jpvillanueva - Song of the Month Club: April 2008

I think this is a brilliant idea and really hope it becomes a regular feature of Spanishpod. People can download the song, try to pick up the lyrics by ear then look them up on the net and see how well they did. We spend all month singing along to the mp3 and thinking up questions about the grammar/language, we get to learn nice long phrases, the rythm and melody helps us memorise and we get work on our dance moves at the same time. brilliant! However, this wonderful idea slid off the front page of the conversations list with narry a comment and could easily have been missed by many users :-o Now, please dont take any of the following as criticism, but if i might suggest,........You guys really need to set up some sort of noticeboard/ useful links/ sticky content /FAQ page . I only found this post because i was looking for an old post of yours which contains the links to the spanishpod blogs. These and other things really need a permanent links page. IMHO, Something like this song of the month club needs its own feed like "Del Taco al tango" et al. With the speed you guys are adding new content, all of the " great lesson guys" comments soon push any user intiated conversations off the front page and into relative obscurity and this is a great shame re: the song: catchy little number, nice clear lyrics, i vote HIT. Sadly, I got as far as line 2 before I was stumped "no puedo dejarte de recordar". this is dejarse right? I'm still having trouble with reflexives and dejar(se) has way too many possible translations for me (mind you so does "leave" i suppose) I can not : remember breaking up with you? quit your memory?, leave you in memory?, remember you leaving? give up your memory? leave your memory alone/behind? permit your memory? I sort of get the gist but how can i tell who is doing what to who? (whom?)

donperigo, "sort of getting the jist" is great! You can't say you're "stumped" if you're getting the gist! The "te" on the end of "dejarte" actually belongs to "recordarse." Why? The answer is a fat mess of syntax that won't help anyone; here's the bullet: pronouns that belong to an infinitive (like the "se" of "recordarse") can either be left on the infinitive (no puedo dejar de recordarte), or they can go dance with the modal verb (no te puedo recordar). In this case, we have a verb phrase with three verbs: poder, dejar, and recordarse, and the pronoun "te" from "recordarse" went to dance with another verb. Now, because "dejar" is not conjugated, it has no choice but to suffix that "te." And that's how you get "no puedo dejarte de recordar." You should know, though, that that sounds poetic. Probably in regular speech, I would say "no puedo dejar de recordarte" or maybe even "no te puedo dejar de recordar." However, neither of those versions would fit in the rhyming scheme of the lyrics of this song! So anyway, that gives you, "I can't stop remembering you." Aww...

Thanks JP. y'know, i think i understood that afer a few readings :-) Curses, just when i thought i was getting the hang of reflexive verbs I find out they have detachable bits :-( certainly your more prosaic versions are easier to grasp. I suspect this could be a bit of a regular issue when translating song lyrics, But i still think its a great idea.

Unfortunately, I have not moved past the first word in Spanish as yet. That is what beginnings are like, are they not?

wgmkramer beginnings can be a little daunting but are usually fun and soon far behind us (like most fun things) you`ll be mangling spanish with the best of them in no time :-) For now just enjoy the music, this track puts me in mind of 70s Australian band "men at work" for some reason.

eureka! Are the giant steps of the title, actually the thumping of his oversized heart when he thinks of her or do i need to return to my dictionary?

catchy song! ¿de donde son los canteros? (¿como se dice "singers" o "band"?)

Hi Chillosk All you need to know about Bacilos can be found here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacilos and my dictionary has cantante for singer though there may well be a more streetwise term. canteros perhaps?

gracias donperigo! ha buscandido sus canciones, que bueno. :) (that correct grammar?)

oops, meant he buscado. aiya, conjugations! que lio!

Not sure what buscar means here. If it's "looked up" then Yo tambien. y como resultado, he comprado el CD "Grandes Exitos "( which i guess is greatest hits). good stuff. this song of the month thing could end up being expensive.