I agree, the best part of learning a language is the accents, a I totally love the Castellian accent, I picked it up again, but know i will be losing it again as soon as I get back to work...As for my husband (madrileño), I can always tell who he is talking to, a Mexican friend or a Spanish friend because his vocabulary and accent vary accordingly...His family noticed on this visit home that he sounded different too...didn't take long to get it back though, thank goodness...

Hey ILM, "lonche" and "computadora" ARE made up. I have the toughest time in my occupation, which entails a lot of translation work, making a translation that is universal but understandable by the audience for which it's destined.

When I'm translating official documents, I want to be professional...I don't think it serves anyone to translate something that represents a company into "campesino" or "castellanqui". That's a struggle I have all the time.

Calibasco,

lonche is made up, but not computadora.

As you can see from the Diccionario de la Real Academia Española , both ordenador and computador, -ra have latin roots. For some reason, ordenador became more common here in Spain (at the beginning we used computador, -ra). I guess the reason has to do with the French word ordinateur.

Amazingly, the dictionary says we use computación and in America they use informática. However, it is the other way round. By the way, again the word informática has to do with the French word informatique.

As for lonche, it's the first time I heard of it. I found it at Diccionarios.com and it seems to be a horrible Spanglish word for lunch . Please, don't support Spanglish. It's a terrible thing for both English and Spanish.

Regards,

Antonio

[This message has been edited by Antonio (edited 01-17-2001).]

I suppose that computador(a) is a bit like "carro", to me a carro is what you take grocery shopping but my friend from the Dominican Republic says that he is going to "parquear el carro". He also said once, "Tuve que dropear mi segundo nombre", now "dropear" does NOT exist, right??? Please say it doesn't!!!
My friend from Panamá insists that "lonche" is a real, genuine word, sounds a bit suspicious to me.....

Is this todo sobre mi mamá? No, but I'll continue with this nevertheless-
As we had discussed some months back, from a linguistic perspective, if a word serves its purpose to communicate, then it is in fact a genuine word. All words are "made up" at some point; all language evolves. According to many of my students, they carry their "lonche" in their "lonchera" so they can "lonchear".
They also say pagar "la renta" o "rentar" una película. It may not be Castellano puro, but it is accepted speech for many millions of people. It is important, however, as far as I'm concerned, to be familiar with as many forms as possible.
Hasta la bye bye- (That's for you, Antonio )
-Jen
btw, this may be of interest to some of you- www.el-castellano.com
There are some articles on Spanglish

[This message has been edited by Jen (edited 01-18-2001).]

(baritone voice of announcer) The preceding 10 days of discussions have been brought to you by our sponsor, Off-On-A-Tangent-Linguistics. And now, we return you to your originally posted topic, "Todo Sobre Mi Madre". (end baritone voice of announcer)

A post by CaliBasco made me resurrect this thread. Well, that and the fact that I am just now catching up on things like reading AND watching videos like "Todo sobre mi madre" that I missed during my illiteracy period (the academic year!!)

My son says I am a plebe and that my taste in movies tends to be lowbrow. Keep that in mind when you answer (in court, as I understand it, once you bring up something like this it can't be brought up again and used against you!) Does Almodovar make movies about, how do I put this, "normal" situations? His plots are so far out there! Is his work considered mainstream or is he regarded as more of the artsy type (Kubrick, Fellini)? Do any of you have any tips for watching Almodovar for the uninitiated...sort of a "Almodovar for Dummies?"

La maestra (who gets gifts like "Planes, Trains and Automobiles" instead of "Clockwork Orange!")

[ 08-10-2001: Message edited by: la maestra ]

Hola Maetra! The first thing you have to keep in mind about Pedro and his movies is that he started making them smack in the middle of the "transicion" with all that entails (death of "Paquito"=freedom of speech ). I guess they all (well, most of them) tend to have a somewhat underground sensibility. Gay issues, sex, drugs, etc. Even when he tries to make a "serious" movie (Matador, Todo Sobre Mu Madre), a drag queen or a junky is always around. I know there's lots more to it but I guess that's always been his "scene" (or used to be). I love Pedro! I actually met him at a 92nd Street Y lecture a few years ago. Que tio mas guay! Next Friday at this time, I will be in the Extremadura wilderness. I cannot wait.

Hola Maestra,
I was suprised to see this thread again but enjoyed rereading it! I would also have to say that none of the Almodovar movies I have seen have been anywhere close to mainstream. Probably the tamest or least out there movie of his is "Jamon Jamon". There is still alot to this movie...and we discussed it and its symbolism in deatil in my Spanish film class in college but it really is a few levels closer to the ground than some of his others.

Closer to the ground? Yike! While I must admit that watching two men beat each other with jamon serrano was fascinating (and made me think, actually, of the apes in 2001!) I thought the plot was w-a-a-a-a-a-a-y out there! You're telling me he has some movies that are even stranger?
Yowser, have I led a sheltered life!