Weddings

On July 2, 2005 the Spanish congress passed the same-sex marriage law.
It was one of the major points of Zapatero’s campaign. Once he was elected, the state machinery began to work on it. It was passed only a year after his election and it brought joy to many. Some were not happy.
But, actually, this law means the work that LGBT associations have been doing for many years. Even within the homosexual community there are some who think that same-sex marriage only try to make homosexual couples look like heterosexual couples. We could also talk about “heteronormativity” but this is a too big issue for us now.
Well, I have to talk about weddings. Gay weddings are, obviously, a little bit different. The most important thing is that two people love each other. It doesn’t matter which sexuality one has. In America, unfortunately, for the government and even for a lot of people, two men or two women living together are not more than roommates. This legal neglect is worse for international couples who don’t have, who don’t even dream of the rights that heterosexual couples have. But they have to fight and that make them stronger. No more hypocrisy. Religion, conventionalism, and human rights are not synonyms.
Sorry, I haven’t said anything about weddings. Perhaps in two years, if we may.

Today I am going to kill two birds with one stone. I know I am late and that this blog should have been posted on Sunday but like we say in Spanish, más vale tarde que nuca. Also: better late than never.

First bird: to post.

I think this verb is monotransitive. In the sentence: Niki posted the exam results this morning on the office door, we have a direct object and two adverbials but we shouldn’t think that it could be a complex transitive because we can’t find an object predicative for it.
Actually, the verb can be intransitive too. Yes, surprised? It has an historical meaning: travel with relays of horses: we posted in an open carriage, and one more, archaic as well: travel with haste; hurry. This works with one adverbial of direction: he comes posting up the street. Thank you again The Oxford Dictionary and Thesaurus for the great moments we spend together every day.

Second bird: the most obvious distinction between English and my native language.

Thank you Niki, you used mine. But, actually, my native language is Catalan.
Well, Catalan is similar to Spanish in many ways: the conjugation of verbs, etc. But something quite different and distinctive is that that we call pronoms febles, something like weak-pronouns. What does that mean?
They are monosyllabic pronouns that are situated in front of the verb or attached behind. This strange combination is pronounced together, when behind, like one word.

Let’s look at a couple of examples:

Give me that - dóna-m’ho
we will give it to him tomorrow - li’l donarem demà

We can write them in 34 different ways. That is one of the most difficult things for people who want to learn Catalan. If you speak French, you are lucky, they have something similar.
See you soon.

P.s. this picture represents an ancestral habit of catalan people. This is in my hometown, where it was conceived like 800 years ago :)

Languages

Languages are our vehicle for communication.
Furthermore language expresses the spirit of their speakers, how they think, and their world view. If you are learning a language, you have to understand not only these new nouns, adjectives, verbs, ..but also how you use them. I like to see that words that in spanish are used in a certain context would sound odd in english. Words have many different meanings and we use, generally, mostly one of them and it depends on the language which one it is. We see that especially in latin words. For example, the latin verb molestare has different meanings in spanish and in english. In spanish it means bother but in english means actually abuse someone.
Idioms are interesting as well. Let us analyze maybe one of the most common one of them. In english you say “kill two birds with one stone” but in spanish you say “ matar dos pájaros de un tiro”, aslo you kill two birds with a shot and in german one says “zwei fliegen mit einer klappe schlagen“, here you are killing flies. Isn´t that funny? Why is this this way? Who knows. Languages are strange. However, it is significant that these three use a similar idiom to express the same idea. Nevertheless, there are some that are extremly different and express customs and habits of their speakers. It is important to learn these small things in order to be good speakers. Grammar is crucial but usage is the key to being an excellent speaker. With interest and time you can become a near-native speaker.