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The letter Q in
Spanish does
exactly the
same thing as
it does in English,
that is, it
always appears
in combination
with the letter
U. However,
the pronunciation
in the two
languages is different.
Whereas in English “qu” makes a “kw”
sound, in Spanish it makes just the “k” sound
alone. So, for example, cheese is pronounced
like “keso” and not “kweso”. That’s why that
question that Manuel always used to ask in
Fawlty Towers is spelt “¿qué?”
If you remember back to the rules for pronouncing
the letter C, you will know that the
combination of “ce” and “ci” produce a “th”
sound. Therefore whenever we need to write
down a “ke” or “ki” sound in Spanish, we have
to remove the C and replace it with a “qu”.
That might sound a bit complicated so here’s
a practical example. “Tabaco”, meaning tobacco,
is spelt with a C which makes the “k”
sound, however the word for a tobacconist is
“tabaquero”, pronounced “tabakero”. Because
the following vowel has changed from
an O to an E, the C has to change to a “qu”
to preserve the same “k” sound. If we kept
the letter C there, it would end up being pronounced
“tabathero”. That’s the best explanation
I can manage I’m afraid, so it’ll have
to do!
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I couldn’t find quite so many related words
as usual beginning the QU in both languages.
Here are a few recognisably similar ones:
“química” (chemistry), “quimioterapia”,
(chemotherapy), and “quiropractía” (chiropractic).
Out of curiosity you might be interested
to know that cockerels in Spain do not
say “cock-a-doodle-do”, but “quiquiriquí”,
although I don’t know if anyone has told the
cockerels this!
I was more successful in finding some “false
friends” or as I prefer to call them “estranged
cousins”. For example, the verb “quitar”
means “to remove” and not “to quit”. From
this word “quitar” we get some interesting
combinations, all connected with removing
something, for example: “quitamanchas”
(stain remover), “quitaesmalte” (nail varnish
remover), “quitamiedos” (lit. fear-remover,
and meaning railings in high or dangerous
places) “quitanieves” (snow plough),
“quitasol” (sun shade), “quitapenas” (lit.
pain or sadness remover, and meaning spirits
or liquor), “quitasueños” (lit. sleep-remover,
and meaning worry or anxiety that keeps you
awake at night).
Another false friend is “quieto” which means
(still) and not “quiet”. For example, when a
Spanish person tells a child to keep still, they
say “¡Estáte quieto!” The word in Spanish
for (quiet) is “callado”, for example: (He’s
a very quiet child) is “Es un niño muy callado”.
One of the most useful words ever in Spanish
has been referred to already, that is “que”.
It can mean “What?” as a question, in which
case it has to be spelt with an accent “Qué”.
“¿Qué quieres?” (What do you want?).
Without the accent it can mean “what” in an
embedded question. “¿Le pregunté que
quería?” (I asked him what he wanted).
Even more usefully it can mean “that” in a
multitude of different contexts when two parts
of a sentence are being joined together. “Voy
a decirle que no quiero jugar” (I’m going
to tell him that I don’t want to play). It comes
up in many short phrases: “Creo que sí” (I
think so); “Creo que no” (I don’t think so).
Again with the accent
it can also been used
to make exclamations,
and this particular aspect
bears spending
a bit more time on.
I am a great fan of
exclamations because
they are short,
they connect to other
people very easily,
they express emotion
as well as ideas and
they are very simple
to form. For example
“¡Qué horror!” means (How awful!); “¡Qué
pena!” means (What a pity!) and “¡Qué
asco!” means (How disgusting!), all short and
sweet and highly expressive.
We have a variety of different ways to formulate
exclamations in English. For example,
we use “What a …” with nouns (What a
nuisance! What a noise!), we use “How …”
with adjectives (How pretty! How gorgeous!)
and we also use negative question forms
like this: “Isn’t it interesting!”, “Aren’t you
clever!”, “Weren’t they funny!” To cover all of
these vagaries in English we simply use “Qué
…” in Spanish, which makes exclamations incredibly
easy to produce. Here are two more
very common examples: “¡Qué calor!” (literally
“What heat!”, but we would say “Isn’t it
hot!”) and “¡Qué frío!”, (literally “What cold!”
but we would say “Isn’t it cold!”).
Here too are the translations of the English
phrases above, just to prove that I’m not
making all this up. (What a nuisance!) “¡Qué
lata!”; (What a noise!) “¡Qué ruido!”; (How
pretty!) “¡Qué bonito”; (perhaps, Isn’t she
pretty!) “¡Qué guapa!”; (How gorgeous!)
“¡Qué precioso!” (or sometimes “¡Qué preciosidad!”);
(Isn’t it interesting!) “¡Qué
interesante!”; (Aren’t you clever!) “¡Qué
listo!”; (Weren’t they funny!) “¡Qué graciosos!”
Just one extra point on this subject; if we wish
to combine a noun and an adjective in an exclamation
we do this using the word “más”.
For example: (What a nice woman!) “¡Qué
mujer más simpática!”
Notice that the adjectives are susceptible as
usual to masculine, feminine, singular or plural
changes, and also notice that in the written
form we open the exclamations with an
“upside down” exclamation mark. Practically
all nouns and adjectives could be used as exclamations,
simply by adding “Qué”, which I
think is rather neat, and should give you hours
of fun thinking up your own!
To finish off, as usual, I have a popular saying
with a Q-word in it. It is: “querer es poder”,
which literally translates as “to want is to
be able”, and is the equivalent of our English
saying: “Where there’s a will there’s a way”.
I hope that’s your attitude when it comes to
learning Spanish!
Jane Cronin, Spanish Classes and Talks.
www.janecronin.eu Tel: 968183258
Try working out the Wordsearch on page ? using
words beginning with the letter Q.
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