Languages at Berkeley: Spanish
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Where can you learn Spanish, or learn about Spanish, at UC Berkeley?
- Department of Spanish and Portuguese - The Spanish and Portuguese Department Website offers information about the Department, our undergraduate and graduate programs, our faculty and thei academic interests, current course being offered and other information that you will find very useful if you are considering studying Spanish at UCB .
- Center for Latin American Studies - in this website you will find information about the Center for Latin American Studies, a center for research focusing on Latin America and related issues in the US. Offers courses, lectures, events, conferences, art exhibits, and online resources.
- The Townsend Center - The Townsend Center’s programs and services promote research, teaching, and discussion throughout the humanities and related interpretive sciences at Berkeley.
- Institute of European Studies - The Institute of European Studies brings disciplines together to create new cross-disciplinary understandings of European issues and issues related to Europe and its constituent nations. It houses the Spanish Studies Program (SSP), which promotes the interdisciplinary study of the countries and cultures of the Iberian peninsula, primarily by sponsoring lectures, conferences, performances, and other events on the UC Berkeley campus.
- UC Berkeley Library - Research Tools for Spanish and Portuguese - In this website you can find Research Tools for Spanish and Portuguese Studies. Use these research tools to find information related to Spanish and Portuguese Studies from sources such as scholarly articles, books, and encyclopedias. You may wish to consult also the Research Tools for Latin American Studies.
A few expressions in Spanish:
| English | Spanish |
|---|---|
| Hello/Hi | Hola |
| What’s your name? | ¿cómo te llamas? |
| My name is Jose. What’s yours? | me llamo, josé; y tú? |
| Nice to meet you. | Mucho gusto. |
| Thank you. | Gracias. |
| I was born in Mexico, but now I live in Berkeley. | Nací en México, pero ahora vivo aquí. |
| One, two, three, four, five | uno, dos, tres, cuatro, cinco |
| Go Bears! | ¡Vamos Osos! |
Is it difficult to translate any of these expressions into Spanish? Why?
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Since there are so many countries that speak Spanish (21 countries in 4 continents), and the way the fans encourage their teams is an area of language that lends itself to many colorful variations, I was a bit pressed to translate “Go Bears”. I thought of writing “Dale Osos” which is what we would chant to our soccer teams in Argentina, but then I thought that was, representative of what other Spanish speakers would say.
I did a little survey among friends from other Spanish speaking countries, and this is what I got so far: “Vamos, Osos….. “Vamonos, Osos”..... “Arriba, Osos”..... “Fuerza, Osos”.... “Echenle, Osos”.
Something else about Spanish…
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