By definition, all living languages are in a state of change — and it shouldn't come as a surprise that as a result dictionaries change too. According to articles from Europapress.es and EFE today, the Spanish Royal Academy has made 2,996 changes to its authoritative online dictionary, including the addition of 408 entries.

Among the words not previously listed are oenegé (a nongovernmental organization, from the abbreviation ONG, the equivalent of "NGO" in English), sostenibilidad (sustainability), grafitero (graffiti artist), espray (an obvious English loanword referring to an aerosol spray), cultureta (an English equivalent doesn't instantly come to mind, but it's a pejorative term referring to a "cultural activity that does not reach an acceptable level"), homófobo (homophobic), jet lag (another English import), curalotodo (cureall, perhaps a calque word from English), art nouveau (from French) and tsunami (tsunami). Read more...

In a previous entry of this blog, you may have noticed the Spanish word debate and thought it referred to a debate. In fact, it has a similar meaning but in the context is best translated as a discussion. Debate is just one example of a "fickle friend," a word in Spanish that looks like an English word and can mean the same as the English word but doesn't always. Our list of fickle friends has been one of the most popular features on this site. Also popular has been our list of false friends, which almost never mean the same as the English words they look like.

You might guess that the English words "estimate" and "esteem" are somehow related — indeed they are, and they can both be translated using the Spanish verb estimar. Our newest lesson shows how this verb and words related to it are used, complete with examples of everyday sentences.