SPANISH PRONUNCIATION 1

From now on, I will be posting some video about the basics of Spanish language pronunciation and conversation, in the youtube channel of Everyday Spanish blog, from time to time. Hope you find it useful!

"Volverán las oscuras golondrinas", famous poem by Gustavo Adolfo Becquer

Hi there! After a long time, I would like to share with you a beautiful poem by Gustavo Adolfo Bécquer. We could say this is the most well-known one that he wrote.

It is called "Volverán las oscuras golondrinas" and it is a perfect example of the Romanticism period. The person in love remembers with desperation his/her lost love, and contemplates that everything else will live again (golondrinas (bird), madreselvas (plant), words...) expect for that lost love, plus the fact that will not be able to meet again. The only thought that consoles and energizes that person is that nobody else will be able to love somebody else like how he fortunately did.

You can read the poem below:

Volverán las oscuras golondrinas

En tu balcón los nidos a colgar,

Y otra vez con el ala en los cristales

Jugando llamarán.

Pero aquellas que el vuelo refrenaba

Tu hermosura y mi dicha al contemplar,

Aquellas que aprendieron nuestros nombres…

¡Esas…no volverán!

Volverán las tupidas madreselvas

De tu jardín las tapias a escalar,

Y otra vez a la tarde aún más hermosas

Sus flores abrirán

Pero aquellas, cuajadas de rocío

Cuyas gotas mirábamos temblar

Y caer como lágrimas del día….

¡esas…. no volverán!

Volverán del amor en tus oídos

Las palabras ardientes a sonar, tu corazón de tu profundo sueño

Tal vez despertará.

Pero mudo y absorto y de rodillas

Como se adora a Dios ante su altar,

Como yo te he querido…., desengáñate….

¡así... no te querrán!

And if you want to listen to it, please check the video here :)

Thank you for reading and hasta pronto!

"Bien" and "mal" against "bueno" and "malo"

Hi there!

Many students struggle to understand the difference between these two couples of words:

Which are the main differences?

- Bien and Mal are adverbs. They follow a verb. For example:

"Yo estoy bien", "Ellos están mal".

And note that they do not need gender neither number concordance with subject or object. They only have one way to be written in any case, "bien" and "mal".

- Bueno and Malo are adjectives. They follow a noun. For example:

"Él es alto", "Ella está contenta", "Ellos son altos", "Ellas están contentas".

In this case, they need to have gender and number concordance with the subject / object, as they are adjectives. So you have these four forms: "bueno", "buenos" and "buena", "buenas".

Here is an additional short explanation that may help you. 

And here another one! It also talks about the adjective form "buen" and the adjective "grande", which works similarly.

Hope this helps. Thank you for reading ! :)

Malqui-Machay, the last resting place of the Inca

¡Hola!

Today I read an interesting article on Miami Herald, talking about the 'lost' treasure of the Inca Empire before the Spanish Conquest. It is said that the Inca had stashed a huge treasure of gold in the mountains. It was a ransom to get back their Emperor, Mr Atahualpa, from the Spaniards. But the ransom was not delivered, because the Emperor died before being able to do the exchange.

This is what has been said so far. However, Ms Estupiñán (a historian who has been studying about the Incas for 30 years) recently suggested another version, after doing some discoveries by reading a 4,000-pages book.

Amazingly, that book is written in Spanish. :O You should check it out and try to understand at least one letter. Honestly, I have not been able to get a word of it. =) And it took Ms Estupiñán almost a year to transcribe the 7-pages Testament of Atahualpa's son, also written in Spanish like this.

Hope you enjoy the article, thanks for checking it and have a nice day! :)