¡Hola!
When you run your own small business, there’s no such thing as earning your vacation days in the conventional sense. There really isn’t a “good” time to take a holiday either; you just have to take it.
And so, as you read this, I’m aboard a plane flying across North America on my way to sunny Cancun in Mexico. It’ll certainly be a refreshing change from the rainy climes of Vancouver. The plan is to relax on the beach with an umbrella drink, of course, but I also intend on visiting some cultural and historic sites like Tulum and Chichen Itza. Mayan ruins have always fascinated me and this is a great opportunity to see them in real life. I’ve also been told that Playa del Carmen is gorgeous.
International travel really is one of the best ways to spend your money. You broaden your horizons, try some new food, and experience some new cultures. Although I’ve been to Mexico before, this will be my first time in Cancun, indeed my first time outside of the west coast of the country. Better still, I’m staying at an all-inclusive resort, so it should be fancier that some of my accommodations in the Australian Outback for sure. If you have any recommendations for attractions in the area, do let me know.
Let’s hope my Spanish holds up. Una cerveza, por favor? Gracias.
Hola Michael,
I didn’t know that you can speak Spanish. Was that sentence about beer from your head or from a conversation handbook?
You should have fun everywhere on the coast. I haven’t been there but read and heard about paces like Playa de Carmen and Cozumel. There’s also a small island Isla de Mujeres I think.
Let’s see if you can come up with a few more Spanish sentences.
Vance
I can’t really speak Spanish, but I do know a handful of words. That line came from my head, but I had to confirm whether it was “una” or “uno” in this instance.
Well, you know at least the difference between uno and una. Most Spanish words ending in an “a” are female gender and therefore use una or la.
However some words of foreign origin, usually Greek one, like el idioma (language) and el drama, are of male gender and therefore use el or un.
One tricky word is el agua. It uses male gender article in the singular but it’s still of female gender. It uses male article only because it’s easier to pronounce el agua than la agua. The plural is still las aguas.
I hope I didn’t confuse you. I’m not an expert on Spanish language but I’ve studied it for a while. The best thing to do if you’re not sure about the gender of a noun and don’t have a dictionary is to avoid using words of foreign origin even if they are used in everyday speech, like el idioma. There is a Spanish word for that: La lengua. I’m not sure how I’d replace the word drama though.
Cheers,
Vance
My little bit of background in French helps with that kind of thing. Translates reasonably into other Romantic languages, like Spanish and Portuguese.
Enjoy Michael,
I think you can get the same thing in Florida, including Disney World 🙂
Remember we want food pictures, and of course some cute girls on the beach.
Hey Michael,
I can’t make another response to your response in the same space. I guess you set a limit. It may be helpful to increase it.
Regarding Romance languages (I think they are called Romance but I could be wrong. That could be one of your future topics on the English language) I think that Italian is closer to French than Spanish or Portuguese.
My French is very minimal and I know a bit more Italian than French.
English has Germanic grammar structure, although very clipped one but has a very large amount, perhaps the largest amount of all words, from Romance languages, mainly from French and Latin.
It also has a large amount of words from Greek.
I’ve heard both terms used, but I think you’re right in that “Romance” languages is probably the more standard term.
Italian could be closer to French, but they all fall under the same umbrella as being Latin-based, rather than German-based.
English is one of the most difficult second languages to learn, because it’s a mish-mash of so many influences.
I think that English is easier to learn than most other languages. Perhaps because it has adopted words from so many languages and because of it’s relatively easy, simple grammar.
The only hard thing about it is the spelling which is historic while the pronunciation has evolved a lot faster. And the pronunciation could be more difficult than in some other languages since it’s not copying or following the spelling in a regular manner. Well, it kind of is but it has to be figured out as there are many variations of spelling for the same sound while in many other languages it is regular, always the same sound for a set of letters.