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katy
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Postby katy » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:38 pm

Its just the same in spanish, the young have lots of different words. If you listen to the spanish they raise the tone at the end of a sentence.

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peteroldracer
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Raising the tone

Postby peteroldracer » Thu Sep 21, 2006 12:56 pm

Katy - one reason for the spanish raising the tone at the end of sentences is that the words in a statement and a question are identical, the only way in spoken speech to tell the difference is the tone. In writing it is made clear, eg 'tienes pan' = 'you have bread'; (the leading ? should be upside down but I can never get my keyboard to do it!) ? 'tienes pan' ? = 'do you have bread?'.
A very good site for a daily dose of Spanish is www.About.com who send a daily newsletter with other stuff available if you want it - and all for nowt!
I used to cough to disguise a [email protected] I f@rt to disguise a cough.

Beachcomber
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Postby Beachcomber » Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:29 pm

If you don't have ¿ on your keyboard try Alt+168 (Hold down the Alt key whilst typing 168 on the numeric keypad).

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peteroldracer
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Postby peteroldracer » Thu Sep 21, 2006 1:31 pm

¿ My word you are a clever bu**er! :wink:
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citymike
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Postby citymike » Thu Sep 21, 2006 3:45 pm

Faire d'Income wrote:
Grouser wrote:Like talk to the hand cos the face ain't listenin'. Language is an evolving, or at least changing thing. Chill out dudes etc etc. Don't you think Shakespeare would be just as appalled by the way you speak? Although I must confess I do find people who say 'like' every second word a trifle wearing.
Like you, I believe languages should evolve but what irritates me is the sheer laziness that is at the heart of all this. As someone who grew up with MSN and mobiles, text speak outside of its natural environment is just plain wrong and lazy. How are you? RU OK etc etc.

The same goes for punctuation and a basic understanding of grammar which has more to do with laziness, than lack of schooling.

Let a language evolve but don't dumb it down!
I hate it when people say "Tis". Is it too much trouble to pronounce the extra syllable and say "It is". That Shakespeare started it, did you know that he used to make words up?

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hillybilly
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Postby hillybilly » Thu Sep 21, 2006 4:35 pm

Beachcomber wrote:I think the habit of raising the tone at the end of a sentence emanated from Bristol (which is an annoying enough accent anyway)
Ere my babby, I lived thurr I'll av ee know
http://www.thatbebristle.co.uk/dictionary/

Beachcomber
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Postby Beachcomber » Thu Sep 21, 2006 5:32 pm

Oh, Hilly, I've wasted an hour looking through that dictionary when I should have been doing other things. :lol:

Nikvin
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Postby Nikvin » Thu Sep 21, 2006 6:20 pm

The Spanish have lots of shortened expressions
Por fa (vor)
Cole (gio)
Guarde (ría) ,

and many more.

Dac in French is not new at least 40 yrs old .........

If you have Xp on your PC set keyboard language to Spanish in

Settings/Control Panel/ Regional and Language options.

May need to run XP plus disc first (can´t remember)
then you get a small icon in the task bar and can easily switch between EN or ES, enabling you to do all the accents áéíóú, ¿? ¡! and Ñ.The latter being very important if writing in Spanish! and in the spoken language too

Mi hijo tiene 3 anos, will have them rolling down the aisles!!

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hillybilly
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Postby hillybilly » Thu Sep 21, 2006 7:42 pm

Beachcomber wrote:Oh, Hilly, I've wasted an hour looking through that dictionary when I should have been doing other things. :lol:
Sorry! I particularly like the entries under "H"...

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Cassandra
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Postby Cassandra » Thu Sep 21, 2006 9:00 pm

Moving Soon wrote:It certainly doesn't seem that such niceties as grammar, spelling, use of the apostrophe, etc are taught at all in British schools now, nor have they been for some time. I have a number of graduates in their '20s working in my team and I constantly have to send back letters they have written to be amended - they look at me blankly when I talk about apostrophes being in the wrong place or omitted altogether, and grammatical or spelling errors. "We were never told that at school" is the usual response, and I suspect they think "What is the old bat going on about, does it really matter" but don't dare say so!
Maybe it depends on the university or the subject but I only finished my degree 2 years ago and it was always made clear that we would be downgraded for incorrect spelling and punctuation errors. As far as I know they weren't tougher on us because we were mature students, the same rules applied to all. Maybe there's a higher standard of education in Wolverhampton :? :wink:

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silver
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Postby silver » Fri Sep 22, 2006 6:56 am

Spoken Spanish is often distorted
ado or ada at the end of a word often gets changed to.. ahu..
different villages may have local words than have no national meaning.. eg.
engañaera..in one village means.. whatever goes inside bread to make it a bacadillo... ham, cheese etc..derived from the word engañar...which means cheating... just a few miles away and no Spanish has any idea what they are talking about.
The use of Usted (the formal you) is vanishing
mobile phone shorthand Spanish is a completely different lingo....the kids seem to love being able to send messages that will not be understood by overlooking parents.
No muerdes la mano que te da de comer.

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Shukran
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Postby Shukran » Fri Sep 22, 2006 10:46 am

Beachcomber wrote:If you don't have ¿ on your keyboard try Alt+168 (Hold down the Alt key whilst typing 168 on the numeric keypad).
...or even press AltGr key with the shift and ?. Also I find the easiest way to get the accented vowels (áéíóú) is simply to hold down the AltGr key and press the vowel required.
Since I gave up hope I feel much better!

katy
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Postby katy » Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:10 am

Does anyone know how to get the pound and euro signs? I bought a laptop in miami and it has all th accents etc. because spanish is widely spoken but not the currencies (only does $!)

Beachcomber
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Postby Beachcomber » Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:19 am

If you use the Alt codes the £ signs is Alt+156 and the € is Alt+0128. These only work when you are writing in HTML ie in an email or on a forum such as this.

You may also get the € by pressing AltGr+E or AltGr+5.

In Word you need to use AltGr+7 for the £ and AltGr+5 for the €.

Whether all this works with a US computer remains to be seen!

Moving Soon
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Postby Moving Soon » Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:27 am

If that's the case, Cassandra, I will be looking out for job applications from Wolverhampton graduates from now on! :)

jane grant

Postby jane grant » Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:35 am

A slight deviation from the subject, but many years ago I worked with YTS trainees, all of whom had to fill in application forms to be accepted on the course. One lad when asked 'Place of Birth' answered 'hospital', and another when asked for 'next of kin' replied 'Mother', the next question was 'Relationship to next of kin', and he replied 'quite good really'! I still chuckle about it now!

Geraint
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Postby Geraint » Fri Sep 22, 2006 11:39 am

Babby wrote: is it the way they are teaching in the UK these days? Someone said that grammar and spelling doesn´t even come into it, it is about being understood. :shock:
My daughter's teacher writing in her college report: ..."she needs to work on her punctuation and grammer."

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Postby zanuck » Fri Sep 22, 2006 12:56 pm

Beachcomber,

Thanks for the information about Alt 168; do you have a list of the various "ALT" options, or perhaps a URL tucked away somewhere?

BTW, I reckon that the € sign is made by holding Alt Gr and then pressing 4 on the main keyboard.

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Shukran
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Postby Shukran » Fri Sep 22, 2006 1:35 pm

katy wrote:Does anyone know how to get the pound and euro signs? I bought a laptop in miami and it has all th accents etc. because spanish is widely spoken but not the currencies (only does $!)
If you're using Microsoft Word click on Help and type in ALT GR keys. You will get a list of different countries. Click on United States-International and you'll see them all listed.

Same goes for any language, including Spanish, English or even Icelandic! :lol:
Since I gave up hope I feel much better!

Beachcomber
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Postby Beachcomber » Fri Sep 22, 2006 1:44 pm

zanuck wrote:do you have a list of the various "ALT" options, or perhaps a URL tucked away somewhere?
http://www.tedmontgomery.com/tutorial/ALTchrc.html :D

These are for working in HTML not Word.

You are right about AltGr+4 but on my Spanish keyboard it is AltGR+7 in Word.


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