A Journey Through Romance Languages As a native Spanish speaker, other languages´ speakers would probably expect me to understand written French, Portuguese, or Italian. Well truth is that all other Romance Language turn out to be really different and almost impossible for us to understand. I checked out some articles at Wikipedia in their Latin, French, Italian and Portuguese versions, and only the latter was possible for me to understand (really easy, actually), although I had to look up some words on Google. Spoken Portuguese, however, is really difficult for us to understand, especially the Rio de Janeiro accent (as I´ve been told), which apparently is the thickest of all Brazillian accents. Being a South American, football is almost a disease for me, so I´m always watching sports stuff on TV, where of course it is very common to hear Brazilolian footballers talk. I get some words, but something like 20% of what they say. You get used to football terms after a while, but the rest of it is tricky to hear. I find very interesting to see how my language relates to and differs from other Romance Languages, but the truth is they´re very different from each other. ¿Qué opinan ustedes, amigos?

Spanishh Recommended of the Week: Carlos Vives http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=faDsDFrYna0 Carlos Vives is one of the most successful artists in the music of my country. He started out as a child actor in the TV show "Pequeños Gigantes". He did some other TV stuff and some unsuccessful pop albums, until he got the main character for a soap opera named "Escalona", that was an insight on the youth of legendary Colombian vallenato songwriter Rafael Escalona (Vallenato is a musical genre from Colombian atlantic coast region). That was a breakthrough for Vives´ carreer, and after recording the highly acclaimed soundtracks for "Escalona", he started making solo albums again, but with a whole new sound with very interesting fusions that involved Colombian musics from different regions, funk and rock. He put together a band that included among others virtuoso accordionist Egidio Cuadrado, and monster guitarist "Teto" Ocampo, who after spending several years in the heart of New Orleans learning the escence of jazz, got himself into a very deep and juditious research in Colombian musics and instruments, so besides being a killer lead guitarist he can play fluently every Colombian fretboarded traditional instrument (believe me, that´s a LOT of instruments, styles and musical genres). This one´s a beautiful ballad named "La Tierra del Olvido". I´m sure you´re gonna love it, especially if you´re from somewhere away from South America. The Land of Oblivion Like the moon that lights the roads at night, like the leaves in the wind, like the sun scares the cold away. Like the earth awaits the rain, like the sea awaits the river, I´m waiting for your return to The Land of Oblivion. How bad my fears are castaways if I navigate your stare, how you alert my senses with your enamoured voice. With your childish smile, how you move my soul, how you take off my slumber, how you steal my calm. You have the key to my heart, I love you, more than I love my life because without your love I die. La Tierra del Olvido Como la luna que alumbra Por la noche los caminos Como las hojas al viento Como el sol espanta al frío Como la tierra a la lluvia Como el mar espera al río Así espero tu regreso A la tierra del olvido Como naufragan mis miedos Si navego tu mirada Como alertas mis sentidos Con tu voz enamorada Con tu sonrisa de niña Como me mueves el alma Como me quitas el sueño Como me robas la calma Tu tienes la llave de mi corazón Yo te quiero Mas que mi vida porque sin tu amor Yo me muero

Long time, no italki. Hey there. Sometimes life gets a little too busy or boring, and you get dragged away from things you like to do because of work and other stuff. I have neglected my English practice a little bit and I feel that my proficiency has decreased. This writing thing is a great exercise not only for the writing skills per sè, but because of the fact that you really have to put your mind into building a solid and coherent text, and that takes a lot of language skills in general. I hope my old buddies around here are doing fine, and I hope I can continue to help and be helped in this quest we all got ourselves in. I didn´t know what this whole thing was about when I got here, but italki has turned out to be a really helpful learning experience. I thank all the people who have helped me whith my English (and my Spanish, actually. Some foreigners know your native tongue better than you do, sometimes), as well as Italki for all of this. I encourage the new "italkers" to take it seriously and keep your foot on the gas. I´ll see you guys around, keep it going!!

What do you call that?? I met some people from the US, Canada and England the other day. We hung out for a while and then some girls showed me how they joked each other by dancing behind someone without they noticed, and playing normal when they turned around. It was very funny to see, but I don´t remember the name of the prank. They said it was called Dare... something. Thanks in advance for your answers to my lame question. Cheerio!

Christmas Traditions in Colombia Christmas is a very special time of the year, and a lot of traditions related to food, omens, music, partying and family have been a part of the Colombian culture over decades. As you might know, we don´t have seasons here per sé, but the end of the year is normally summer, unlike countries from the northern emisphere. We don´t have snow, so Christmas looks a bit different over here. Christmas time oficially begins on December 7th, in a tradition named "The Night of the Candles", where people light candles on their porches and doorways to welcome christmas. It was originally meant as a catholic tradition, since December 8th is the day of the Immaculate Conception. Another important tradition here is the "Novena de Aguinaldos", which is a 9-day period prior to Christmas day, where people get together with their families, share nice meals and pray and read stories about the backgrounds of the birth of Jesuschrist, and after that they usually sing carols. Colombian cuisine has a variety of gorgeous flavors and ingredients due to our biodiversity, and of course Christmas traditional meals are to-die-for!! We eat turkey, gouda cheese, ham and all that of course, but there are other typical things like buñuelos (corn dough-cheese balls) or natilla (cinnamon, corn flour,cinnamon based jelly thing) that make one go crazy. We open the presents at night on December 24th, after the Christmas eve dinner. Some people usually turn on the radio around 5 minutes before midnight to hear the countdown, and later they cherish and give each other the best wishes for the season. "Baby Jesus" is the one who brings presents to the kids, not Santa Claus, who is known as "Papa Noel", and whose image is used only in decorations and so. Fireworks are a tradition too, although only professionals are legally allowed to use them. Sadly a lot of ignorant people here don´t stick with the rule, and people usually get accidentally burned, especially innocent children who pay for the stupidity of the older ones. Some other idiots also like to drive their drunk asses back home after the party, so we have to be extra careful when driving during the holidays. Bottom line, Christmas in Colombia is a lot about being around people we love, and those like me who grew up with economic deprivations were taught to enjoy the spirit of the season and not to keep up with the Joneses all the time. Party on, people! Merry Christmas to everyone and a happy, peaceful, and enviromentally careful 2013!!

What does this mean? Hello everyone, I was listening to The Cure's Jumping Someone else's Train, and I don't know what "pick up" means in the context: "if you pick up really quick you could say you were there". I know "pick up" for like "picking somebody up after work" or "going to a bar to pick up girls" but I really don't know what the sentence means in the song. Thanks in advance.

Does this make any sense? Hi. I was listening to "Hard to Handle" by the Black Crowes (killer tune!), and I thought I heard "I´m gonna prove into what I say...". I didn´t know the lyrics and of course I can´t understand a lot of what I hear from music in English, so when I looked up the lyrics it happened to be "I´m gonna prove every word I say". The thing is that the sentence "I´m gonna prove into what I say" sounds good to me for some reason, like I´ve heard it before somewhere else. Does the sentence exist? Does it make any sense (I feel it like "I´m gonna prove myself right or something like that)? Thank you.

The Weather in Colombia In general terms, rain is recurrent throughout the whole year in Colombia, since it´s a tropical contry. We do have a time of the year where it rains more than the rest, but it is not rare that it rains hard every now and then when it´s not the rain time. I was born and raised in Bogotá, the capital, which is one of the coldest cities in the country, and the overall temperature during the whole year here is about 20°C at daytime, and about 10°C in the nightime. We don´t have seasons here, but what we call "summer" occurs in december and january, and our "winter" is somewhere around may or june, and then just rain, and rain, and rain, and a sunny day, and rain, and rain all the rest of the year; it´s actually difficult to tell when the weather will change, especially nowadays with all the climate changes and global warming and all that sad stuff that our poor Mother Earth is getting from us in return of her measureless generosity. We have three mountain chains here which are a part of the Andean chain, and we have two coasts (atlantic and pacific), therefore we have all the thermal levels, and ideal conditions for harvesting and fishing during the whole year. Unfortunately our governors kindly steal from all those resources and make us a poor country even though we have all that! Because of the mountain chains also, ground traveling is very difficult and dangerous since we have to round the mountains instead of just driving in a straight line like in other countries. The good thing about that is that you get to see astonishing landscapes when driving from one part of the country to another. You can see woods, lakes, farms, villages, and at some routes like the one that goes from Bogotá to Villavicencio you have to cross tunnels through the mountains. It´s really cool when you go from Bogotá to a warmer spot, because when you´re in the open road you can tell you´re in a different climate because of the smell of vegetation. It looks the same through the window but it smells different, and then you just know you´re getting closer. There are really smoking hot cities not too far away from Bogotá. After a 2 hour drive you can certainly be sweating your guts out and screaming for an ice-cold beer in cities like Villeta or Fusagasugá, which have nice hotels and fortunately POOLS! If you go a little up to the north, in the other hand, you´ll get to Boyacá, which is on a higher altitude (colder) and full of stories about our heritage. Thanks for your corrections.