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Prepositions are troubling me.
The thing about Spanish prepositions is that as soon as you get away from the very literal/physical ones describing the position and movement of two physical objects in actual space, they stop meshing with English prepositions quite so well. It's a little subtle thing, and it's usually clear from context, but--it's one of those places where my ability to express myself in a language starts sliding behind my reading/listening comprehension.
All those little places where there's an "a" and I would have expected a "con", or a "de" when I thought it would be a "por"... Spanish is not just English with different words. Spanish is not just English with different words and a different way of handling verbs. Spanish is not just English with different words and a different way of handling verbs and adjectives on the other side of nouns and some quirky idioms and gendered nouns and...
I am also troubled by the words that I just can't find in my dictionary, and can't find a close-enough word to guess at. But vocab is one of those things I just have to pick up over time; I'm still slowly getting used to the words for shoulder, to tie up, wild beast, tangle, bug, shoreline, motorboat, to be in the habit of doing, compass--all those words that show up over and over again until I reach for the dictionary to look them up for the sixth time and realize I remember what it means.
But vocab I have the dictionary for. It's those prepositions that are gonna get me.
The thing about Spanish prepositions is that as soon as you get away from the very literal/physical ones describing the position and movement of two physical objects in actual space, they stop meshing with English prepositions quite so well. It's a little subtle thing, and it's usually clear from context, but--it's one of those places where my ability to express myself in a language starts sliding behind my reading/listening comprehension.
All those little places where there's an "a" and I would have expected a "con", or a "de" when I thought it would be a "por"... Spanish is not just English with different words. Spanish is not just English with different words and a different way of handling verbs. Spanish is not just English with different words and a different way of handling verbs and adjectives on the other side of nouns and some quirky idioms and gendered nouns and...
I am also troubled by the words that I just can't find in my dictionary, and can't find a close-enough word to guess at. But vocab is one of those things I just have to pick up over time; I'm still slowly getting used to the words for shoulder, to tie up, wild beast, tangle, bug, shoreline, motorboat, to be in the habit of doing, compass--all those words that show up over and over again until I reach for the dictionary to look them up for the sixth time and realize I remember what it means.
But vocab I have the dictionary for. It's those prepositions that are gonna get me.