Earlier this year I wrote that flashcards can be disadvantageous to language learning, but before that I included flash cards as one of 11 strategies to learn any foreign language.

So where am I on the issue?

I’ll let you read those two articles and find out.

Today, I’d like to present a piece of free, opensource, flashcard software called jVLT that will run on most computers (Windows, Mac & Linux), and help you learn vocabulary.

What does it do?

jVLT stands for Java Vocabulary Learning Tool and helps you do just that. You add the word combinations that you want to learn, the original and a translation. You can optionally add more than one translation for each word, as well as example sentences, definitions, pronunciation– you can even associate media files such as images and audio with your entries. You can also categorize your vocabulary.

After you’ve entered some words and translations, it’s quiz time. jVLT can create quizzes on all or part of your vocabulary list and maintains statistics on how many words you know, and can modify future quizzes accordingly.

Downloading and Installing

So how can you get a hold of this great product?

First, if you don’t already have it, install Java. Just follow that link, click “Free Java Download”, and follow the instructions to download and install.

After that’s taken care of, download jVLT and save it wherever is convenient. No installation is necessary, if you have Java (above) installed, you should be able to just double-click the file (jvlt-1.0.2.jar) and it will run.

You may also want to grab their sample Spanish – English vocabulary file and import it into jVLT as a starting point. If you have any questions on getting this to work, feel free to ask me.

People

There’s a whole class of words that end in either o or a depending on the gender of the person, such as camarera, camarero, tía, tío, and hermana, hermano. These words aren’t so hard to deal with since the gender corresponds to the person the word represents.

Trees

There’s also a bunch of fruit where the fruit is feminine and the corresponding tree that produces it is masculine. These aren’t too hard to remember either, once you catch on to the pattern. For example:

manzana (apple) – manzano (apple tree)
cereza (cherry) – cerezo (cherry tree)
naranja (orange) – naranjo (orange tree)
almendra (almond) – almendro (almond tree)

The hard part

Now we get to the hard part. Words that end in o or a, and depending on that difference, have a totally or partially different meaning. Watch out for these or you’ll get tripped up.

barranca - ravine, gorge, canyon, cleft
barranco - cliff, precipice, drop-off point, obstacle

bolsa - woman’s purse, bag in general, bolsa de plástico = plastic bag, bolsa (de valores) = stock exchange
bolso - (also bolsillo) – pocket, pants pocket, change purse (also monedero), money bag

braza - fathom (maritime measurement). Don’t confuse this with brasa, which is a red-hot coal.
brazo - arm (anatomy), fork (of a river)

cabecera - header, heading, beginning, head, headboard, headpiece, headline
cabecero - foreman, headboard (of a bed)

cobra - cobra (snake)
cobro - charge, collection (money)

cuenca - wooden bowl, eye socket, valley, river basin
cuenco - earthen bowl, hollow, cavity, depression (in the earth)

fruta - fruit (the pieces of fruit from a plant or tree)
fruto - results, payoff, consequence, benefit, profit, fruit (the yield of a plant or tree)

hoya - dale, hollow, river basin, grave, hole in the ocean’s floor. Not to be confused with olla (cooking pot, stew pot).
hoyo - hole, pit.

libra - pound (weight), constellation Libra
libro - book

manga - sleeve or arm of a shirt or other piece of clothing
mango - the fruit mango, handle (of a tool etc)

poma - pome, apple
pomo - flask, knob, cluster

ribera - shore, bank (of a river etc)
ribero - dike, levee (to hold back water)

ría - river delta, river mouth
río - river

saca - extraction, taking out, bag, sack
saco - sack, bag, sac, plunder, loot, suit coat, suit jacket

There’s probably a lot more of these word pairs as well. Watch out for them as you perfect your Spanish.

Marido. The word marido sounds a lot like ‘married’, but it really means ‘husband’. Esposo is another way to say husband. For wife, try esposa or mujer.

Chocar. This verb has nothing to do with choking, which would be estrangular, ahogar or sofocar. Chocar means to crash. It can also be used to express disgust or dislike. “Me choca esa canción” means “I’m sick of that song”.

Sensible does not mean sensible. Sensible in English is sensato, and sensible in Spanish is sensitive in English.

Vaso. This Spanish would means glass/cup when referring to a drinking vessel. Vaso is also used for vein. Vaso sanguíneo is blood vein. The English vase is a florero.

Pariente. This is does not mean parent, it means relative as in blood relations. Parents are padres.

Sano means healthy. To talk about being sane, look up the words juicio, cuerdo, cordura and sensato.

And that’s all I can think of for now. I’ll have to sit down and see if I can come up with some more to round out this series. It seems like it should have at least 5 parts.

Bizarro. This is not by any means a very oft-used Spanish word, but when you run across it, it will do you well to know it means gallant, brave, dashing, generous, or splendid, and not bizarre, strange or weird. To talk about bizarre or strange things, try raro or extraño. Note also that raro is closer in meaning to strange than to rare.

Coraje does not usually mean courage*, which would be valentía. Coraje actually means anger, rage.
* Apparently, there are some areas where coraje can mean courage, or “fighting spirit”, but by and large this isn’t the case.

Actual. Actual in Spanish means current. Actualizar means to upgrade, update or bring up to date. Actualmente means currently. So how to get the English meaning for actual? Try verdadero or real. For actually, try por cierto, de hecho, or al contrario.

Compromiso does not mean compromise in the sense of giving in to the other party or changing your ideals. Compromiso actually referrs to a commitment, obligation or even an appointment. “Tengo un compromiso” is the best way to say “I have something I need to do”, “I have an appointment/commitment” etc. So how can you talk about compromise? It’s actually a tough question, but the verbs tolerar (tolerate), and ceder (to yield) work pretty well. The dictionary has transigir, but I’ve never heard it in normal conversation.

Fútbol. In Spanish this word can be used with or without the accent mark, with the predictable change in pronunciation, but it can’t be used for the popular US sport named football, which would be fútbol americano. Fútbol actually means soccer. Of course, I can’t forget all the British English speakers, who actually do use the word football to talk about soccer. So much so that a soccer player is a footballer.

Let’s dig right in.

Excitar does not mean to excite, nor does excitarse mean to get excited. It means to arouse or get aroused in a sexual sense. To talk about being excited, use emocionar, emocionarse and emocionado.

Decepción, decepcionar and decepcionarse all refer to being let down or disappointed. They have nothing to do with being deceived. Engañar is the right way for talking about deception.

Accountability is sometimes mistranslated as contabilidad. Contabilidad is accounting, as in taking care of the money. To talk about accountability, you can try rendición de cuentas, rendir cuentas, or simply responsable and responsabilidad. He’s accountable to his boss – El rinde cuentas a su patrón. He’s accountable – El es responsable.

Embarazada/o does not mean embarrassed. This is another one that many beginning Spanish students learn early on, so it’s not always a problem. But I have heard people say “estoy embarazado” when they are in fact not pregnant, what they really mean to say is that they are apenado. Me da pena or Qué pena are the most common ways to say I’m embarrassed and That’s embarrassing.

Constipado refers to a blockage of the nose/nasal cavity, not the colon/intestines, and works pretty well if you have a head cold or congestion of the nose. If your problem is constipation, try estreñido and estreñimiento.

In no particular order:

Receta. This word refers to a medical prescription or a recipe for cooking something. It never means “receipt”, which is better translated recibo, comprobante, nota, or even ticket, an Anglicism.

Ropa. Fortunately, this word is learned early on in your Spanish studies, so you know it means clothes, not rope. Rope would most commonly be soga, cuerda or lazo.

Fábrica. Not this does not mean fabric, it means factory. Fabric would be tela.

Tuna. The Spanish word tuna refers to a small fruit that grows on the top of the nopal cactus, which, as I hear is actually the “prickly pear cactus” in English. Tuna fish would be atún. This one really messed me up the first time I travelled to Mexico.

And the last word for today is:

Éxito. Although it’s very similar to the English “exit”, the meaning is just not there. Éxito means success, exitoso means successful and exitosamente means successfully. If you want out of here, look for the nearest salida.

I was just in a session that was being interpreted simultaneously from English to Spanish, and I had the benefit of being able to listen in on both versions, which is a good way to learn a lot about how to speak Spanish fluently. But in this session, the main topic was accountability and unfortunately, the interpreter started off translating this as contabilidad.

That’s just wrong.

Let’s create a quick list of vocabulary with examples of course to discuss this.

First, contabilidad is accounting as in keeping the books, generating a balance sheet and doing payroll. Now onto accountability.

How to be accountable in Spanish.

Here’s some examples:

This is important work and we demand a high level of accountability from our engineers.
Este trabajo es importante y exigimos que nuestros ingenieros sean muy responsables.

We need more accountability from him.
Necesitamos que nos rinda cuentas.

She’s accountable to Marty.
Ella rinde cuentas a Marty.

So for the most part, here’s your vocab:

• to be accountable to someone – rendir cuentas a alguien, ser responsable ante alguien
• to be accountable – pedirsele cuentas, ser responsable
• accountability – rendición de cuentas, responsabilidad

Now, you’re accountable for how you translate “accountability”.

I was just paging through a book called Frecuencias del español : diccionario y estudios léxicos y morfológicos by Ramón Almela. It’s got lots of information about the frequency of words in Spanish.

I took his list of the 100 most common words (which include articles, pronouns, conjunctions and the like) and extracted all the nouns. So here is a list of the 24 most commonly used (and arguably most useful) Spanish nouns:

1. el año (year)
2. la vez (time, occasion) una vez = once, Todas las veces que fui… = Every time I went…
3. la vida (life)
4. el tiempo (time)
5. el día (day)
6. el mundo (world)
7. el gobierno (government)
8. la casa (house)
9. el hombre (man, mankind)
10. el país (country)
11. la forma (form, way, manner) Hazlo de esta forma. = Do it like this.
12. el caso (case) En ese caso saldremos más temprano. = In that case we’ll leaver earlier. ; No le hagas caso. = Don’t pay any attention to him.
13. el hecho (fact, happening) los hechos = the facts ; Examinemos los hechos = Let’s see what really happened (Let’s study the facts)
14. hoy (today)
15. el momento (moment, instant) en este momento = right now
16. las cosas (things, stuff)
17. España (Spain)
18. el trabajo (work, job, employment)
19. la política (politics)
20. la gente (people)
21. el lugar (place)
22. el ejemplo (example)
23. las personas (people, individuals)
24. la mujer (woman, wife)

So you want to see some of these newly accepted words?

ABS, as in brakes
abducir, to abduct
abrefácil, “easy-to-open”
acoso moral,
acoso psicológico, phychological harrassment
amniocentesis
autogobierno, self-government
bulímico, bulimic, as in the eating disorder
bungaló, what other than a bungalow
castrante, this doesn’t sound very healthy, but it actually doesn’t have anything to do with the verb “castrate”, it’s used to refer to a dominating woman.
chat, do I need to explain?
cuentarrevoluciones, that sounds kind of like a tachometer
digitalización, a cognate
droga de diseño, designer drugs- BTW, what are designer drugs anyway?
gol de oro, a really good goal?
internet, hmmm the tubes
montenegrino, of or relating to the Republic of Montenegro, a tiny country in Europe
mulá, anyone have any idea of what this is?
pósit, posit or axiom
rap, rap music
reproducción asistida
salvapantallas, computer screensaver
tarifa plana, flat rate
terapia ocupacional, occupational therapy
vaca sagrada, sacred cow
zódiac

It’s nice to see dictionaries become descriptive reflections of natural language change, instead of mandating and trying to control language.

Via these three articles.

An Example

Here’s the headline and a clip from an article containing “seguridad jurídica”.

50 mil familias, sin seguridad jurídica en su vivienda
La venta de tierras ejidales detonó en Torreón un problema de irregularidad jurídica en 20 por ciento de las colonias de la ciudad. Unas 50,000 viviendas no tienen un dueño definido y el gobierno del estado apenas intenta una solución.

In this story, about 50,000 families have problems with their titles to their homes due to legal problems with the way the land was claimed. In other words, their homes are not legally theirs.

Some Definitions

At Mundo Notorial I found a glossary that gives a definition:

Seguridad Jurídica
Garantía que representa la organización estatal en orden al mantenimiento del derecho y a la consiguiente protección del individuo, nacional o extranjero.

I’m not sure I understand all the legal speak there, but it sounds like seguridad jurídica is a guarantee by the government to uphold law and justice, and protect individuals.

In my investigations I came across another definition [pdf]:

Seguridad jurídica ha sido considerada “como garantía de promover, en el orden jurídico la justicia y la igualdad en libertad, sin congelar el ordenamiento y procurando que éste responda a la realidad social en cada momento”.

This definition makes seguridad jurídica sound very similar to the concept of “civil rights”.

I then went on to read a convincing paper on the link between “seguridad jurídica” and economic development by Carmen Urízar Hernández. In this paper “seguridad jurídica” sounds like “the stability or integrity of the legal system”, and to increase seguridad jurídica, you need to reduce organized crime, eliminate corruption, deal with urban violence and stop human rights violations.

My Conclusions

I think seguridad jurídica is basically when laws are enforced consistently, when the ruling party can’t change/suspend/modify laws on a whim, for personal gain, when people can’t use bribes to get out of obeying the law, and when criminals receive a just punishment for their deeds, and can’t simply get off the hook by having connections/bribing officials etc.

Returning to all the politicians who talk about seguridad jurídica- If they promise to increase seguridad jurídica, I think they are promising to:

• Reduce crime
• Eliminate corruption/bribes
• Create a streamlined and safe justice system
• Isolate the courts from being influenced by anything other than justice
• Punish criminals fairly
• Provide fair and timely trials to the accused
• Enforce laws consistently

Let me know if I’ve jumped to conclusions or if you have any input on the subject. Quiero mencionar que comentarios en español también son más que bienvenidos.

ADDED: Possible translations for seguridad jurídica

• Law and order
• Stability and integrity of the legal system
• Consistent enforcing of laws
• Having a trustworth court system

What do you think?