Inhispania’s Top Tips for Living & Learning Spanish in Madrid: septiembre 2012

septiembre 11, 2012

Da Vinco. El Genio. The Genius.

Until the 2nd of May 2012, the Centro de Arte Canal in Madrid will put on an exhibition recreating the workspaces and machines that this Renaissance genius created.
He was an Italian polymath: painter, sculptor, architect, musician, scientist, mathematician, engineer, inventor, anatomist, geologist, cartographer, botanist, and writer whose genius, perhaps more than that of any other figure, epitomized the Renaissance humanist ideal.

septiembre 10, 2012

El problema es (SER)

La diferencia es...
In Spanish, the verb ser (to be) works slightly differently to how we would use it in English.
For example: El problema son dos cosas.

In this sentence, the verb “to be” is in the 3rd person plural to agree with the 2 cosas, even though the noun is singular. This is because in Spanish ser agrees with what follows, whereas in English we would say “The difference is 2 things” or “2 things are the difference”.