How to Recognize and Translate Spanish Words On Maps

Flag of Spain

I have translated many Spanish words from maps, listing below the Spanish English and English-Spanish so you can learn to recognize the Spanish, then solidify your learning by trying to remember the Spanish when given the English.

What prompted this exercise? Google sent me a photo of the Torres del Paine in Chile. 

Where is Chile?

Flag of Chile

Torres del Paine National Park

Cycling in the national park.

The language is Spanish. The countries os South America speak Spanish. Except for Brazil where they speak Portuguese. I already knew a lot of Spanish because my late parents had a flat in Marbella, Spain. I knew the word Torres meant tower, as I had learned it from wine bottles. I could see that de and des were of, like French.  Del was of the.

I learned French at Grammar School in England, at O level and A level. I kept up by having French speaking girls as au pairs to stay in my house when my son was small.

Today I wondered if Paine was pain, but when I looked up pain in Translate Google it came up as dolor, as in the English word Dolorous, or miserable or sad. A search for Paine produced the name Paine as in Thomas Paine. Eventually I found that Paine is the local language word for blue. Interestingly, the accompanying photo showed the mountains looking blue.

Here is my ongoing list of Spanish English words you see on maps. I shall add to this throughout the day.

SPANISH - ENGLISH

(In sections of ten words, alphabetically, with a space every five words to enable easy reading and learning.)

Andino - Andean (of the Andes mountain range)

cruces - crosses

del - of the

dulce - sweet

el - the

en - in

grande - big

isla - island

lago - lake

laguna - lagoon

los - the (plural, as in Los Angeles which means the angels)

massif - massive

nacional - national

palmas - palms

plantas - plants

rio - river

silvestre - forrest

torres - towers

tres - three

parqu e- park

torres - towers

y - and

ENGLISH - SPANISH

and - y

forrest - silvestre (Sylvia with a y is the name of a girl but silvestre with an i means forrest)

island - isla

national - nacional

palms - palmas (as in Las Palmas, from Wikipedia: Las Palmas officially Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, is a city and capital of Gran Canaria island, in the Canary Islands, on the Atlantic Ocean)

Park - parque (not parc but the longer version with qu e)

river - rio (as in Rio Grande)

the - el

three - tres

towers - torres

Useful Websites

https://translate.google.com/#

Polyglots page on Facebook

About the Author

Angela Lansbury, travel writer and photographer, author and speaker. If you are looking for information or entertainment, I have many more posts - and blogs. Please share links with your family, friends and colleagues.