Spanish word of the day: diptongo

A diptongo is the combination of a strong vowel (a, e, o) with a weak vowel (i, u). The resulting combination is always monosyllabic, and the weak vowel is typically slurred together with the strong one. The exception to this is if there is an accent mark on the weak vowel- that strengthens it, causing it to be pronounced separataly and in a separate syllable.

I was planning to share all the stuff that I've learned in the hopes that typing up my hand-written notes would help me remember stuff better. Then I realized how much I've learned and how difficult it would be to type it all without the benefits of a Spanish spell check! (Flock's spell check has to be reset to Spanish with every word, and I'm not sure how to change the language on the LJ spell check.)

Instead, I shall summarize!

This week we learned basic word deconstruction, including diptongos, die'resis (two dots over a u, I never even knew that Spanish had those!), tildes (accent marks, thankfully all in the same direction, unlike French that does both ' and `), and how to split a word into syllables. I also learned that interrogative words always have accents. I wouldn't have caught on to that pattern for at least two semesters if not told by the professor!

I just finished my workbook homework but I haven't done my reading yet. I have to read a 4-page story and summarize it in Spanish, presumably correctly spelled!

During class I keep a column on the right hand side of the paper where I put new words. I also highlight vocabulary in a different color than other stuff in my textbooks so that I can pick it out later. I picked out the words from all the sources today, and wrote them into two separate lists (the ones I would have typed out if I had any idea how to type and spell check in Spanish): words I didn't know at all and words that I could have defined before I started this class but wouldn't have known how to spell.

In my new vocabulary list, I have 61 words! A lot of them were not used in context, though, they were in lists in the workbook and are totally unrelated to each other. I still need to learn them though, I'm going to look them up in the dictionary after finishing my homework but before class on Monday.

In my "really, that's how they spell it?" list, I have 35 words. It's true what they say, spelling in Spanish is normally pretty intuitive when you understand how things work and how each letter is pronounced. If there's a deviation from it, it's indicated with accents, so it's nearly gringo-proof. However, there is some confusion while you un-train yourself from English pronunciations. For example, hueso (pronounced whueso, roughly) sounds to me like it should be weso. Of course, with my limited Spanish, I've probably been mispronouncing it all these years because I'd never seen it written and people have never corrected me all these years because it's "not bad for a gringa." Other than my hue/we/whe example, there's also cu/qu, q/ch/k (archaeologist is spelled with a q in Spanish), z/s, s/c, j/h (that's a gringo confusion I think), ll/y...

So, yeah, apart from a lot of grammar concepts that I think I've got about 80% down, I have 96 words to learn! Good thing Charles is at SCALE this weekend so I can do more homework. (Wow, I don't think I've said something like that in... well, maybe ever! See what happens when you take classes that interest you on a personal level?) I haven't been as productive today and yesterday as I typically would have been, for various reasons. I'm glad my workbook homework is out of the way now. =)