Besides pedir, another way to ask for something is rogar. This is typically a stronger word in meaning, but they are synonyms of one another.

Pedir would be your generic word for requesting something. Rogar is stronger in that it carries the idea of beseeching or begging the other person. It is often used in a positive way, if begging can ever be positive. For example, it would be used to plead with someone to make a right choice. It is less often used, in my experience, for a beggar sitting on the side of the road. That is mendigar.

Monto means amount. It is an accounting term and is often seen where you could substitute the word total, but not always. The phrase “monto original de la inversión” would be translated “original amount of the investment,” or, “initial investment.”

Total would be the summary of everything added and subtracted at the end, which can also be the monto. I have only seen this word used in banking and accounting situations.

One day at church our daughter was wearing some new shoes. Since anything that clean on a toddler would have to be new, someone asked if she was estrenando her new shoes.

We had never heard this word before, so they explained when you use or wear something for the first time it is estrenar. In English we would say debut.

I was explaining the biblical definitions of the words mercy and grace one time to a group of young people. These were completely new words for them; therefore, they did not catch the error that I wrote on the paper I handed them.

Mercy is misericordia. Grace is gracia. The problem came when I wrote the adjectives of those words. Misericordia becomes misericordioso. Logically gracia is gracioso. Even my dictionary agreed with that. One of the adults in the class started laughing at my paper. She had a good laugh at my ignorant mistake.

Whereas gracious can be translated gracioso, that is not the primary meaning of the word. The primary meaning is funny, jester, witty, facetious or clown. In essence I had written on my paper “God is merciful and God is funny.”

Before everyone got out that night, we were able to clear up the confusion and I learned the word bondadoso is a better choice for gracious.

Tarea is the word for task, job or assignment. It is also the word used for homework. As I thought about homework in relationship to this word, tarea, I thought it was a bit odd that the word really just means any task…not necessarily something that is brought home from school for completion.

Have you thought about the difficulty a Spanish speaking person would have with this word in English? What is the difference between homework and housework? They could both be translated tarea. Your assignment at work or your task to complete in a game could be tarea as well. We have many different ways to say the same basic thing in English. Of course, there are other ways to say this in Spanish, but it is nice to have one short word that fits in many different situations.

The word propaganda has always carried the idea government brainwashing for me. The word means very much what it looks like–ideas that are propagated. This can be via print, video, audio or any other medium.

In Spanish the word simply means advertising. While this could be any medium, I have only heard the word used for printed matter. What we would call handbills, fliers, bulletins, handouts and other similar advertising is called propaganda in Spanish. There are other words used as well: anuncios and folletos.

Do you know of other meanings for the word propaganda? What about other ways to refer to advertising in Spanish.

The noun is dawn, daybreak, early morning. Interestingly, there is a verb madrugar—to get up early.

While in English we sometimes use the noun to be the verb (exact form), in Spanish there is a difference in the way they are built. Even though madrugar is a real word, I have only heard it used a couple of times in my three years here. I guess we are not known as morning people in this part of Mexico.

An interesting phrase I saw one time could have been madrugada, but it was rendered as “muy de mañana” instead. Madrugada is the early morning or dawn, whereas muy de mañana would be early in the morning. Same thing; different words. I think the phrase muy de mañana is just funny sounding.

I mentioned some other parts of the day previously. The rule that says “The day is masculine, but its parts are feminine,” holds true for madrugada as it is feminine as well.