LandingPad Buenos Aires

This article sponsored by Bueno, entonces…

Martin Luther King Jr., Photo courtesy of www.top-10-list.org

Today kicks off Black History Month in both the US and Canada. As such, we’ve deemed it appropriate to help you all to better learn Spanish through the translation of a famous phrase from Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous speech:

“Yo tengo un sueño: que mis cuatro hijos pequeños vivirán un día en una nación donde no serán juzgados por el color de su piel sino por el contenido de su carácter.”

Let’s break this down. When we do this, we’re going to hone in a few things:

1) Verbs and conjugations.

2) The future tense.

3) Transvestite nouns.

4) Adjectives.

5) False friends.

Yo tengo un sueño: que mis cuatro hijos pequeños
I have a dream that my four little children

(verbo: tener [to have])

*Note that the adjective ‘pequeño‘ (little) goes after the verb.

vivirán un día en una nación donde no serán juzgados
will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged

(verbos: vivir [to live]; ser [to be])

*Both verbs are in the future tense.

**’Un día’ although ending in ‘a’ [a trait of a feminine noun] is a masculine verb.

*The adjective ‘juzgado‘ (judged) comes from the verb ‘juzgar‘.

por el color de su piel sino por el contenido de su carácter.
by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

*False friend: The word ‘carácter‘ does mean character in this context, but when talking about a play/book/movie, we use the word ‘personaje‘.

If you want to follow through with your resolution to learn Spanish this year, we strongly recommend you get started now. Do it for your job, your education, your family – do it for you. Make 2010 the year you become bi-lingual; Bueno, entonces… will help you get there.