There's a language learning site that I haven't mentioned before, called http://www.synergyspanish.com/ .
Quite some time ago, when I was still looking at courses, I signed up for free tips, and the site owner, Marcus Santamaria, is a persistent sort of bloke, and still sends me emails.
Unlike a lot of mailing lists, I don't have a rule which sends Marcus's emails to the Trash, as most of them usually contain a link to a page including a 'taster' lesson from the Synergy Spanish course.
Now, I can't begin to evaluate the course, as I've never taken it but, if all of the lessons are as good as the examples I've heard, it's got a lot going for it.
As an example, there's a lesson on the use of reflexive verbs. These can be a bit of a pain, which is probably why so many of them end in 'arse'
A lot of reflexive verbs are ordinary verbs, with the reflexive pronoun (don't get too hung up on the terminology) 'se' tacked on the end, which indicates that the verb acts on the do-er.
Quick Grammar refresh here.
In the sentence 'Sam washes the car', Sam is the 'Subject' of the verb (the one performing the action) and the car is the 'Object' of the verb (the thing on which the verb acts)
In the sentence 'Sam washes himself', Sam is both the Subject and the Object.
This is a typical example of a reflexive verb so, instead of using the verb 'lavar' on its own, as in 'Sam lava el coche', we would add 'se' and use 'lavarse', rearranged in the sentence as 'Sam se lava'.
That's one thing that always confused me. The 'se' is only tacked on the end when using the infinitive (that's the verb in its 'to' form - TO be, TO wash, TO wash one's-self etc)
Anyhow, the point Marcus makes is that the 'one's-self' interpretation works for certain verbs, like 'lavarse' - to wash one's-self, but for others, it just doesn't seem to make sense, or translates into rather stilted English, like 'levantarse' - 'to raise one's-self' or 'irse' - 'to go one's-self'
He offers a much more appropriate translation, comparing the pronoun 'se' to the English word 'get', so 'irse' becomes 'to GET going' and 'levantarse' becomes 'to GET up'.
It's not a literal translation, but it's the closest I've seen to the correct sense of the phrase, which is easy to remember, and makes sense of those reflexives which don't really work with 'one's-self'.
Click on over to http://www.synergyspanish.com/ and see what else you can pick up.
And the reference to 'darse' in the Post title?
'darse cuenta de que . . . ' means 'to realise that . . .'
No comments:
Post a Comment