Los Libros de Niños - Books for Children

I enjoy the challenge of reading in Spanish - it certainly can be a vocabulary expander and it also can be very satisfying when you precisely figure out the meanings. Especially so when you don't have to do any translating, you just read and get it.

Unfortunately, my vocab is still on the small side, perhaps 2000 plus words, so serious articles and long stories are a bit difficult - it's just too slow to really enjoy. So my buddy Scott at Studio Velo Mill Valley here in Marin County, CA, suggested I read stories for children - ¡Qué idea tan buena! Pensé. So I a few days ago I hit the children's section at the local library and selected a few books of interest. On my way home, while making a detour for coffee, I ran into another student from "mi esculela" Spanish in Marin, Andrea, and told her about my "discovery". As you can read from the email she sent below, she found it as engaging as I:

"Muchas gracias por tu idea – el próximo día, yo fui a la biblioteca en Mill Valley y saque ocho libros para niños en español que estoy leyendo ahora.

Aquí son dos ejemplos del libro que se llama ¿Qué Sera? (What Can It Be) – un libro de los acertijos (riddles) tradicionales:

Una dama muy hermosa con un vestido de oro, siempre volviendo la cara, ya para un lado, ya para otro – A very beautiful lady, wearing a dress of gold, is always turning her face, now to this side, now to the other [La Luna]

Pájaro pinto paso por el mar; ni el viento ni el agua lo pudo alcanzar – A brilliant bird flashed o’er the sea; neither wind nor water could overtake it [El Relampago – Lightning]"

Books for children are also good for adults - Los libros de niños están también bien para Adultos.

Informal and Polite Spanish Greetings

As we wrote in the last entry, the interchange of greetings between individuals who interact more than just once tend to have some variety and depending on who it is, a varying degree of formaility or informality. This is especially true in Spanish. Below is an hypothetical disourse borrowed form a great book I've read and re-read numerous times called "Breaking Out Beginner's Spanish" by Joe Keenan. His example imagines the arrival of Juan Doe, the assistant director of flange production, at his office. Let's assume for simplicity's sake that every male at the factory has the name Alberto Alvarez and every female Teresa Ruiz.

      • The eighty-year-old doorman
Buenos días, Don Alberto.

      • The security guard:
Buenos días.

      • The sixty-year-old elevator operator:
¿Cómo le va, Dona Tere?

      • The receptionist:
Hola, Tere. ¿Cómo estás?

      • A same-aged colleague in the hall:
¿Qué tal, Alberto?

      • A younger colleague at her desk:
Buenos días, Tere. ¿Qué hay de nuevo?

      • A visiting branch manager:
Buenos días, Señora Ruiz. ¿Cómo le va?

      • A co-worker and best friend:
¿Quiúbole, Beta?

      • The immediate boss:
Hola, Alberto. ¿Cómo estás?

      • An older co-worker:
¿Qué me cuenta, Don Alberto?

      • An employee:
Buenos días, Alberto. ¿Cómo estamos?

      • The division director:
Muy buenos días,Señor Alvarez. ¿Cómo le va?

      • The office boy:
¿Qué pasó, Beta?

      • The factory owner and CEO:

Buenos días, Don Alberto. ¿Cómo está usted?

      • The secretary:
Buenos días, Tere. ¿Qué tal?

By now it's time for Juan's coffee break....

¡Feliz Navidad!

Spanish Greetings - Hola

Most people are generally polite and wish to make a good impression - in English we have numerous ways of expressing greetings, some formal, some slang. As one might expect Spanish is similiar, and you're probably well practiced in the standard "buenos días" and "buenas tardes" along with the perfuctory exchanges, "¿Cómo está?" followed by "Muy bien, gracias". So what else can you say? What's the equivilant of "How's it going? Here's a brief list of the other things you can safely say, particulary to those you see more than once in your life.

• "¿Cómo estás?" is the tu form of How are you. Right, you knew this.
  
• "¿Cómo le va?" How's it going? or try the more familiar, "¿Cómo te va?"
  
• "¿Cómo estamos?" How are we?
  
• "¿Qué tal?" What's up?
  
• "¿Qué hay?" or "¿Qué pasa?" What's happening?
  
• "¿Qué hubo?" and "¿Qué onda?" How's it going? and What's happening? Mexico
  

Next post we'll order greeting in a hierarchy of ascending formality.