Spanish content 'a great service for Augustans'

Editor:

We Spanish professors at Augusta State Univerity are so happy to see the sections in Spanish in The Columbia County News-Times. One of my colleagues, Sara Griswold, has written a letter to the editor (March 3) noting there are many grammar and spelling errors.

This is true, and I know you are working on it, but last weeks edition had plenty of errors which even native speakers make. Id like to point out that the diacritical marks are also important. You wouldnt print English text without the appropriate punctuation, and in Spanish, the accents and tildes are essential. For example, habl means he spoke, she spoke or you spoke, while hablo means I speak. A simple accent changes the person and tense of the verb.

A particularly hilarious example in the column on Feb. 24 referred to the maestro del ano (Teacher of the Anus) instead of the maestro del ao (Teacher of the Year). Believe me, the tilde over the n makes all the difference in the world!

Furthermore, many words that are capitalized in English are not in Spanish, such as the names of languages. For example, Resumen del Espaol should actually be Resumen del espaol. Some Spanish teachers are using your column in the classroom, so it would be best for everyone if your proofreaders would catch accents, misspellings and grammar errors.

We thank you for including some news in Spanish - what a great service for Augustans!

Jana Sandarg

Professor of Spanish

Augusta State University