Common Error: "Earn," "Win," and "Beat"

Good afternoon, and welcome again to Mistake Monday! I've been busy traveling the last few months, but I'm back in Costa Rica now, so I'll try to update the blog more frequently again. Today I want to look at another Common Error. If you're not sure what kinds of errors I'm talking about, look here for a list of previous errors we've looked at on the blog.

Monopoly (or "Monopolio," as it's called here in Costa Rica) is one of my favorite board games. I don't always win, but I often am able to beat my opponents by buying as many properties as possible. (Photo by Ryan Sitzman)

Today's error is found often when talking about sports or other types of contests. It's also confusing for Spanish speakers because one Spanish word (ganar) can mean all three of the English words. Let's have a closer look:

Common Error: Earn, Win, and Beat
DON’T say this:	"She wins a lot of money in her job." "Saprissa won La Liga in last night's soccer game."
WHY?	-Earn refers to the money a person receives for doing work or a job. For example, you can say: "Pablo earns 5,000 Colones per hour working for the phone company." "I'd like a job where I can earn enough money to support my family." In most cases, you can also use the word make instead of earn. ("Pablo makes 5,000 Colones..."). -Win (past tense: won) means that one person or team defeats or conquers another person or team. The opposite is lose (past tense: lost). When you use these words, you usually mention the competition or contest, but not the opponent: "Jenny was the winner of the poker tournament. She won $50,000!" "Spain won the World Cup in 2010." The team with the highest score is the winner, and the team with the lowest score is the loser. Also, you can win a contest or competition unexpectedly (like the lottery or a raffle, for example): "I hope I win a free car in the supermarket raffle!" -Beat: Finally, beat is similar to win, but it's used a little differently in a sentence. You have to indicate both the winner and the loser (opponent) when you use the word beat: "Terry beat Tommy in the video game, but Tommy beat Terry playing soccer."
INSTEAD, SAY THIS:	-"She earns a lot of money in her job." -"Saprissa beat La Liga in last night's soccer game." OR -"Saprissa won last night's soccer game."

Hopefully you understand. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a comment or contact me. Thanks for reading, and have a great week!

Halloween

Prince, not a pirate.

Hello and Happy Halloween! Halloween is a holiday that is popular in English-speaking countries, particularly in the US. It's also becoming more and more popular in other countries like Costa Rica. It's common for people to go to parties and wear costumes to celebrate the holiday, and children go trick-or-treating, where they go from door to door in their neighborhoods to ask for candy.

I found this good, brief video that talks a bit about Halloween on History.com. It has information about customs, traditions, and history associated with Halloween. Check it out:

Also, if you click here to go to the video's page, you can also find lots of other cool videos related to Halloween.

If you are going to celebrate Halloween, have a good time and be safe! Thanks for reading!

Are We All "Americans"?

Hello! It's been a while since I've written on this blog, but I've been on a long trip. I finally have a little time to blog again, so I'd like to talk today about the use of the word "American." 

Two flags, but are they two American flags? Photo by Ryan Sitzman.

Who or what can be considered "American," at least in English? This is one of the most common questions/complaints I get in my English classes. As you probably know if you have friends from the USA, we often refer to ourselves as "Americans." I was recently listening to a Grammar Girl podcast that talked about this very issue. You can see the transcript or listen to the podcast here. The episode is great listening practice, of course, but some of the English is a bit advanced, just so you know.

In the USA, as well as much of Canada, Europe, and other regions, we learn that there are 7 continents, and that North America and South America are two different continents. However, in Latin America, schools teach that North and South America are combined, and that the continent is called "America."  As a result, in Spanish you can refer to anyone or anything from Alaska to Argentina as (an) "americano/a." This is a small difference in names, but it can cause bigger problems in cultural communication. 

If I refer to myself as an American in a class in Costa Rica, some of my students complain and say something like, "We are Americans, too." Sure, that's true. But they're also Costa Ricans. Or in South America, they're also Argentinians, Venezuelans, Peruvians, etc. The USA is at a bit of a disadvantage because there's not a word that can describe the people from the country, at least not in English (estadounidense works OK in Spanish, but there's not an equivalent in English).

Another issue that comes up in classes is the use of the word "North American." In Costa Rican Spanish, "norteamericano" is often used to refer to Americans and Canadians, but only sometimes Mexicans. It's a confusing term, especially if you're talking to a person who learned that Central America is part of the North American continent. I tell my students that according to geographers in the USA, Costa Ricans are also "North Americans"! Even if you eliminate the "norte," it doesn't necessarily make things less confusing or controversial. Just try calling a Canadian or a Mexican an "americano" and you'll see what I mean.

Basically, this is my message to my Costa Rican students and other readers in Latin America: If a person from the United States of America calls himself or herself an "American" when speaking in English, please don't take offense. They're not saying that you aren't Americans, too, but there's just not an English word that lets us describe our nationality in another way. If both English and Spanish speakers keep this in mind, it can help us avoid some cultural and linguistic misunderstandings.

Thanks for reading, and have a great day!

More About Procrastination

Do you remember the word "procrastinate"? It sounds like a dirty word, but it's actually not. We talked about it a while ago in this post. Basically, it means to avoid doing work. That's probably an over-simplification, but that's the general idea.

In any case, this video talks a bit more about procrastination, and how you can try to fight it:

I personally am a big procrastinator. That's one reason there haven't been posts on Sitzman ABC recently (the other, very valid reason is that I was in China, where Blogger is blocked). In the coming weeks I'll try to put up a post or two on this blog, but you can also check out Sitzman ABC's Facebook page for more frequent updates about languages, travel, and other interesting things.

We should be back to a normal posting schedule on this blog by the end of October or the start of November. In the meantime, check out the Facebook page.

Thanks for reading, and take care!

A Few Chinese Things

As you may know, I'm currently taking a Chinese course and I'll be visiting China soon. So naturally I've been interested in Chinese language and culture. I've come across a few resources recently and I thought I'd share them here. They're all in English (at least the explanations), so even if you don't know a word of Chinese they may be interesting for you.

The first resource is actually my teacher Elizabeth. She's sent a lot of videos, and some of them may be interesting for you. This is one about Shanghai:

Next, there's a site called LingoBite. I found out about this site through a contact on Airbnb, actually. The site has very short and quick lessons to help you learn Mandarin Chinese. It also has a blog, which recently had a list of the 8 Best YouTube channels for learning Chinese.

Finally, the language blogs at Transparent are usually pretty great and they post frequent updates, and the Chinese one is no exception. A few days ago they had one that described the parts, history, and evolution of Chinese characters. It's pretty cool, so check it out!

I hope something here is interesting for you. Thanks for reading, and have a good one!

Schedule Change

This is just a quick note to let you know about Sitzman ABC's new publishing schedule. Right now there are three posts a week, but that's going to be very difficult since things are busy right now. Some posts can even take up to two hours to write and at three per week, that's a lot of time. Additionally, I'll be traveling some in the coming months. So I've decided to do one post a week, at least temporarily. The weekly post will probably be on Wednesday.

I really like writing this blog, and I've gotten good feedback from my students. And in fact I do think that this blog has attracted a few more readers with three posts a week, but unfortunately it doesn't attract extra time or money. So in the interests of having more time to do other things, I've decided to make this change, at least for the next month or two. If you have any comments or feel strongly that this is a good or bad idea, I'd like to hear from you. And of course, if you want to leave a donation* to Sitzman ABC, I'd love to hear from you, haha!

Thanks for reading, and thanks to all my readers for giving me a reason and motivation to write this blog! Have a great week!

*Seriously, though, if you do want to donate something, just click on the big yellow "donate" button at the top right of Sitzman ABC. No pressure, though. Just do it. If you want. Now.