‘Asignatura’ is a false friend

When we are talking about studying Spanish speaking students, in our skype English classes, often translate ‘asignatura’ with ‘signature’. Unfortunately, we have a false friend here. A ‘signature’ is normally a ‘firma’ for example on contracts, cheques and other documents. ‘Asignatura’ would be ‘subject’ such as history, maths or linguistics.

Common error from our Spanish speakers when learning English: ‘En los ultimos meses/semanas’ etc should not be translated literally.

Students wrongly translate in our skype English classes ‘en los ultimos meses/años/semanas etc’ literally. So we would not say ‘in the last months’ or ‘in the last days’... what we can say is ‘in recent months/days etc’ or ‘in the last few years/minutes/weeks etc’, or even ‘in the last couple of years/months etc’. Pick out the phrase which you think is easier for you to remember.

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