Abrelatas

Abrelatas
 

This is a discussion thread for the Daily Spanish Word for March 14, 2009

abrelatas - masculine noun (el) - can opener. Look up abrelatas in the dictionary

Si no tuvieras abrelatas, ¿cómo abrirías una lata?
If you didn't have a can opener, how would you open a can?

Okay - I just had a flashback to my old studying-for-the-SAT's days. LOL!! When I saw the word "abrelatas" in the subject-line of the email this morning, I thought to myself "that must have something to do with opening something". Aha! I was so right. Prefixes, suffixes, word stems, AAAHHHHH!!! All of that stuff is starting (a little bit) to come together for me!!! YAY!!

Anyway - there IS a question that I have. :) Is there a way that the sentence could be written with the impersonal "se"? Something like "Si se no tengas abrelatas, ¿cómo se abre una lata?" - or would that ruin the conditional tense being used?

It could be changed, and still keep the conditional tense, like so:

Si no se tuviera un abrelatas, ¿cómo se abriría una lata?

Oh!!! That's even EASIER than what I did. :) So it's almost like saying "if one didn't have a can opener, how would one open a can?" Right?

Correct!

It aligns somewhat to English. Right? ;)

So how consistent is this way of forming compound spanish words? I know sacapuntas (pencil-sharpener/"makes-points"), parabrisas (windshield[/-screen]/"stops-breezes"), and now this one. How many other '3rd-person singular present indicative + plural noun' compounds like this are there?

Welcome to the forums!!

Compound nouns (sustantivos compuestos) number into the hundreds.

Most are masculine singular nouns, despite the fact that they all end in an 's'. To make the plural form, you just change the article from el to los.
There are occasions when a compound noun refers to a female and it takes a femenine article, like jchen would be una calientalibros (a bookworm).

Look here for a list of about 170 compound nouns. Portaequipajes (trunk) isn't listed. Neither is abrecartas (letter opener) or buscapiés (firecracker), so you'll have to find other lists to get a bigger sampling.

¿comó "trabalenguas"? ¿Significa "locked tongue" literalmente?

There are a lot of meanings for trabar, but I think it's loosely translated as 'something that holds back (impedes the movement of) the tongue'.
Trabarse actually means to get jammed, or stuck. Se me traba la lengua. = I get tongue-tied.

I bid you welcome awizzard.

I recommend you that yourself create your own introduce thread about you.

Sincerely yours.

Okay - I definitely get the sense of the word now. And ... that it is a compound noun, taking a singular article even though it looks plural: el trabalenguas. :)

Oh - and another question about compound words ... although this isn't a noun. But is "pelirrojo" (adjective) a compound word related to "pelo" and "rojo"?

Pelirrojo is a word used to describe persons or animals.

Yes. it's an adjective.

Actually, I'm asking if "pelirrojo" is a compound word related to "pelo" and "rojo". I already know that it's an adjective and I know what it means.

Yes, Lou Ann. "Pelirrojo" means "redhaired" ("Tiene el pelo rojo").

Right. I know what it means. And I know that it's an adjective. I'm asking if it's a compound word - if the "peli" refers to "pelo", or is it just a coincidence that the spellings are similar?

Yes, it is considered a compound adjective. These are some examples of compound adjectives:
hispanohablante (Spanish-speaking)
angloparlante (English-speaking)
blanquinegro (black-and-white)
verdiblanco (green-and-white)
pelirrojo (red-haired)

@Lou Ann: it's not a coincidence. Letter "i" often substitutes another vocal to make compound words, as you can see in Rusty's examples.
You can also "invent" some other adjectives using "peli" as a prefix: "pelinegro", "pelilargo"...

So I could say something like "Antaño, fui pelinegro."? :D

Era pelinegra. :)

Okay - so I absolutely must work on imperfect vs. preterite. I haven't really looked at those at all. The former student of mine told me something like imperfect has to do with something that happened a LONG time ago and preterite is more recent past. But I also have the impression that imperfect is something that was more ongoing in the past, vs. preterite being about something that had a well-defined ending to the occurrance. Anyway - don't answer that as a question ... I'm just pointing out that I don't know the difference well enough yet, and should probably not be using the tenses that I don't know.

AND ... I am constantly making mistakes in agreement. DOH! I KNEW it should be "pelinegrA". Doh!!