[Course Forum] First 5000 Words of Spanish: Top Up #6 by ian_mn

Ian,
These are a few bits and pieces, mostly related to regional differences occurring in the the first 6 vocab courses, which are causing typos:

el cerillo=match
This is LAm; in Spain they use ‘la cerilla’.

el terminal=terminal (airplane, telecoms, IT), terminus
According to my sources, this only applies to Chile, Colombia & Venezuela. Otherwise:
el terminal=electrical terminal
la terminal=airport terminal
It seems that either gender is used for computer terminal.

carné v carnet
We have a mixture being used across the courses. Both are listed in the RAE, though carné is preferred (& debated by grammarians). Carnet is the original French spelling; carné is the spanishified version.
Both are used interchangeably in Spain.

el sostén=bra
Could you add ‘support, supporter’ to this definition? (to distinguish it from ‘el sujetador’ which is used more informally for ‘bra’.)

el desconcierto=disorder, chaos (d… , not “el desorden”)
My take is that ‘confusion, bewilderment, disorder’ is a closer definition. ref: desconcertar

Many thanks

Hi, thanks for the excellent suggestions. I will take a look at each of these items and make changes during the next couple of weeks. I had forgotten about cofre/baúl, and I’ll look at that also.

I added “not la cerilla” to the definitions for “el cerillo” and “el fósforo”. From looking at frequency lists, it seems that “el fósforo” is the most common term for matchstick.

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Hi, the only ‘terminal’ items I can find in the xoviat 5000 course and the Top Ups are:

TU#1 L3: la terminal de autobuses = bus terminal
xoviat L55: el terminal = terminal

It’s possible that I added the item you mention, but I can’t find it in my spreadsheet.

I’m wondering if there’s any chance you might have seen the item in another course?

Sorry Ian, my mistake. It was from L55 of the xoviat course but it looks like I’ve changed the definition in my spreadsheet and failed to mark it as such.
Thanks for the info on cerilla/fósforo.

Hi, I changed all the visible “carnet” instances to “carné”, including a couple of instances in the disambiguation comments. I also added invisible alternatives using “carnet” for each “carné” item.

The two spellings sound exactly the same (I think) so no one should end up being thrown off by these changes, but everything’s now consistent. Thanks for the observation.

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As far as I know, yes, the two words are pronounced the same.
Thanks again.

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I changed the item to:
TU#3 L4: el sostén = bra (not “el sujetador”); support; sustenance

As far as I can tell, “el sujetador” is specific to Spain, and it just missed being included in the TU#8 course as the word lies in 20,848th place in the SUBTLEX-ESP subtitles freq list. Exciting stuff!

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I agree and I’ve changed the item as follows:

TU#3 L8: el desconcierto = bewilderment, confusion, disorder

Thanks.

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It seems that this is used most commonly when referring to electrical terminals, and also computer terminals. So, I changed the xoviat definition as follows:

xoviat L55: el terminal = terminal (electrical; computer)

Not a perfect solution, but I think it makes the item easier to learn.

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