Comments on: Going on Vacation

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JP, You're brilliant. You answered my questions perfectly. Thanks so much!

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Oh...y me encanta que te refieras a la famosa canción de Juan Luis Gerra.

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Well, I've begun dipping my toes into the Intermediate level, and as I expected, the dialogue has begun to sound as baffling and rapid-fire as when I hear spanish spoken around me in the three dimensional world. The material world as opposed to the virtual one. that's a tip of the hat to Buddhist thought, not to our dear national icon Madonna. Anyway, I'm trying to relax and understand what I'm able to, with the help of JP and Lili and a repetition of the dialogue. And I'm learning good bits and relaxing about what I don't get, and then going on to the next lesson. Works for me, more or less. And after all those newbie and elementary lessons, it's such a treat to listen to Lili speaking almost entirely in spanish. It's a revelation, as if a much fuller dimension of her comes out this way, the full person. That alone is worth the price of feeling a little stupid while trying to understand everything. Human beings are so amazing, and language is such a rich way to understand just how amazing, how rich we all are. But enough cosmic sentimentality! One thing that amused me greatly was you guys' explanation of the Seven Deadly Sins as we most usually call them and the Spanish language version, pecados capitalies. Though I understand the sense in which Lili's saying that the idea is that together these seven comprise the "head" of the body of human crimes and misdemeanors, a sort of metaphorical sense, my feeling is that it's also related to the English term capital crime. And here, "head" is used literally. A capital crime in the U.S. justice system is one for which the death penalty is available, in those states where capital punishment is still done. About 37 of our 50, I think it is. and this use of "capital" is literally the head, from Latin, source of the title of a Mafia capo, or the musical notation da capo (from the head, the beginning) and the Spanish cabeza. It has to do with cutting off the head. See French Revolution. So a capital crime is one for which the perpetrator may be executed. A capital offense. And, though I'm only a lay observer of Catholicism, I'm pretty sure that the sense of the sins in that list is similarly serious in terms of the attempt to intimidate. After all, behind the gentle, forgiving Jesus of the New Testament is Jehovah the Old Testament father, who flies into a rage and doles out quite a lot of lethal punishment to those who offend Him by contravening His instructions and taboos. So I say let's give the Devil his due, as it were. Capital sins, indeed. fortunately Catholicism incorporates ritual ways of expiating sin and receiving pardon, as does Judaism during the services on the day of Atonement where the entire congregation chants together their admission of having committed one brievous sin after another, finally asking God to forgive the transgressions and inscribe them in the Book of Life for the year to come. sorry for the digression, but the mind goes to these places. What I lack in Spanish fluency I fill in by such mental activity, I think. It's all good.

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In both high school and college, I was taught "se me olvidó."

I've also had two people correct me for using this construction, saying that it should be "lo olvidé," like in this dialogue.

Is it a regional thing (I was taught Mexican Spanish)? Am I just old and out-of-date? Or what?

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2penhuizc

Solo una idea:

Diciendo "lo olvide' " uno asume la culpa de que el mismo fue quien olvido' algo

Diciendo "se me olvido' " uno se quita la responsabilidad de haber olvidado algo, enfatizando que la cosa se le olvido' por si misma jeje

Digan lo que digan, la segunda frase definitivamente me cae mejor jeje

Y para los que se preguntan "Que es lo mas correcto de todo?, Cual es la unica palabra/frase lo que sea.. correcta y oportuna?", ahi les va un dicho que siempre se lo digo a mis estudiantes "preguntones" y "perfeccionistas"

"Adonde fueras, haz lo que vieras!"

Saludos

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¡Hola karinioshka!

Creo que no existe esa diferencia entre "lo olvide" y "se me olvido", pero el idioma es algo vivo y no quita que pueda haber personas que hagan esa diferencia incoscientemente.

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lo olvidé = I forgot it.

se me olvidó = it slipped my mind.

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Mi esposo y yo vamos a Puerto Rico en el marzo. Nos encantan las playas y los coquís.

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Buenos días SpanishPod,

Como todos los demás me gusta mucho las playas, sobre todo para nadar, o hacer el ‘windsurfing’. Ahora mismo vivo cerca de la costa, pero aquí el agua se pone casi helado en el invierno. Hay mucho viento también, entonces en este momento hay que viajar a algún lugar tropical para disfrutar una playa!