Posts Tagged ‘to be’
Mar
Mar
To be or not to be, in Italian
One particular phenomenon I often encounter in foreign languages is their unusual treatments of the verb “to be”. We tend to generalize things in English. But Spanish, for instance, differentiates between temporary states (like emotion or location) and permanent states (like a career, or a physical trait). Most language prefer “I have hunger” over our “I am hungry”. And at least one language I know of (Russian) actually omits the verb “to be” completely from the sentence!
Mar
Mar
To be or not to be, in Russian!
Today, that means continuing the discussion of “to be” into Russian. This is a very exciting topic for me, because learning Russian meant learning a completely new way to think. You see, the English language uses the verb “to be” for almost everything, but the Russian language almost doesn’t use it at all. In fact, the present tense of the verb “to be” is so unused that it completely disappeared from the language over a century ago!
Mar
Mar
To be or not to be, in Spanish
Continuing along my “to be” theme, today I am going to discuss the difference in Spanish between ser and estar, both verbs with mean “to be”. After yesterday’s extended discussion of the Russian way, today will be a piece of cake! In fact, in Spanish, the difference is even easier to remember than in Italian!