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Elementary - My computer is not working

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Lesson Information
Hosts: Liliana,  JP
ID: 0079
Difficulty: Elementary
Published: February 28, 2008
Topics: computers
Functions: reporting a problem
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Lesson Introduction

Here's a page ripped straight out of our lives here at Studio Fiesta. You'd think a big international production like SpanishPod would have the latest in high-tech equipment, but the truth is that our monitors flicker in monochrome green, and we program the website using BASIC, and I'm always having problems with the five inch floppy drive. In this lesson, you can learn how to complain about your computer not working. Maybe the boss will give you an upgrade!

Comments (37) RSS

Avatar Team
jpvillanueva says
Howdy, y'all! So trabajar means "to work," as does funcionar and servir. What's the difference? Trabajar refers to the kind of work where you earn money, break a sweat, fight with your boss, etc.... Funcionar and sirvir both mean "to work" in the sense that a toaster, computer, etc. works properly (i.e., is not broken). Question of the day: ¿Qué haces cuando no funciona tu computadora? What do you do when your computer doesn't work? (Extra points if you answer in Spanish) Cuando no funciona mi computadora, la reinicio y voy para una bebida. When my computer's not working, I restart it and go get something to drink.
February 27, 2008 from the Web.
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cyberdiva says
Cuando no funciona mi computadora, la reinicio. Y cuando todavía no funciona, maldigo. A menudo las palabrotas hacen milagros.
February 27, 2008 from the Web.
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lilianamata says
Cyberdiva Hago lo mismo que tu! Maldigo mucho porque no puedo golpear la computadora! me costo mucho dinero!
February 27, 2008 from the Web.
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mharbus says
Hola, En el pdf 'no enciende' se usa..pero en el diálogo Lili dice 'no se enciende' (o no senciende)....¿se puede usar o encender o encenderse en esta frase? saludos
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
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cyberdiva says
Hola mharbus. I wondered about the same thing, so I looked in my dictionary. I gather from what I found there that "encender" means "to turn on," but this may imply that someone is doing the turning on, whereas "encenderse" means "to go on," which may imply a bit more independence--it goes on rather than someone turns it on (even though of course a computer monitor doesn't usually just go on by itself :-).) Since Liliana first said "enciende" and then (twice) "se enciende," my guess is that she may prefer the second. Also, later in the podcast, JP seems to draw the same distinction between encender and encenderse, though at no point does either Liliana or JP comment on the fact that the pdf file says enciende, not se enciende. Like you, I found that a bit puzzling.
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
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luisita says
Cuando no funcina mi computadora, la reininicio. Si aun no funciona, llamo a un amigo para pedir su ayuda. Me siento muy frustada y impotente cuando tengo algun problema tecnico con mi computadora.
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
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carrie2008 says
Great lesson! Muchas gracias!
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
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projectperu says
cuando mi computadora no funcionar, me telefono un persona a "geek squad" a un tienda llama "Best Buy". Numero dos, yo orando por paciencia! Pero hay un problema con este solucion, porque oramos por paciencia producir mucho oportunidades a practicar paciencia!
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
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boricua14 says
gracias, that really helped!
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
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lvalmoria says
Cuando mi computado no funcionar, yo paseo ... y cuando vuelvo, la reinicio. Como se dice en espanol 'let off some steam'? ;)
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
Avatar Team
lilianamata says
lvalmoria Se dice "desahogarme" means you need to let your stress out. For example, "me voy a caminar para desahogarme", meaning I am walking to let off some steam.
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
Avatar Team
jpvillanueva says
mharbus and cyberdiva, I just want to confirm your excellent grammatical research! encender means "to ignite something/to turn something on," so using a reflexive se means "to turn itself on." And since in Spanish the reflexive construction is a strategy semantically changing the actor of a action to the object of the action, to say "to come on" when referring to a monitor is a great translation for encenderse. (please note that I'm avoiding use of the word 'passive' in this explanation.) : )
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
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yardbird says
Cuando no funciona mi computadora, llamo mi buen amigo Ilya por teléfono. Ilya es un IT profesionál. "¡Hola Ilusha, mi buen amigo!" yo le digo. "¿Has estado bién? Y tu esposa tan encantadora, ¿Cómo le va?" "Hola, Joel," dice Ilya, un hombre inteligente. "Hace mucho tiempo no nos hablamos. ¿Pasó algo con tu computadora?" Can I use profesionál as a noun, as I would in English? If not, what word would be bettter? One suggestion. I know I've been doing this since the days of spanish Sense, so shoot me. Whatever. Now, I know the most common colloquial way to say this is "the computer doesn't work." I have no argument with that. We mostly speak that way in English. But although it sounds too formal in this particular application, the Latin-derived cognate "function" isn't so far out as to not deserve mentioning. In many situations, we really do say that something functions, or doesn't function. Not at a moment like this, perhaps, but many other times. It wouldn't hurt to mention that, especially because it makes apparent the derivation of the word and its obvious relationship to the English! Why not? And the same with "servir." Again, people may not say this every day in an office environment, but we can absolutely say that if the new car is in the repair shop today, the old one will serve (function) to get us to work. And the classic sense of "to serve " has a long history of usage in written English, if not so often in everyday spoken English. In both cases, the kinship of the words and their histories is illuminated, and that can only be to the good. En cambio, I must report that in public these days in Los angeles, stuff like this can happen: I was trying to get off a bus, and the rear door wouldn't open. I had been speaking a little of my primitive Spanish with a Latina who was sitting beside me, so I asked her "¿Qué pasó con la puerta?" And she says something like "Ay, qué lio. No trabajo." Only in L.A. If it had been my fault, this kind of person would have urged me to try again. "¡Pushela!" Ah, the Babel of the Blade Runner world.
February 28, 2008 from the Web.
Avatar Team
jpvillanueva says
yardbird, you are cracking me up with the "¡Pushela!" ¨ LA Spanish is definitely distinctive and wonderful in it's own way. Anyway, if I miss a juicy cognate in the future, yardbird, I know I can count on you to fill us in! : )
February 29, 2008 from the Web.
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yardbird says
I'm happy to have amused you, J.P. But seriously, can one use "profesionál as a noun? I was only guessing when I tried it. And I just reread my post to which you responded, and heard that I accidentally typed "trabajo" instead of "trabaaha," which of course is what I meant. The door doesn't work. Really? It doesn't have a job at mcdonald's, or in a law firm, or anything? Does it draw unemployment compensation? Subsist on Social Security? The fact that Spanish literacy is disintegrating among second generation Latino immigrants in L.A. (and probably chicago, New York, Georgia or Colorado, too, for that matter) is kind of sad. The irony is that the people who butcher their Spanish like that, mostly young but not all just school age, don't generally achieve a high level of English fluency and literacy either. This is not what we used to think of as a desirable sort of cultural assimilation. And it comes down to the schools, to the family, and to matters of economics and the politics that affect such things. What a muddle. It may be cute, but it's also evidence of a sad problem that's about much more than making up silly-sounding words in Spanglish. Well, onward, a pesar de todo. Hay que seguir adelante, siempre tratando, siempre esperando. SopMcDoanld's,accedacidentally
February 29, 2008 from the Web.
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npshirley says
Cuando no funciona mi computadora yo reinici y estoy muy frustrada porqué usualamente estoy muy occupado y lo necisita.
March 3, 2008 from the Web.
Avatar Team
lilianamata says
npshirley Mi computadora a veces no funciona cuando estoy en una llamada o cuando estoy haciendo algo importante. Me pasa lo mismo que a ti.
March 3, 2008 from the Web.
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paulohenriques says
Cuando no funciona mi computadora, yo acciono el antivírus, y cuando no hay vírus, chequeio los cables, y mismo aí no funciona, lo reinicio.
March 5, 2008 from the Web.
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ulver684 says
Projectperu I also have call the geek squad or take my computer to bestbuy too. My computer has crash so many times that now I repair it myself with everything I learn from them.
March 5, 2008 from the Web.
Avatar Team
lilianamata says
No soy muy "tec friendly" pero la mayoría de las veces arreglo el problema, pero si mi computadora esta muerta entonces llamo a un especialista.
March 5, 2008 from the Web.
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mistyq says
Cuando no funciona mi computadora, la reinicio y voy a ver una telenovela.
April 23, 2008 from the Web.
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brinita says

Hola JP.  Tengo otra gramatica pregunta de Expansion seccion.  "El aire acondicionado funciona bien"  Why does it say this means: The air conditioning is not working well.

I see no reference to a negative in this sentence such as "no funciona".  Este es un error? 
muchas gracias por ayudarme

May 14, 2008 from the Web.
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aventuremacher says

Cuando mi computadora no funciona, maldigo tambien... en espanol, por supuesto!

June 7, 2008 from the Web.
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donperigo says

Los computadoras nunca escuchan. Español no es sus lengua madre. Quizas necesitemos palabrotas de codígo máquina o binario. :-)

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
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jpvillanueva says

00100!

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
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donperigo says

¡Lenguaje JP! :-o

10 Repita mientras "Chistoso" es Verdadero
20 Imprima "Ja "
30 Termina repetir

me pregunto, ¿Hay españolas lenguajes de programación?

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
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stevestr says

Donperigo

 

Quizás estoy un poco despacio pero no entiendo nada de esto.  ¿Pudieras  ayudarme por favor?

 

 

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
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donperigo says

Hi Stevestrv
not at all, Im being obscure again

It was supposed to be 3 line computer program that laughs at jps binary joke.

It should repeat the instruction to print "ja " as long as the "funny " flag is set.

Progamming is not really my area of expertise any more than spanish  so it may well crash the system. I feel sure there must be a user on spanishpod who can help with the details of coding.

Then it occurred to me that spanish coders probably have to use english terms like "do while" "if..then"  "go to" unless there are spanish versions of programming languages como BASICO. Beginners All purpose Symbolic Instruction Code, Olé.

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
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stevestr says

Doperigo

Thank you.  I seen now.  Believe it or not, I have been writing code for a living for the past 10 years but I did not get it.  Can you please explain JP’s joke.  Thanks

 

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
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donperigo says

I may be wrong but its possible that, 00100! genuinely would upset a computer.
Its 3 bits short of a byte although its a Bit more than a nyble which would leave it hungry for more

I cant remember what the pling(!) operator does exactly though its something to do with directly manipulating memory which as i recall is pretty much guaranteed to crash a computer.

not sure theres anything intrinsically funny about 3, perhaps we should ask JP ;-)

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
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stevestr says

donperigo

Thank you

JP

I give up. What is 00100!

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
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donperigo says

stevestrv

¿quieres un broma de binario?

Hay 10 tipos de gente en el mundo
esos que comprende binario y esos que no :-)

 

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
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stevestr says

Donperigo

Muy bien

 

June 8, 2008 from the Web.
Avatar Team
jpvillanueva says

stevestrv and donperigo,

ha ha, no tenía ninguna idea de lo quisiera decir 00100...

June 9, 2008 from the Web.
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evandar says

Cuando mi computadora no funciona...can't write this in Spanish. :( I usually mess around a little, trying to fix the problem, which I usually do. If nothing works, then it's restart time..and if THAT doesn't work, I go google-crazy...and if THAT doesn't work either....format c:, I suppose. And if even that fails...time to get a new computer!  Problemas con computadoras es tan frustrante.

December 30, 2009 from the Web.
Avatar
cobre says

Evandar,

Busca en su sótano por un computadora vieja o comprarla, ir a Ubuntu.com y descargar el sistema operativo. Instalarlo en la máquina antigua. Ir a las preferencias del sistema y busque en los idiomas, y los teclados, añadir noruego y español. Asimismo, pedirá permiso para descargar todos los archivos necesarios. Di que sí. A continuación, puedes establecer los controles para que el sistema operativo en inglés, noruego, o en español. y te puedes tener Firefox y Open office todos en la misma lengua, que le dará un ambiente de inmersión. o puedes tener que arrancar en noruego y cambiar la configuración de idioma en formato Open Office al español.

Look in your basement for an old computer or buy one, go to Ubuntu.com and download the operating system. Install it on the old machine. Go to System Preferences and look under languages and keyboards, add Norwegian and Spanish. It will ask permission to download all necessary files. Say yes. You can then set the controls for the operating system in English, Norwegian, or Spanish. and you can have Firefox and Open Office all in the same language, which will give you an immersion environment. or you may have to boot into Norwegian and change the language settings in Open Office to Spanish.

(You could also set up an alternative OS on your Mac, if that is what you have, via Parallels (or your pc for that matter.))

December 30, 2009 from the Web.
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parressh says

Lo peor para mí es cuando no funciona el internet. Trabajo en casa y en estos casos no puedo hacer nada. Suelo ir a la cocina para preparar comida o tomar una bebida y a veces, miro la televisión un poco.

May 4, 2010 from the Web.

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