ANNOUNCING A SPANISH LANGUAGE SUB-FORUM

[PALM MOD]

Below is a message from the IPS President followed by the Spanish translation:

Reflecting the truly international nature of the IPS, we are very pleased to announce a new PalmTalk sub-forum in Spanish, "Palmas y palmeras en Español". Ray Hernandez, Oscar Moreno and Carlo Morici have agreed to co-moderate the new sub-forum. Whether your primary language is English or Spanish we encourage you to check it out. We intend to add it to PalmTalk by the early part of this coming week.

Bo-Göran Lundkvist

President

International Palm Society

Queriendo reflejar el espíritu internacional de la IPS, tenemos el placer de anunciar un nuevo sub-foro de Palmtalk en Español. "Palmas y palmeras en Español". Ray Hernandez, Oscar Moreno y Carlo Morici han acordado co-moderar el nuevo sub-foro. Sea cual sea su primera lengua, les invitamos a visitar el nuevo espacio. Esperamos darle vida al comienzo de la semana que viene.

[John in Andalucia]

Entonces, vámanos!!

Some useful phrases:

Bienvenido al foro! (Welcom to the forum!)

Disculpe mi español (Excuse my Spanish)

Como estas? (How are you?) (formal)

Que tal? (How's it going? /What's up?)

Seguro? (Sure?) (i.e. Are you sure?)

ja, ja, ja! (ha, ha, ha!)

Saludos (Regards)

[palmtreesforpleasure]

Hi John

Disculpe mi español

Saludos

Colin

Do you know of a translation program we can download so we may learn how to use spanish and learn, compliments on a good idea to the board

regards

colin

[aussiearoids]

I spent many hours studying a little Lonely Planet Spanish phrase book while traveling through Mexico and Central America many years ago . I still remember a little bit and now have a program I must load onto the computer to brush up.

[John in Andalucia]

Hi Colin,

Just for the record, I'm English - so no need to apolgize to me in Spanish, as I do that often enough myself! I haven't got a clue who first suggested a Spanish forum, and I don't remember seeing a topic discussing it, but I think it's a great idea. Surprisingly, Spanish and English as second languages, are about evenly matched in numbers, as the most spoken languages in the world. About translation, it's easier and quicker to use a machine translator to get the gist of something.

Here are a couple of good ones:

Yahoo! Babel Fish

freetranslation.com

If you want to learn Spanish on-line, one of the best places to ask questions is in the WordReference.com Language Forums. Here's a thread on the English-Spanish forum that goes to show how accommodating some Spanish speakers are: WordReference.com. (There's also a dictionary search box at the top of the web page.) As for desktop translation programs, I've never used them, so I can't recommend any. The good ones, I dare say are expensive.

Michael, let us know what program you have there.

[The Germinator]

Esta bueno que vas a poner El "Palm Talk" en espanol. Hey muncho hente en Sur America y Mexico que gustan a creser palmas.

How is that, it has been a long time since Spanish class, not bad for a Pocho.

[palmtreesforpleasure]

Hi John

Thanks for the info, i figured with a familiar name like yours you may have been English

Thank you for the website information.

regards

colin

[Paco]

Me alegra saber que la familia de PalmTalk va a crecer tanto en numero como en conocimiento.

Para aquellos que aún no hablan español, esta puede ser una buena oportunidad para aprender.

Estoy seguro de que todos saldremos ganando.

Saludos.

Paco.

[bgl]

A bit more background:

An addition to PalmTalk in Spanish is something that's been discussed off and on for quite some time. What made it happen this time was the fact that for the second time in less than two years we held the Biennial in a Spanish speaking country, and just like in the Dominican Republic in Oct 2006, we had a large number of Spanish speaking participants from Spain and from Central & South America. Since these countries are, for the most part, prime palm growing areas the IPS would really like to really encourage more participation and greater interest and when the suggestion came up, it didn't take us long to figure out how to make it happen this time!

Bo-Göran

[palmtreesforpleasure]

Hola paco

Es una gran oportunidad para que más gente ensamble Palmtalk y compartir su conocimiento, más, es una prima para para aprender respetos poco españoles

Saludas

colin

[gavilan1]

Colin, no te entendi la ultima parte - algo referente a que respetas a pocos espanoles, y que tienes una prima

Fotos, por favor!

All kidding aside, you've got my support, also, Bo. I think that this is a great idea, and I regret not making an effort to attend the meeting and activities in Costa Rica. I'm sure that I missed out on one of the best trips with the group (likely rates "up there" with the Amazon trip). I haven't been in the Amazonas since the mid-80s, and I really miss the place. Os deseo mucho exito con este esfuerzo.

Best Regards.

[bgl]

Doug,

Well, there's always a "next time". With the next Biennial, now planned for the Rio de Janeiro area in March 2010, a post tour to the Amazonas is more or less a given. Andrew Henderson approached me about this in Costa Rica, and with Andrew's background and experience I'm sure you can count on that. Should be a good one! Both the Biennial and Post-Biennial!

Bo-Göran

[Alberto]

Colin, no te entendi la ultima parte - algo referente a que respetas a pocos espanoles, y que tienes una prima

Fotos, por favor!

Best Regards.

Ja! Ja! Ja!

Es permitido escribir en´´portuñol´´???

Assim talvez mas palmeirófilos de Brasil tambien possan participar deste forum en español

[ruskinPalms]

Que bueno! Me gustaria aprender mas Español. Primero, tengo que estudiar mas palabras y leer el nuevo foro. Espero que la gente Latina tenga mucha paciencia con mis oraciónes

Creo que leer en las palmeras es lo mejor manera para aprender Español

[John in Andalucia]

Hola paco

Es una gran oportunidad para que más gente ensamble Palmtalk y compartir su conocimiento, más, es una prima para para aprender respetos poco españoles

Saludas

colin

Colin, no te entendi la ultima parte - algo referente a que respetas a pocos espanoles, y que tienes una prima

Fotos, por favor!

Colin,

If you didn't grasp that, Doug is interested in your cousin! (primo /prima)

As a guideline, adjectives and nouns ending in "o" are masculine, or with "a" if they are feminine, and being Latin, it takes less words to express something in Spanish than it does in English. As a result, "same" words can be applied to different meanings. As a result of that however, simple English words in Spanish have to be distinguished. One good example is "camera". In Spanish you have to define it; "camera de photo" because camera is Latin, so it has a descriptive, not definitive meaning. They talk faster too, and they know it. Therefore, it's not uncommon to ask a Spaniard to speak slowly, which they can also do! My annoyance is the number of times I come up against two words that mean the same thing. "Slowly" is another good example. You could use "lento" or "despacio". When I ask my partner, she generally repeats both words, shrugs her shoulders and says "igual" (equal/same).

[John in Andalucia]

Sorry, that's "foto" not "photo" in Spanish.

[Walter John]

Quando para mucho mi amore de felice corazón

Mundo paparazzi mi amore chicka ferdy parasol

Presto obrigado tanta mucho cake and eat it carousel

[Gaston in Argentina]

Mmmm....

Just thinking that this forum was the reason because i had learned the beauty of the english language, how to read it and write it, i will still post in the english message board.-

In fact i study my english language just for undestand more about palms.-

Yet im unable to sing the Rule Britannia, Brits. rule the waves...Britons never, never....!! :-)

[_Keith]

I have written at least 4 replies in this thread, but decided not to send each time for fear that what I was trying to say would by misinterpreted. But here goes anyway. Numbers being taken for the firing quad will be issued at the rear.

While I think this thread is a great show of internationalism, my fear is that posts hear will not be read the majority of PalmTalk visitors. I don't know the ratio of Spanish readers as opposed to English overall, but I would guess 20% would be an optimistic guess. Of course there are interpretation programs, but I read so many comments from those who already say they can't keep up that I fear the busy or the casual reader will not go through the trouble, meaning that I also fear some of the great content that will no doubt be posted here, will be lost to the masses.

Please do not take this as any criticism, for it is not. Just thoughts from a sole English speaker/reader, for better or worse.

Now I really wish I had paid attention in 8th grade Spanish class.

[gavilan1]

Wal, that reads like Esperantu gone bad

[bgl]

Keith,

My guess is that the overwhelming number of threads and posts in PalmTalk are NOT read by a majority of Forum members. We are simply attempting to widen the scope even further. Needless to say, the more Forum members we have, the more activity we're going to see. That in itself is a good thing, but the unfortunate and inevitable by-product is that it'll be increasingly difficult to keep up. Whether the threads are in English or Spanish! And I never had Spanish myself.

Bo-Göran

[palmmermaid]

As a resident of South Florida, I have to know a smattering of Spanish. I lived and worked in Costa Rica for a year in my younger days and was, at one time, completely fluent. I practice whenever I have the opportunity. I can understand and read more than I can speak but this will certainly help. I just hope my idioms don't get me in trouble!

treegator puts out a great little pocket guide for the nursery trade. It has most commonly used words and phrases in both English and Spanish. Works great. The best way to learn a language is to use it. Most people will be patient with you. I was able to get by and be understood when we went to Cabo San Lucas a few years ago.

I am always amazed at how most people in other countries speak at least 2 languages and most of us Americans can barely speak one! I worked with an overseas telephone operator in Haiti years ago who spoke 5 - yes, 5 - languages fluently! I will visit this sub-forum to practice so don't be surprised by my attempts - just amused!

[palmtreesforpleasure]

Hi John

I wrote in English and used bablefish to translate it to spanish,

thank you for the explanation, if i make people smile whilst i am learning that is ok.

Living in Australia, we only ever here English spoken, so the journey will probably show quite a few mistakes, hopefully i will not insult anyone while learning by mistake.

regards

colin

[Kathryn]

Wonderful! I've been wanting to learn Spanish and this will help me do so. I am looking forward to posting in the Spanish forum.

[basilio]

Fantástico, estupendo, magnífico, especial.

[amazondk]

Sera interesante ver cuantas personas particapam en español. Yo no tengo mucha oporunidad para practicar ahora. Pero, a vezes uso con algun hispano que aparece por aqui. Desafortunamente hay poucos hablantes de portugues, entonces español hace mas sentido.

Bo,

That will be nice to see you and others on my turf. I would be more than glad to help set things up for a post trip to Amazonas. If the biennial is this time of year it will be at high water time which is will be interesting. I always enjoy canoeing through the tree tops in the flooded forest.

dk

[Walter John]

Wal, that reads like Esperantu gone bad

I wouldn't know how it reads, you would of had to ask the Beatles, they wrote it, probably lennon.

[amazondk]

John,

My feeling is that most languages one does not speak seem to be spoken fast by their users. Brazilians claim that Americans talk too fast. With Spanish I think that if you can understand Cubans you can understand most any Spanish speaker. Years ago I worked in Miami for Iberia Airlines and got pretty used to the Spanish. The people from Madrid are pretty easy to understand as well once you get used to the difference in their pronunciation from Latin America. I like the way people in Bogota speak the best. The hardest thing for an English speaker to get right in a romance language is gender and conjugation. Although I think in Portuguese more than English any more and use the language more as well I still mess up from time to time with gender. Portuguese is also a little more irregular than Spanish. One intersting thing is that Brazilians normally have no trouble at all understanding Spanish speakers, but most Spanish speakers have a hard time with Portuguese. Although more people are taking Spanish classes in Brazil the main foreign language studied remains English. Since Brazil is becoming more and more economically dominant in South America I guess more and more Spanish speakers are starting to understand them.

dk

[John in Andalucia]

John,

My feeling is that most languages one does not speak seem to be spoken fast by their users. Brazilians claim that Americans talk too fast. With Spanish I think that if you can understand Cubans you can understand most any Spanish speaker. Years ago I worked in Miami for Iberia Airlines and got pretty used to the Spanish. The people from Madrid are pretty easy to understand as well once you get used to the difference in their pronunciation from Latin America. I like the way people in Bogota speak the best. The hardest thing for an English speaker to get right in a romance language is gender and conjugation. Although I think in Portuguese more than English any more and use the language more as well I still mess up from time to time with gender. Portuguese is also a little more irregular than Spanish. One intersting thing is that Brazilians normally have no trouble at all understanding Spanish speakers, but most Spanish speakers have a hard time with Portuguese. Although more people are taking Spanish classes in Brazil the main foreign language studied remains English. Since Brazil is becoming more and more economically dominant in South America I guess more and more Spanish speakers are starting to understand them.

dk

Don,

That is fascinating. I had wondered about the interaction of Spanish and Portuguese speakers. In our town there is also a strong accent, that is not readily understood elsewhere in Spain. Motril once had a very distinct dialect. There is a website, Vocabulario motrileño for words that aren't in the Spanish dictionary. Some of our Spanish visitors might find it interesting. A trip up the Amazon by canoe sounds like the adventure of a lifetime for me, so fingers crossed for that one!

[amazondk]

John,

Back in the 80's when i worked for Iberia I took a few groups of travel agents to Spain. One of the trips we went to Granada. What an incredible place. I haven't been back to Spain since. I always enjoyed myself a lot. I never really figured out how many people manged to work though since staying out all night seemed to be quite normal. At least in Madrid.

dk

[John in Andalucia]

John,

Back in the 80's when i worked for Iberia I took a few groups of travel agents to Spain. One of the trips we went to Granada. What an incredible place. I haven't been back to Spain since. I always enjoyed myself a lot. I never really figured out how many people manged to work though since staying out all night seemed to be quite normal. At least in Madrid.

dk

Don,

Granada is less than an hour north of Motril. The Alhambra palace and the Sierra Nevada ski slopes make it a major attraction. I don't know how the Spanish stay up late either. I like to be in bed before midnight - fiesta or no fiesta!

[Kim]

iQue buena idea!

Responding to Keith's comment that the Spanish posts won't be read by the majority; that's not really the point, is it? It's not all about us English speakers. The Spanish section is for Spanish language speakers/readers, many of whom don't participate at all right now. "Build it and they will come." This attracts more new members, that is positive. And if some of the English speakers want to hop over the border for a little espanol, fantastico, digo yo. Y igual el inverso. (Disculpe mi espanol.)

[ruskinPalms]

My wife once did a project for college on Brasil and she found a bunch of periodicals in Portuguese and I guess I was bored enough to figure out the Portuguese. It really didn't seem to different than Spanish to me. But, keep in mind, I was only reading it and I had about 2 years of advanced Latin when I started college. I am sure pronunciation is quite different than Spanish. I bet most of the Spanish speakers out there that might be posting in this new sub forum could read Portuguese good enough to make a decent reply in Spanish anyway. Funny thing about all the Latin I studied is that I don't think I could read it all that well anymore, and no one really knows how it was spoken anyway. I have spent the last 10 years of my life hearing and speaking Spanish (other than English 90% of the time) so that is my "second language" of choice, but I still really can't speak it all that well. So, I look forward to the new forum to aid in increasing my fluency in Spanish and maybe even Portuguese here and there

[ruskinPalms]

By the way, I like the sound of Portuguese when spoken better than all the other Romance languages! Kinda a mix of French and Spanish if you ask me. Beautiful when spoken or sung.

[_Keith]

iQue buena idea!

Responding to Keith's comment that the Spanish posts won't be read by the majority; that's not really the point, is it? It's not all about us English speakers. The Spanish section is for Spanish language speakers/readers, many of whom don't participate at all right now. "Build it and they will come." This attracts more new members, that is positive. And if some of the English speakers want to hop over the border for a little espanol, fantastico, digo yo. Y igual el inverso. (Disculpe mi espanol.)

As I said, I was afraid my comments would be misinterpreted. It would seem to me that it is not languages that attract members, but providing value. That value seems to come in two forms, one being information, and the other being comraderie. If I were attempting to provide the first, and providing that true multilingual support was not available, I would seek the most universal medium available. To provide the second I would attempt to provide the most open forum possible, miniming and discouraging opportunities for exclusion of any group.

And while I am an English speaking American, it was not the choice of the generations before me. I am a Cajun whose native language was French, a product of the Thibodeaux and Hebert families. We were first shamed and then later forced to adopt English with school children being forbade to speak French on public school grounds, and thus a part of my heritage was lost. There are several stories and songs about the tragedy of the loss of our language. Today, I live in an area that is proud of its French heritage, with French immersion programs in schools, and where one wears the badge of French heritage and the ability to speak French with pride.

But even if PalmTalk opened an Acadian French forum, if I wanted to interact and share information with a world audience, I would still do it in English to get it to the widest audience possible. Now if I wanted a little comraderie with my fellow French speaking friends, I would do in one of the many forums already available for such.

And again, I am sure my comments will be mistaken by someone. The medium of writing is a very poor one for such conversations, which should probably be reserved for face-to-face, where the caring and sincere expressions come through across the barriers of language.

[Kim]

Keith, I don't think I misunderstood you as much as you think I misunderstood you, but maybe you misunderstood me a bit. I just think, why not try it and see what develops? It could be a conduit to bring in members who might not otherwise participate at all. Maybe I just have too much salsa music sloshing around in my brain from Costa Rica still, but I think it's a muy amable plan.

[Jason Baker Portugal]

Donde está el foro? no lo encuentro. Saludos Jason

[Carlo Morici]

Quando para mucho mi amore de felice corazón

Mundo paparazzi mi amore chicka ferdy parasol

Presto obrigado tanta mucho cake and eat it carousel

¡Muy bueno!

Spanish is very easy if the topic is palms, see:

) ¡Buenos días, amigo! ¿Cómo está tu Pritchardiopsis jeanneneyi?

) El Pritchardiopsis está muy grande y tiene muchos frutos. También están con fruto las Hemithrinax rivularis y la Roystonea stellata. Y ¿cómo van tus Attalea crassispatha?

) Crassispatha tengo 28 en el jardín, 10 son adultas, con inflorescencias. Ahora tengo muchas plantitas de Hyophorbe amaricaulis variegada.

) ¿Tienes amaricaulis variegadas!?! Quiero una! Te la cambio por una Jubaea de hoja roja.

) Perfecto. Te envío 3 amaricaulis variegadas el viernes. Espero las jubaea rojas. W la IPS, hasta luego.

) W la IPS, ¡nos vemos!

Jokes apart, I am really glad about the decision taken about the new forum. I think we will gain a lot and lose nothing. Let's see what happens. The main dish will always be English but we will hopefully get some knowledgeable palm people from the Spanish world to join this board.

Images, photos or fotos, are a solution to the language barrier. As long as many threads show "fotos", everybody will enjoy a visit to “P&P” (Palmas y Palmeras en Español).

Carlo

[Jeff in St Pete]

I think it's a fantastic idea and I look forward to reading and posting in that forum.

[amazondk]

By the way, I like the sound of Portuguese when spoken better than all the other Romance languages! Kinda a mix of French and Spanish if you ask me. Beautiful when spoken or sung.

I guess I am sort of biased. I like Spanish fine. But, next to Brazilian Portuguese I feel like I have rocks in my mouth when I speak Spanish. As I am sure Jason can confirm there is a big difference between Portuguese from Portugal and that from Brazil as well. I guess sort of like English from England and the USA. Or, Spanish from Cuba and Spain. I am sure that the alternative language forum will be a positive venue for communication. And, I look forward to participating.

dk