Countdown!

Hoy mi amiga Anouska mostra al club de Harry Potter club una programa de U.K. se llaman  Countdown. Empiezan con una palabra con 9 letras y las letras se mezcla. Necesitan hacer palabras usando las letras. Es igual que el juego Boggle, pero con una palabra de 9 letras garantia y musica con tiempo. 

Me encantan las rompecabezas de palabras pero en español es más dificil. Quiero ver la programa en realidad. Y encuentro esto en YouTube. Pienso que Richard es muy gracioso. Las rompecabezas de numeros son divertidos tambien!

Gracias Anouska!

Weather - El tiempo

 I learned two things about describing weather using hacer and estar today. 

1. because the subject in this context is the ambiguous "it", both hacer and estar are conjugated only in the third person singular
2. You always use hace + noun and está + adjective or gerund, you can't mix and match expressions.

Idios with hacer

hace frío - it is cold

hace calor - it is warm

hace sol - it is sunny

hace viento - it is windy

hace fresco - it is cool

hace buen tiempo - it is nice out

Expressions with estar

está nublado - it is cloudy

está lloviendo - it is raining

está nevando - it is snowing

está lloviznando - it is drizzling

está lluvioso - it is rainy/west

está humedo - it is humid

está seco - it is dry

Tabú

For Chapter 6 of our Harry Potter Book Club I decided to host a game of Tabú. I altered the rules and setup to accommodate the book club and the Zoom platform. For future reference, here are the details. It was a fun meeting, if I do say so myself 😀

Game Setup:

Two Teams: A&B

Team A selects a person in their group to be the Clue-giver. I send a text to the Clue-giver as well as Team B, a list of 3 clue words in all CAPS and the taboo words listed below each clue word. I then start a 90 second timer. Clue-givers must get their team to say the Clue word without using the taboo words in one of their clues. If the taboo word is used, then Team B must sound the buzzer which penalizes Team A and they must move on to the next clue word. Play continues until either the timer runs out or they finish all 3 clue words.

1. HAGRID

-gigante

-guardabosque

2. GRINGOTTS

-banco

-gnomos

3. NIMBUS 2000

-escoba

-quidditch

Gameplay and Scoring:

Team B must watch for Taboos or other violations of the rules. If they successfully spot a rule broken, they may interrupt play and very briefly explain the infraction. Clue givers must then move on to the next clue word. Each word guessed is a point for that team. Each word missed is a point for the opposing team. Once time runs out, teams are swapped, then roles are reversed.

Rules:

1. Clue-givers may not use any taboo words, including abbreviations and any part of the taboo word.

2. Clue-givers may not use sound effects or use gestures to indicate the clue word

3. Clue-givers may pass on any card at any time, but that card is then a point to the opposing team.

4. When time is called the final clue word is discarded and does not count as a point for either team.

The game ends when everyone has been a clue-giver. The winner is the team with the most points.

Lo vs Le

The other day I came across this sentence with Karen and couldn't wrap my head around it.

I understood that lo refers to the regalo and le refers to Juan, but I couldn't understand why

it was obvious that lo is wrong in this sentence when neither Juan or regalo is unknown?

Or in other words, why can't both sentences be correct? I posed the question to Jackie for

an event last night. This made it clearer to me.

Why is ‘lo’ incorrect in this sentence?

INCORRECTO: A Juan lo doy un regalo por su cumpleaños.

CORRECTO: A Juan le doy un regalo por su cumpleaños.

Lo is a direct object pronoun. (regalo)

Le is an indirect object pronoun. (Juan)

Direct objects receive the direct action of the verb. (regalo)

Indirect objects receive the benefit of or the effect of the action. (Juan)

In Spanish you almost always have to use the indirect object pronoun even when saying

‘a Juan’. For example:

INCORRECTO: A Juan gustan los tacos.

CORRECTO: A Juan le gustan los tacos.

That's the key, I just need to remember this. Likely now when I read and listen, I should pick up on this.

And for some comprehensible input: Los tacos de Juan!

3/4 Speed

This morning was Harry Potter book club with my Desafío friends. It's fun because we take time to catch up on the week. My one friend Nous admitted she had finished the Turkish series Con Olor a Fresas. I said that I stopped around Episode 14 and switched back to Dreaming Spanish when I realized I wasn't understanding enough of the dialogue to make it comprehensible. 

So I switched back to Pablo. She said that she 'cheated' and was watching at v the quarter speed with Spanish subtitles. Thanks for the reminder Nous.🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🥴 I always seem to forget to slow down the speed. 

So I went back to the series and knocked out two episodes. I'm still not understanding all of it, but enough now to make it comprehensible. Thanks Nous!

Ser y Estar

From Gerald: acronyms to help remember when to use Ser and when to use Estar

You use SER in these instances:

D escripción fisica

O cupación 

C aracteristicas de la personalidad

T iempo

O rigen

R elaciones

You use ESTAR

P osiciones

L ugar (ubicación)

A cciones progressivos

C ondiciones

E mociones

Luis van Ahn

This morning I woke up and wasn't quite ready to get out of bed. So I decided to listen to this podcast since falling back asleep probably wasn't going to happen. I am happy to say that I understood 90-95% of it!  I remember listening to this once before, it's about a terrible event that happened to one of the creators of Duolingo Luis van Ahn. and one of the reasons he left Guatemala for the U.S. 

Later I had a chat with Iris and she knew exactly who Luis van Ahn was. But she hadn't heard about the kidnapping of his aunt.