Although I very well know the meaning of abate in English, I can`t help thinking of cows being slaughtered (abate resembles abater in Portuguese, which means slaughter, as in cows, and fell, as in trees). That’s one of those words known as false friends that can be pests between languages.
Brazilian dude.
[quote author=Brazilian_dude link=board=todays;num=1074275516;start=0#0 date=01/16/04 at 12:51:56]Although I very well know the meaning of abate in English, I can`t help thinking of cows being slaughtered (abate resembles abater in Portuguese, which means slaughter, as in cows, and fell, as in trees). That’s one of those words known as false friends that can be pests between languages.
Brazilian dude.
I don’t know any Portuguese, but abater reminded me of the word abbatoir, a slaughterhouse. As the WOTD etymology mentioned, abate and abbatoir are related, but it didn’t emphasize that they both stem from the French word abbatre, to beat down. Being a Romance Languague, I suppose that Portuguese also took abater from Latin. From the AHD:
a·bate v.
[Middle English abaten, from Old French abattre, to beat down : a-, to (from Latin ad-; see ad-) + batre, to beat ; see batter[sup]1[/sup].]
—————
ab·at·toir n.
. . .
[French, from abattre, to strike down, from Old French ; see abate.]
::)
Saludos amigo brasileño, escribo en español pues mas o menos nos entendemos, a su duda: hay un producto químico contra el mosquito A Aegypti que lleva ese nombre, no sera eso?
Hola, oscarluis. No me parece que tengamos ese producto por aquí, pero emplearlo para exterminar un insecto me parece bastante raro.
¿Sabías que Brasil y Cuba, entre otras cosas, tienen en común la santería, que fue traída aquí también por los esclavos africanos? Pero aquí se conoce como el nombre genérico de macumba, que a algunos de sus practicantes les puede sonar ofensivo.
Mucho gusto en conocerte.
Brazilian dude
Hola, oscarluis. No me parece que tengamos ese producto por aquí, pero emplearlo para exterminar un insecto me parece bastante raro.
¿Sabías que Brasil y Cuba, entre otras cosas, tienen en común la santería, que fue traída aquí también por los esclavos africanos? Pero aquí se conoce como el nombre genérico de macumba, que a algunos de sus practicantes les puede sonar ofensivo.
Mucho gusto en conocerte.
Brazilian dude
"Hi! Oscar Luis! It doesn’t seem to me that we have that product around here, but using it to exterminate an insect seems to me rather rare (odd).
Do you know that Brazil and Cuba, among other things, have in common the Santeria, which was brought (over) by the African slaves? But here it is known by the generic name "Macumba," which, to some of its practitioners, can sound offensive.
It’s great to meet you."
??? ::) Hi, Sitran, is Stargzer your friend or only he doesn’t like you understand the Spanish lenguage and can answer our daubts and help us, who don’t know very much English ?
[quote author=oscarluis link=board=todays;num=1074275516;start=0#8 date=02/12/04 at 18:28:35] ??? ::) Hi, Sitran, is Stargzer your friend or only he doesn’t like you understand the Spanish lenguage and can answer our daubts and help us, who don’t know very much English ?
Thank you for all
oscarluis
We’re ALL friends here, oscarluis, even if we don’t always act like it!
Sitran obviously knows Spanish. I had three years of French in high school, but that was 35 years ago. I began studying it on my own a few years ago and I can get along with a dictionary, but I wouldn’t want to try to converse with a native speaker of French.
On the other hand, my oldest daughter had 5 years of high school Spanish and passed the Advanced Placement test with a 4 (out of 5) which gave her 12 credits at her university before she even got in the door. Unfortunately, they scheduled her for a course for which they had already given her credit, so she didn’t take any more Spanish since she could never work it into her schedule.
That is, she didn’t take any more Spanish until she wanted to study abroard. Because of the way her acting classes were scheduled, she wasn’t able to schedule a whole semester abroad, so she thought she’d go to Mexico for the semester break during her senior year. The catch was that you had to be recommended by someone in the Spanish Department, and she hadn’t taken any Spanish courses at the university.
She finally took another Spanish course the summer after her junior year in university so she could get someone to recommend her for the Mexico trip, and passed it with an A. Her professor for that course was the Deparment Chairman, who said she spoke better Spanish than most of the Spanish majors.
She took a few more Spanish courses in the fall, studied in Cuernovaca south of Mexico City for three weeks at a language immersion school during the winter break and earned another 6 credits, then finished up with a couple more Spanish courses in the spring to end up with a Minor in Spanish to go along with her degree in her Major, Acting. She was also inducted into the Spanish Honor Society. Not bad!
::) ::)
Dear Brazilian dude, thanks for your words. How I see you like or know about african religion(Santeria) what you well say is common both in Cuba as in Brazil, I recommend you visit the cuban web page named http://www.cubasi.cu, where you will find very interesting things about it in adition to something else.
If anothers one want contact with it, all can to do and have knowledge of Cuba.
Well, you know, my high school Spanish wasn’t a complete waste then! ;D
What I originally set out to say was "There are many friends here that would like to visit it." Trying, of course, to respond to the post that oscarluis left about the Cuban website.
Then I realized that I couldn’t remember the form of the verb gustar that would have conjugated to would like... and decided that people would know what I was trying to say if I left it in the simple present form!
So I was trying to say "There are many friends here that like to visit it." Which isn’t perfect Spanish, but I figured it would get the job done.
But now, alas, as my 5 year old has awoken me from a perfectly sound sleep, I shall have to pursue the ‘correct’ form in order to allow my mind to let this go!
[quote author=Stargzer link=board=todays;num=1074275516;start=0#6 date=02/12/04 at 14:08:28]And here I used to get rankled when M. Henri Day popped in those Latin phrases without translating them! :D
Perhaps, despite being a foreigner, he wasn’t so bad after all….
::)
