Spanish Word of the day

[Susie Hamilton]

hacer, verb
to make; to do

Sometimes one verb in Spanish does the work of two in English, and that’s what happens with hacer: in some contexts it means to make, and in others to do.

Voy a hacer una tortilla.
I’m going to make an omelette.
Remember that the past participle is hecho:

No has hecho la cama.
You haven’t made your bed.

¿Qué haces por aquí?
What are you doing round here?
Remember that the past tense is hice, hizo, etc:

Siempre hizo mucho deporte.
He always did a lot of sport.

Después de nadar hice gimnasia.
After my swim I had a workout.

[Susie Hamilton]

hambre, noun
hunger

El hambre is the basic word for hunger. It’s most often used in the phrase tener hambre to be hungry:

Ese muchacho siempre tiene hambre.
That boy’s always hungry.

Remember that hambre is a feminine noun, even though you use it with el. So you have to make adjectives that you use with it feminine too:

Tenía mucha hambre.
I was very hungry.

When you’re very, very hungry, you use the phrase morirse de hambre to be starving:

Mamá, me muero de hambre, ¿a qué hora vamos a comer?
Mom, I’m starving, what time are we going to eat?

[Susie Hamilton]

hacer, verb
a year ago

Apart from using hacer to mean to make or to do, you can use it to state how long ago something happened. To do that you use the form hace and the past tense of the verb ? the ‘preterite’:

Lo vi hace un mes.
I saw him a month ago.

Hace poco means recently, or just now.

Se fue hace poco.
He left a few moments ago.

When you want to say how long you’ve been doing something, you use hace and the present tense of the verb:

Hace un mes que voy.
I’ve been going for a month.

You often use the phrase hace mucho in questions:

¿Hace mucho que esperas?
Have you been waiting long?

¿Hace mucho que ustedes se conocen?
Have you known each other long?

[pitts47150]

Rahab, this is wonderful, you learning Spanish. I would love to learn it but I'm not a good speller. I would have to hear every word in order to learn it.

[Susie Hamilton]

Today I had a chance to use the words. I had to deliver a package to a Latino that had to be signed for and I could ask him in spanish. That was cool.

[Susie Hamilton]

húmedo, adjective
damp; moist

You often translate húmedo as damp, even though it’s obviously related to the English word ‘humid’:

No te pongas esa ropa, que está húmeda.
Don’t put on those clothes, they’re damp.

Pásale un trapo húmedo.
Wipe it with a damp cloth.

Húmedo also often translates as moist:

Hay que mantener las raíces húmedas.
The roots need to be kept moist.

When talking about climate or seasons, húmedo translates as wet, or humid in more technical contexts:

Costa Rica tiene un clima húmedo.
Costa Rica has a wet or humid climate.

[Mole_J]

Just found a blog in Spanish that is pretty good. There are also links to a bunch of Spanish newspapers with articles.

http://learnspanishdc.com/

[Susie Hamilton]

I have a handyman/lawn guy who is Mexican. He is here legally and has a family, small kids. Last week I called him to ask him to cut my lawn and left the message in spanish. He came by this evening and told me he understood me on the message. He will be back this week to do some more work for me and his wife will come with him to help me with my spanish. They helped me with pronouncing some words this evening. That was nice.