Skip to main content

All Questions

Filter by
Sorted by
Tagged with
0 votes
1 answer
243 views

Why do Spanish words change meaning when put in a sentence? [closed]

The word "ponga" means "I put" but when put in this sentence: Que solo la mire de lejito y se ponga asi" is "That he only looks at her from afar and gets like this" &...
Orionixe's user avatar
  • 109
1 vote
2 answers
275 views

Conjugation stem changes in Portuguese

Currently, I am learning Portuguese. I have some knowledge of Spanish as well. The biggest difference in conjugation (indicative present tense) that I have found between Spanish and Portuguese is that ...
Yan Zhuang's user avatar
1 vote
1 answer
545 views

Why are native English speakers convinced that English language is a Romance language? [closed]

Most people I've know so far in the USA are always saying that learning Latin would be really easy because, since English comes from Latin, it cannot be a hard thing to do, and they really get shocked ...
Pablo Velasco's user avatar
7 votes
1 answer
119 views

Does a scientific methodology exist for evaluating bilingual dictionaries?

I recently reread What's the difference between the various context dictionaries available for Spanish (e.g., Tatoeba, Reverso, Linguee, …)?. The accepted answer is excellent. But it got me ...
aparente001's user avatar
4 votes
2 answers
945 views

How does Metathesis work?

How does it happen? What motivated latin "parabola" to change into Spanish "palabra" and why does english "ask" is often changed to "aks"?
Ergative Man's user avatar
  • 1,456
3 votes
2 answers
717 views

Absence of vowel combination /ou/ in Spanish

Spanish has many words containing the diphthongs /au/, /eu/ and /iu/, but the only instances of words containing /ou/ (as a diphthong or in hiatus) are a very small set of foreign loanwords: bou, ...
iacobo's user avatar
  • 3,132
2 votes
3 answers
313 views

Spanish Stem Change

I'm looking at a set of data right and I'm a bit confused on how to tackle this. The data is showing a stem alternation of some verbs with [e] and [o] and no change in others. I know this is due to ...
kg5425's user avatar
  • 264
1 vote
0 answers
150 views

Etymological development of forms of Spanish "seguir" from Latin "SEQVI" (*sequire)

I am seeking an explanation for the development of the forms of Spanish "seguir" from Latin "SEQVI" (Vulgar Latin: *sequire), especially the irregular forms. Especially, why did the "e" become "i" in ...
Kenny Lau's user avatar
  • 661
7 votes
1 answer
2k views

Why do many French and Spanish noun cognates have opposing grammatical gender?

While most French/Spanish noun cognates share the same gender (both descending from the same vulgar latin root), there are many exceptions having opposing genders (e.g. la couleur / el color; la ...
user avatar
6 votes
4 answers
743 views

From Italian to Spanish, consonant + "i" goes to consonant + "l"?

Why is it, that in words like plaza / piazza, or blanca / bianca, the "l" in Spanish corresponds to an "i" in Italian? Is there a preference for this kind of sound in Italian, or ...
user avatar
13 votes
3 answers
3k views

Why does Spanish have so many diphthongs compared to other Romance languages?

I have studied and known Spanish my whole life, and got a job at a University where I am allowed to take some free classes. Over the past three years, I have taken all the Italian classes offered, all ...
RD Ward's user avatar
  • 890