Heather Broster
Heather is a graduate in linguistics from the University of Western Ontario and an aspiring polyglot. Her primary focus lies in the fields of language acquisition, education, and bilingual instruction. When she isn’t studying languages, she enjoys the great outdoors, exercising and spending time with her young son.
Family life forms the foundation of Spanish culture, taking precedence over all other things in life including job success and material possessions. This is a value that is embraced not only by the Spanish but also many Latino countries where Spanish is spoken. The Spanish word for family is the similar sounding familia. Both words …
A populated place where people live, work and play is called a ciudad (city) in Spanish. Latin American Pronunciation European Pronunciation Ciudad is a feminine noun that takes the following definite and indefinite articles: No quiero vivir en una gran ciudad. I don’t want to live in a big city. Although town is often translated …
Since I started lifting weights three days a week, I’ve been trying to increase the amount of protein I incorporate into my diet. Since I’m not a great meat lover, this means eating at least one huevo (egg) per day to hit my goals. Latin American Pronunciation European Pronunciation Huevo is inherited from Old Spanish …
The European Spanish word for computer is ordenador. It was taken directly from the French word ordinateur, which in turn was coined in 1955 by the French branch of IBM. It is said that François Girard, the head of the advertising department at IBM France, felt that the English word computer was too similar to …
When we watch our favourite actors on the big screen, we seldom think about their linguistic abilities. However, many celebrities are bilingual or even multilingual, with several speaking Spanish fluently or at an impressive level. In this article, we introduce twelve famous actors who have skilfully mastered Spanish as a second language. Some chose to …
One of the most widely consumed foods in the word is rice, known as arroz in Spanish. Interestingly, Spain accounts for nearly 30% of rice production in the EU, only second to Italy! Latin American Pronunciation European Pronunciation The word arroz is borrowed from Andalusian Arabic الرَّوْز (ar-rawz), which ultimately comes from Arabic أَرُزّ (ʔaruzz, …