Me gusta o me gusto??

I re-listened to Language Transfer Track 42 this morning. Mihalis continues with the future tense and the verb poder, which means 'to be able'. 'Would you be able' is another way of saying 'Could you'. Using the rule and the key sound 'ía' you would think it should be 'poderías' but because this is a very common verb used  over the many years, the 'e' got lost and the word evolved to 'podrías'. The other forms would be podríamos, podrían, podría. I love this! This will definitely help me to remember.

He also discusses  the verb "gustar". I have always known this verb to mean "to like" but Mihalis suggests we instead think of it as "to be pleasing". 

• I like it - It is pleasing to me - Me gusta
• I like them - They are pleasing to me - Me gustan

If we using the intermediate "Spanglish" translation, we arrive at the correct translation and avoid using the "Me gusto" incorrectly, which translates to I like myself or I am pleasing to me. Which might also be true, but may not be what you meant to say!

And, because she makes me laugh, I include Ana's video on the verb gustar. She gets off on several tangents, but the beginning does explain a different mistake that some people make with the verb. 

Me gustan mucho los videos de Ana? Te gustan?

Pronounciation

The second part of today's homework was to explore Pronunciation in Spanish. Our instructor suggested two videos both from Ana Padilla with Butterfly Spanish. I ended up watching her whole series on the Spanish alphabet, because why wouldn't I do that on a lazy holiday Monday. 

Be forewarned, I'm about to get super geeky. The one I found really interesting was how to pronounce the letters LL and  Y. She explained the LL sound as: between the English sounds for J (ch) + Y (io).

The technical term was fricativas palatales sordas, which include LL, RR, Ñ and CH. Technical term aside, you put your whole tongue (not just the tip) up against your palate and make the english JY (ch-io) sound. 

Plus she's just fun to watch! She makes me laugh 😄😄