Words I can't get a handle on

[Culebronchris]

I was having a particularly bad day - Spanish wise - today. One of those days when I misunderstood everything that was said to me and spluttered and stumbled when I had to speak.

Someone said that something was "la leche" which I'd got fixed in my mind as being a bad sort of thing - ¡Ay la leche! - maybe "damn it" or "my goodness" but in this instance it seemed to be being used to say that something was good.

I have similar problems with lots of words. No matter how many times I hear them and no matter how many times I look them up in dictionaries I never seem to be able to fix the meaning in my mind.

Empeñar/empeñarse, plantear and pretender are three more that spring to mind.

I think it's when there's not some English equivalent I can peg the Spanish to. Do you have the same problem?

[switch007]

Yes! With apetecer/parecer and other verbs. I think flash cards might help you solve this issue of mixing up verbs. Try writing sentences showing the difference between them, try and make a point of using the verbs in a conversation.

Thinks like la leche, de puta madre etc I guess is a lot to do with the way in which it was said. Your grasp of idiomatic/colloquial expressions will come with time. Try asking the person what it meant after the conversation.

Keep it up :)

[Cide Hamete Benengeli VII]

I remember having a day like that when I was living in Bogota, Colombia. For whatever reason, that particular day it seemed like I had a lot of trouble understanding what people were saying and had spent most of the day standing in long lines at various places trying to get things done. By the end of the day I was ready to throw in the towel. The last straw came as I was standing on a median strip waiting to cross to the other side of the street on my way home. A bus came by and splashed dirty water all over me. I spit out the bits of dirt and grime that had gotten in my mouth, cleaned my face as best I could with my shirtsleeve, trudged the last few blocks home and just went to sleep after washing up. Things were much better in the morning.
By the way, Chris. How do you like Salamanca. I'm thinking of doing a masters at the University of Salamanca.

[Culebronchris]

By all accounts Salamanca is splendid. I know lots of people who live there and several are doing courses of one sort and another. Good reports all around.