Spanish Word of the Day: comejénes

[Sam Wilson]

LiCR,

comejenes (n) 📢 - termite

comején

MASCULINE NOUN

1.  (= insecto) termite ⧫ white ant

2.  (Andes) (= glotón) glutton

3.  (Andes) (= preocupación) nagging worry ⧫ gnawing anxiety

• Los comejenes dejan polvo de madera en el piso.
  The termites leave wood dust on the floor.

Another word for termites is termitas, which is a femine noun.  The picky termites in Costa Rica don't like the old hardwoods, many of which are so hard you cannot drive a nail in them without first drilling a pilot hole. 

--

Sam

[Mariel Castaneda]

Comején has a written accent (tilde)

However, the plural, comejenes, does NOT.

 

Here are the rules:

 

Las reglas básicas para tildar correctamente son:

·         Se tildan las palabras AGUDAS que terminan en cualquiera de las vocales o en las consonantes "N", "S" . ...

·         Se tildan las palabras LLANAS que terminan en consonante, EXCEPTO en "n" o en "s". ...

·         Se tildan todas las palabras ESDRÚJULAS, sin excepción.

 

 

From: costa-ri...@googlegroups.com [mailto:costa-ri...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Sam Wilson
Sent: Monday, July 20, 2020 5:21 AM
To: Living in Costa Rica
Subject: [Living in Costa Rica] Spanish Word of the Day: comejénes

 

LiCR,

 

comejénes (n) 📢 - termite

 

comején

MASCULINE NOUN

1.  (= insecto) termite ⧫ white ant

2.  (Andes) (= glotón) glutton

3.  (Andes) (= preocupación) nagging worry ⧫ gnawing anxiety

 

• Los comejénes dejan polvo de madera en el piso.

• 
  The termites leave wood dust on the floor.

 

Another word for termites is termitas, which is a femine noun.  The picky termites in Costa Rica don't like the old hardwoods, many of which are so hard you cannot drive a nail in them without first drilling a pilot hole. 

 

--

Sam

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[Sam Wilson]

Hi Mariel,

Thank you so much for taking the time to provide the excellent correction and explanation!  I fixed my post to change the e-acute to regular 'e' when plural and I added a link on the Spanish Word of the Day Index in the Rules section to your post explaining the tilde rules.  Frankly one of my impediments to improvement has been my Tica family's reluctance to correct my mistakes.  I have begged and pleaded, and even threatened them to no avail.  I know I regularly speak with grammatical errors (jjejeje, I selected "get by, but with poor grammar" in the survey) and really, really appreciate it when someone points out my errors so I can learn from them rather than repeat them forever.

So to summarize and check my understanding...

• In Spanish, "tilde" refers to both a literal tilde character: ~ , as with 'ñ', as well as an acute accent mark:  ´ , as with 'é', which is only placed above vowels.
  
  
• All Spanish words have a stressed syllable -- sometimes with a tilde and sometimes without.
  
  
• A word does not have a tilde when the stressed syllable is the next-to-last (palabras llanas) EXCEPT when the word ends in a consonant besides 'n' or 's'.  When a word without a tilde ends in a consonant besides 'n' or 's', the stressed syllable is the last one.  For example:
  
      (stress on next-to-last, ends in vowel or 'n' or 's') to-do, inteli-gen-te, e-xa-men, vi-er-nes, and com-je-nes
      (stress on last, ends in consonant besides 'n' or 's') co-mer, profe-sor, ani-mal, ciu-dad
  
  Otherwise a word needs a tilde over the stressed syllable vowel.
  
  
• A word ending with a vowel, 'n', or 's' has the stress on the last syllable (palabras agudas).  For example:
  
      a-quí, canci-ón, ade-más, auto-bús, echa-ré, and come-jén
  
  
• A word with the stress on the next-to-last syllable needs a tilde if it doesn't end with a vowel, 'n', or 's'.  For example:
  
      cár-cel, cés-ped, ár-bol, ca-rác-ter
  
  
• If the stress is on a syllable third-from-the-end (palabras esdrújulas) or before, it needs a tilde. For example:
  
      fan-tás-tico, o-cé-ano, lá-grima, a-prén-detelo
  
  
• Adverbs ending in "-mente" are the only Spanish words with two stressed syllables AND the tilde rules are applied as if the "-mente" were not there...  For example:
  
      ar-tís-ti-ca-men-te, so-la-men-te, po-si-ble-men-te, re-al-men-te

Tildes are also used in questions to distinguish meaning.  For example:

por que / because   and   ¿por qué? / why?
como / I eat   and   ¿cómo? / how?

Tildes are also used in homonyms to distinguish meaning.  For example:

tu / your   and   tú / you

mas / but   and   más / more

el / the   and   él / he

Does that pretty much cover it?  I know there are always exceptions, but I think with tildes it would only be for words of foreign (non-Spanish) origin.

Thanks again for caring about getting it right and providing the rules.

--

Sam

[Joe Harrison]

Super explicaciones, las dos.  Gracias.   But I really hate rules!!!!  I share Sam's concern that Ticos just have a cultural disinclination to correct our mistakes with their language.  Almost never happens in this household either.  At best, I'll get a "No entiendo" occasionally, and I simply try again using different words to explain the same thing.  But never will anyone correct my grammar, which is terrible orally.  Somewhat better when I'm writing and can think it through.  joe  

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