about expensive gold-encrusted ice lollies)
...Hard-Up Fergie ( about Sarah Ferguson being poor)
...Rise of the Yobettes ( drunken young ladies in town centres)
...Betterflies ( about last year's good weather boosting butterfly numbers)
...Look Fabulass just like Pippa ( Pippa's amazing rear)
...United Front ( Fergie under attack from all sides)



[c] TYPE 3... Not easy... hard to get the right " feel" in another language...

...We Blue off Steam ( about the boy-band Blue on Eurovision)
...We're Buck ( about Buck's Fizz on Eurovision)
...Loony Toon ( about Newcastle player Nile Ranger with a gun in an advert)
... It Moss Be The Queen ( about Kate Moss arriving in a helicopter)
...James N'Pat in big Spat ( James Corden + Patrick Stewart argument)
... Freeze a jolly good Fellow ( People being statues in City Centres)
... It's the Stuff that Screams are made of... ( Man City Cup Win...) which leads us on to..
...Bulls are totally out-foxed ( Bradford Bulls Rugby League team that is)

[d] TYPE 4... Football Headlines... in a world of their own, almost untranslateable !

... Van-tastic ( Van der Vaart scores to beat Liverpool)
... Bent Over ( Darren Bent scores 2 to beat Arsenal)
...Zend of the road ( Bolo Zenden quite Sunderland)
...Hope and Gory ( Hope for Wigan, looks nasty for Birmingham)
...They're Hairoes ( Paul Scharner of West Ham dyes hair blue for finall home game)
...Fans victim of some Vowel play ( PNECRISIS appeared on Countdown... Preston North End)
...Poshing his Luck ( Peterborough ( Posh) still in with a chance)
...Mission in Action ( Fergie still wants more goals)
...Kid Owen is just Boot-iful ( Owen Farrell boots Saracens into R U play-offs)
...Oh Walter Way to Go ( Walter Smith, Rangers Manager, finally leaves )
...Gunner be hard now for Arsene ( Arsene Wenger with tricky final matches)

There's a lot of thinking and head-scratching there for a measly 30p.

I always used to wonder what they meant when "they" said that Horace ( Latin Poet) was " untranslateable". Surely, I thought to myself, languages are just codes, and we can decode them.

Now I am older and wiser I realise that if languages ARE a code, then they are subtle, flexible, interactive and constantly changing codes.

A few thoughts about some of those headlines..

* How DO you cnvey the flavour of that 'n in James N'Pat ?

* The Plane/Plain pun...can you do a similar thing in Spanish? Might you have to change the adjective to another one where the trick can work?

* The Blue/Blew pun... you can't change Blue because that's their name.. so you would probably have to find a similar-sounding spanish verb and make a pun with that.but I can't find anything suitable.... though in German you might do something with blasen... to blow ?

* Freeze/For he's ... the pun doesn't seem to work at all in Spanish... you would probably have ot search around for another popular line that you could pun with.

*Can you find a Sapnish version of the Fabul-ass pun, can you do it with a different but similar-meaning word? What is the Spanish -OUS ending?

* What exactly IS the Spanish for " out-foxed"?

These are just a few of the myriad questions translators have to deal with when changing stuff like this from one language to another, and trying to get the right "feel" to the translation as well.

The thing is, while you are looking up all the various adjectives, verbs, nouns etc plus all the alternatives you might use, you are using the dictionary like mad and learning and using new words in a fun way.Result!

I look forward to getting some feedback on possible translations for some of thse headlines.

In the meantime, here's Niños Mutantes with Sapos y Culebras ... the video is just a still but I will try to find a more interesting one...



and here's the words...

Lyrics to Sapos Y Culebras :
Llega el tiempo de cambiar,
llega silencioso y por detrás,
y no pensabas que te iba a tocar.

Llega el tiempo de pensar
que el futuro es un buen lugar.
Y es que no siempre puede durar
la sensación de empezar.

Perros, gatos, peces, cabras,
ratas, sapos y culebras,
todos tus amigos de verdad.

Habla bien desde la grada
y te esperan en tu casa,
quieren verte y escucharte.

Prometen que te acompañaran
hasta el final.

Perros, gatos, peces, cabras,
ratas, sapos y culebras,
todos tus amigos de verdad.

Habla bien desde la grada
y te esperan en tu casa,
quieren verte y escucharte.

[ These are Sapos Y Culebras Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

Keep those pesky translations coming!

Idiota...

A quick post to remind my ravenous public (?) that I am still here.... very busy recently though. That's Maria Blanco, the singer in Mabü, up there, I've just got their CD Buenos Dios... there's some lovely stuff on it.

Here is a quick bit of beautiful music... a really gentle and quirky rendering of Idiota by the truly wonderful Nena Daconte...



.....and here's the words again, from when I first posted the "usual" video of the song way way back..

Lyrics to Idiota :
Ya está ahí la Luna.
Que perra la vida y esta soledad.
No quisiera perderme tu tren
y saber lo que es malgastarte.
Podría coger cualquier autobús
con tal de un beso más
pero tengo pesado el hogar
y ya no puedo hacerlo igual.
Puede que mañana me quiera ir.
Y puede también que mañana sea
la vida
y que mañana, no exista mañana.
No soy una niña.
No soy ese duende.
No soy luchadora.
No soy tu camino.
No soy buena amante,
ni soy buena esposa.
No soy una flor,
ni un trozo de pan.
Sólo soy esa cara de idiota
Idiota por tener que recordar la última vez
que te pedí tu amor.
Idiota por colgar tus besos con un marco rojo
por si ya no vuelvo a verlos más.
Idiota por perderme por si acaso te marchabas ya,
y tirar tu confianza desde mi cama hasta esa ventana.
No ves qué fácil ha sido para mí
perderlo todo en un momento.
Por mi miedo a perder,(bis)
por mi miedo a no controlar tu vuelo.
No soy una niña.
No soy ese duende.
No soy luchadora.
No soy tu camino.
No soy buena amante,
ni soy buena esposa.
No soy una flor,
ni un trozo de pan.
solo soy
esa cara de idiota
idiota esa cara de idiota
no ves que facil a sido para mi
perderlo todo en un momento.
[ Idiota Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]

I'll be back in action soon... ray

Capsule tasks.......

When you are learning a language, you can liven things up a bit by setting yourself short-term projects... I call them " Capsule Tasks."

Here's a few examples...

[a] Translate a paragraph of Spanish into English, then put the original away and translate back into Spanish again... then compare.

[b] Learn the set of words you need to describle somebody's face or their clothes, or a building or a car... then as you stroll into town use what you have learned on everyone or everything you see.

[c] Buy a cheap children's book ( Noddy stories are good) and transalte it into Spanish

[d] Learn the words of one of your favourite Spanish songs.

[e] Pick up a handfull of Scrabble tiles and try to make as many Spanish words as you can... and find out what they mean.

[f] Read a small section of an English-language book, and decide which tense all the verbs should be in.... even better, actually translate the verbs.

[g] Read a page of Spanish nito a tape-recorder, then play it back. does it sound OK ? Try reading the same passage month later... are you improving your accent?

Well, that's enough for starters... these little projects are very motivational... they're short, and different to the usual ploughing-through-the-book tasks.

The music today is a song I've featured before, but this is a lovely "unplugged" version... it's Mäbu and " Tanta Química"... I love it!



Here's the words...

A Solas :
A solas hablo contigo y te cuento que la luna es roja
Te cuento que a veces me espanta
Ahora acabo convertida en pluma
como una más entre tu almohada pero muy cerca de tu cara
No puedo no tocarte si tú no me dejas
besarte si tú no me lo pides
Instinto animal hay de sobra
Y tengo clavada aquí una condena de años
y de preferencias que dicta que a mí no me tocas
Tanta química, tanta física
tantas ganas de morderte
tanto y tanto para los demás
con ganas d volver a verte…x2
La marca que deja un beso no es tan mala
te puede dar todo por nada
y te quiere dar, te puede dar
Que puedo yo darte si no tengo historia
algunos años de poca memoria
Soy para ti lo que me digas, me da igual
Tanta química, tanta física
tantas ganas de morderte
tanto y tanto para los demás
con ganas d volver a verte…x2
Tanta química
Tanta física
Por qué es con otro y no contigo
Por qué es con otra y no conmigo


(Gracias a Pimientorojo por esta letra)