alt.usage.spanish FAQ - English version
Angelico
Este mensaje se enviará quincenalmente alternando el idioma.
This message will be posted fortnightly alternating the language.
Welcome to alt.usage.spanish!
This is an international newsgroup dedicated to discussion and
commentary on the Spanish language throughout the world. It's an
unmoderated group without leaders, not controlled by anyone in
particular.
Some of our contributors are native Spanish speakers and others are
learning it as a second (or third) language and have different levels
of fluency, from beginning to expert, including professors of Spanish
as a second language.
If you are new in this group or are a "lurker" (someone who reads
but hasn't posted a message yet), we invite you to introduce yourself
by telling us a little about you. Don't do so by responding to this
message; start a new one. It's a good idea to do so in Spanish, if you
wish, but you can use your native language. You can start by telling
us a little about yourself, your level of usage of the language and
your questions and problems on any subject related to the Spanish
language and its use.
Remember that the content is provided by the subscribers themselves.
If you don't contribute, you can't expect help from the others. It's
OK to spend some time "listening", but for this to work we need your
participation. Jump into the pool.
Don't be afraid to ask "stupid" questions, because this newsgroup
exists for us to help each other improve our understanding of Spanish.
The only "stupid" question is the one that isn't asked. And your
contribution will always be welcome.
We try to keep this group as friendly as possible. The majority of
postings are answered and no one is ignored deliberately; if no one
answers, it could be that nobody has an answer, or that the majority
of contributors haven't received your message. In this case, repost
your message after a couple of days.
Be careful with humor, irony, and word play; we don't know everyone,
nor their customs and usages. Expressions which are familiar to us can
be insulting in other countries and cultures. If we try to make a
witty comment, it's good to highlight it with emoticons ("smileys").
Although the conversations go slightly off-topic, it's good to talk
about other issues to know the different reactions around the world.
In addition, it's a good opportunity to practice "authentic" Spanish,
a real conversation about a topic which is not the language itself.
If you write in Spanish you will receive comments about your usage
and the errors it may contain. Occasionally you may even get helpful
comments on your use of any other language as well. These comments,
generally, are made in good faith and without intending to hurt your
feelings.
1. Minimum standards of netiquette.
- Don't post advertising messages. In any case, don't send them more
than strictly necessary (once every 15 days is more than enough). We
aren't different from other groups. If you want publicity for your
school, your web page, or your software, include it in your sig file
and participate in the discussions. Contribute something to the group.
If you do your advertising this way you'll get better results, even
some appreciation.
- Don't cross-post to more than five groups- generally it's considered
bad manners. It's best to limit cross-posting to groups related to
languages, and even better, to Spanish.
- When answering or posting a message, consider whether the answer is
of general interest or is useful only to a specific person. In the
latter case, you should answer with a private e-mail. Nor should you
respond to or post copies of a private message to a NG, without the
sender's permission. Respect privacy.When answering or posting a
message, consider if the answer is of general interest or just useful
for a specific person. In that case, you better answer through a
private e-mail. You shouldn't either answer publicly or post copies of
a private message to a NG without a sender's authorization. Respect
privacy.
- As in most groups, we don't like insults. If you wish to fight,
check out the groups suitable for that purpose. This is not to say
that you mustn't ask questions about vulgar language or insults (they
are part of the language), just don't say them to anybody. However,
the best strategy against trolls is to ignore them.
- ALL CAPS IS FOR SHOUTING. Avoid it whenever possible.
- Be concise. Unless our texts are real works of art to be enjoyed for
themselves, it's better to be practical and go directly to the point,
still making an effort to be clear, and not forgetting kindness and
politeness.
- We would appreciate it if you would include in your sig file some
indication of your origin, or at least whether or not you are a native
Spanish speaker. This will serve as a guidepost to those who are
trying to understand.
- If the subject under discussion changes, it would be convenient if
you would also change the header. Compliance with this isn't required
(almost nothing can be required here) but it would be a nice touch.
- Use headers that describe the content. A simple "¡Ayuda!" doesn't
say much. Nor is it necessary to include the first three chapters of
Quijote in the title; just a few words will do.
- When you answer a post, it's a good idea to trim the previous
message, quoting only as much as is necessary to give an intelligible
response. No one has time to read the same original message over and
over again.
- Intellectual property rights: it's not appropriate to steal the
ideas of others- to copy or disseminate documents or texts whether
copyrighted or not, without acknowledgement. The proper thing to do is
quote them, including the source and author, so other people can
benefit from the information.
- Don't post binary files -- that's why they have the groups
alt.binaries.whatever. If you must send a binary file to someone, do
it by email. Also don't post HTML. This is a text-only group.
2. How do I type the special characters of Spanish (accented vowels,
ñ, punctuation)?
If you are using Windows 95 or 98 it is very simple, you can change
the language in Control Panel, go to Regional Settings, after you have
chosen Spanish (there are about 10 different choices) follow the
directions, you have to restart your computer for the changes to take
effect, then go to Control Panel again, and add the Spanish Keyboard
(here there are also a few choices, Spain, Latin America, etc).
Once you have made these two changes, you can type like if you had a
Spanish keyboard typewriter. With a small marker, you can mark the
keys that have changed. The Spanish keyboard layout for Spain is [8/(]
[9/)] [0/=] ['/?] [¡/¿] [BackSpace] and [J] [K] [L] [Ñ] [accent
mark/diereses]. To obtain the vowels with accent press the accent mark
key (nothing happens) and then the vowel. To get a ü press the
Shift+accent mark key and then the u.
By the way you can change from English to Spanish or Spanish to
English the keyboard, once you do your setting, in less than one
second, using two keys, Ctrl and Shift.
If you want you can buy the keyboard in Spanish, but first you must
make the changes in Control Panel.
Or you can use the character map to copy and paste. Also, you can
see the character codes of the character in question (Alt + xxxx) or
use this list. Over time, you'll memorize it.
Á (A') - Alt-0193 á (a') - Alt-0225
É (E') - Alt-0201 é (e') - Alt-0233
Í (I') - Alt-0205 í (i') - Alt-0237
Ó (O') - Alt-0211 ó (o') - Alt-0243
Ú (U') - Alt-0218 ú (u') - Alt-0250
Ü - Alt-0220 ü - Alt-0252
Ñ (N~) - Alt-0209 ñ (n~) - Alt-0241
Alt-0191 - ¿(question opening)
Alt-0161 - ¡(exclamation opening)
Also, you can create a small file with all of them and copy and
paste from it.
Another method is to use the "US-International" keyboard; with it
you can type in English or Spanish with the same configuration. You
can find this keyboard in "Control Panel | Keyboard | Language". Keep
your Windows CD-ROM handy, just in case it's required. After
installing this keyboard, you can make accents like this:
To type an _á_, press first the _'_, then the _a_. The _a_ appears
with an accent mark. The rest of vowels are written the same way. You
get the eñe pressing the _Alt_ key (on the right side of the keyboard,
not the left side) and the _n_ key at the same time. An _ñ_ appears.
The _¡_ is _Alt_+_!_. The _¿_ is _Alt_+_?_. The diereses is _"_,
_u_: _ü_.
When you want to type a quote mark (_'_) or double quote (_"_)
before a vowel you must press a space after the quote.
In WebTV, or if you don't wish to use the list above on your PC: the
accents can be represented with an apostrophe after the vowel: a', e',
etc. Despu'es de un rato para aprender, se lee fa'cilmente. The eñe is
represented with a tilde only (Alt + 126 if your keyboard doesn't have
it): Espa~a, ni~o, a~o.
If your newsreader can search and replace, you can enclose the
letter to be replaced in less common characters and then do a "replace
all" for each character (&e& and you'll substitute for é, &n& for ñ,
...). It's a little tedious, but easier than typing Alt-xxx each time.
You can also use keyboard macros if your program allows them.
3. Why do I see sequences of unusual characters in place of accented
vowels? Why don't my accents appear when someone quotes part of my
post?
In general, make sure you're using the ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) character
set.
If you use Outlook Express, make sure you don't have checked the "Use
predeterminated codification for all incoming messages" option in the
Tools -> Options -> Read -> International Configuration window. If
this doesn't work, in the window of the message where this happens, go
to the option View -> Codification and select other among "Western
European (Windows)", "Western European (ISO)", "UTF-7" or "UTF-8".
4. What language should I post in?
In whatever one you like. The preferred are Spanish and English, but
there are people here who speak others: German, Swedish, French... If
possible you'll have your answer in your language; if we don't
understand you we'll ask you to use one of the principal languages. As
you can imagine, the chances of getting an answer are better if you
use one of those languages. In any case, it's a good idea to use two
languages in your posts, one Spanish and the other whichever you like.
5. Where can I learn something about the /phonetic transcriptions/
that I see from time to time?
Look at the reference for ASCII-IPA at
http://homepages.tcp.co.uk/~laker/aue/ and at
http://www.crosswinds.net/~aue/.
6. Is it correct to tutear/vosear with those who post here right from
the start?
So far, it hasn't bothered anyone. If you don't feel comfortable about
it, use "usted", but in general there are few who do.
7. Which of the varieties of Spanish is the most correct?
All are equally valid,. Use the one you are accustomed to. If someone
doesn't understand something, they'll ask. There are many varieties of
Spanish, as many as there are countries having Spanish among their
official languages. No variety of Spanish is "better" than another,
they are just different. However, we all feel free to express our
opinions that a word or expression is "horrible-sounding", a
"barbarismo" (which only means a foreign word unnecessarily imported
into Spanish), "obsolete", "vulgar", etc. These are usually
expressions of personal taste and often of usage in our own
communities. If you live in a Spanish-speaking country, don't try to
change your habits; if you don't live in one, but there is one you
visit frequently, use that.
8. What is the correct name of the language, Spanish or Castilian?
Both. In Spain it's convenient to call it Castilian because the
languages of the autonomous regions (Catalan, Basque, Gallician...)
are also Spanish. In the rest of the Spanish-speaking world they are
equivalent, although in each country they tend to prefer one form or
the other.
9. What does ( some word ) mean?
Many times it's hard to know the meaning of a word stripped of its
context. If you want to know the meaning of a word, first try to find
it in a dictionary, and if you still have problems, send a message to
the newsgroup, also quoting the context in which the word was found.
10. What do RAE and DRAE mean?
RAE stands for Real Academia Española (Royal Spanish Academy), the
oldest and most widely respected authority on Spanish usage (which
doesn't mean everyone agrees with everything they say). The Academy's
URL appears below. The DRAE is the highly authoritative dictionary it
publishes.
11. What does "conosur" or "cono sur" mean?
The "Southern Cone" of South America, that is, Argentina, Uruguay,
Chile and Paraguay.
12. Have you seen that hilarious satirical proposal on a new spelling
reform by the Academy?
Yes, lots of us liked it. If you haven't seen it, you can find it in
the deja.com archives for "alt.usage.spanish". By the way, it's
inspired at least partly by a similar satire on English spelling
reform attributed to Mark Twain, although the specialists in the
writer don't agree that he wrote it.
13. What's the mess with "altores"?
Altor is a synonime for "altura" (height). Claudia found this word in
the DRAE and all of us agreed it's awful. Angelico proposed as a joke
to adopt it as a measure of the ugliness of words, with a scale from 1
to 10. Then appeared the problem that words don't sound equally well
or bad both sides of the Atlantic, so we divided it in Iberic altores
and Latin American altores.
Useful Addresses:
Institutions
http://www.rae.es Royal Academy of Language
http://www.cervantes.es Cervantes Institute
http://www.mec.es Ministry of Education and Science of Spain
http://www.mcu.es/bases/spa/isbn/ISBN.html Books published in Spain
(Ministry of Culture)
Spanish Language
http://www.el-castellano.com El Castellano
http://altspanish.cjb.net/ Newsgroup Page (many more links!)
Dictionaries
http://www.vox.es Vox
http://wordreference.com/
Online bookstores
http://www.crisol.es Crisol
http://www.es.bol.com Bertelsmann on line
http://www.loslibros.com Los Libros
http://libreria.interbook.net Librería Interbook
http://www.casadellibro.com La Casa del Libro
Publishers
http://www.fce.com.mx Fondo de Cultura Económica
http://www.porrua.com.mx Porrúa
Music
http://www.espanol.com Español.com
http://www.mondosonoro.es Mondosonoro
http://musica.ciudadfutura.com Música.org
Movies in Spanish
http://www.buscacine.com Buscacine
http://www.mcu.es/cine Ministry of Culture of Spain, cinema page
Radio on the web
http://www.cadenaser.es Cadena SER
http://www.ondacero.es Onda Cero
http://www.rtve.es/rne/index.htm Radio Nacional de España
Spanish Writers
http://cervantes.alcala.es Cervantes (complete works)
http://www.clarin.com.ar/Borges/html/Home.html Borges
http://www.circulolectores.com/borges More Borges
http://www.circulolectores.com/neruda Pablo Neruda
Newspapers in Spanish
Argentina
http://www.clarin.com.ar Clarín
Spain
http://www.elpais.es El País
http://www.abc.es ABC
http://www.elmundo.es El Mundo
http://www.estrelladigital.es La Estrella Digital (only on the net)
Mexico
http://reforma.infosel.com Reforma
To search old messages
http://www.remarq.com
http://www.deja.com
http://www.altavista.com
--
Un saludo desde la tierra de la luz.
Angel Arnal
Valencia, España (hablante nativo)
ICQ# 49213241
Read the a.u.s. FAQ at http://teleline.terra.es/personal/angelarn/aus/index.htm
Ted Johnson's AUS Website: http://altspanish.cjb.net/
--------------------------------------------------------
Siento aquí en este foro, y en otros que visito, que la
nacionalidad se ve no como algo que defina a uno, sino
como una característica accidental, como el color de los
ojos.
John M. Estill, a.k.a. Greybeard
--------------------------------------------------------
My real e-mail ends with .es not .kp
Angelico
Welcome to alt.usage.spanish!
We ask the native speakers in the group to make a little extra
effort: Please explain the idiomatic expressions you use in your posts
(and by all means do use them!), even if they don't seem special to
you. Often those idioms are limited to a certain nation, region or
even town. All of us will appreciate your explanations: the other
native speakers will see other people's expressions, and the
non-native speakers will understand what you're saying - many idioms
don't appear in dictionaries. What's more, we often get an interesting
chat out of somebody's idioms.
dov
cuando tenía problemas con la correspondencia, pero ahora lo han vendido
a Critical Path, y no encuentro en él el AUS... Quizas se deba a mi
desconocimiento del ingles :-(
En cuanto a Altavista, es el que me mandaba a remarq... si hay otra URL o
donde lo busco en altavista.com ¿¿??
El deja.com es muy lento y engorroso, pero funciona.
chau
dov
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----- Original Message -----
From: "Angelico" <ANGE...@teleline.kp>
Newsgroups: alt.usage.spanish
Sent: Tuesday, September 26, 2000 12:32 AM
Subject: alt.usage.spanish FAQ - English version
| alt.usage.spanish FAQ - English version - 4 Jul 2000
|
| Este mensaje se enviará quincenalmente alternando el idioma.
| This message will be posted fortnightly alternating the language.
|
| Welcome to alt.usage.spanish!
ñac (respetuoso)
|
| | To search old messages
| http://www.remarq.com
| http://www.deja.com
| http://www.altavista.com
| --
| Un saludo desde la tierra de la luz.
| Angel Arnal
| Valencia, España (hablante nativo)
| ICQ# 49213241
| Read the a.u.s. FAQ at
http://teleline.terra.es/personal/angelarn/aus/index.htm
| Ted Johnson's AUS Website: http://altspanish.cjb.net/
| --------------------------------------------------------
| Siento aquí en este foro, y en otros que visito, que la
| nacionalidad se ve no como algo que defina a uno, sino
| como una característica accidental, como el color de los
| ojos.
| John M. Estill, a.k.a. Greybeard
| --------------------------------------------------------
| My real e-mail ends with .es not .kp
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.