Spanish lessons through literature/creative writing: "clase n.10"

EL DIARIO DE DIEGO: clase n.10

Mis queridos amigos y amigas, si mi familia y yo vivimos en una villa, la razón es nuestro nivel de pobreza. Mi mamá dice que no tenemos suficiente plata para pagar las cuentas de la luz ni del agua. Ni el alquiler de un piso en un barrio decente. Por el gas para la cocina, nos las arreglamos con el querido y viejo cilindro. Obvio. Lo de siempre. Somos una familia muy pobre y los pobres de nuestro nivel económico no pueden elegir ni dónde vivir. Sin embargo, en las villas no hay que pagar ni el agua ni la electricidad. En las peores, tampoco el alquiler. Lo único que hay que pagar es la cuenta wifi y ya está. Para quienes la tengan, también la TV por cable. Obviamente, nosotros no la tenemos. En nuestra casa tampoco hay aparatos de TV, ni por cable, ni TV abierta. Es un gasto que no podemos permitirnos, entonces nos las arreglamos con una simple radio para escuchar las noticias.

Dictionary, slang and grammar:

NIVEL = LEVEL

POBREZA = POVERTY

PLATA: the rioplatense slang for DINERO = MONEY (in Mexico, the same slang is LANA, that literally means WHOOL, but Mexican people use this slang to say MONEY, while in Spain it's PASTA).

CUENTA/S = BILL/S

ALQUILER = RENT

BARRIO = QUARTER, NEIGHBOURHOOD

CILINDRO DEL GAS = GAS CYLINDER

ARREGLÁRSELA/S: it's a verb (ARREGLAR) in its reflexive form (ARREGLARSE) plus direct object and in such a grammar form it means TO COPE WITH. ARREGLAR literally means TO FIX, while the reflexive ARREGLARSE literally means TO DRESS UP, even TO MAKEUP, TO COMB ONE'S HAIR (ARREGLARSE EL PELO). In this chapter, the reflexive form plus direct object is conjugated at the first plural person.

TV POR CABLE = CABLE TV

TV ABIERTA = BROADCAST TV, FREE-TO-AIR TV

RADIO = RADIO

NOTICIAS = NEWS

Here the video-slide with the pronunciation:

I registered the pronunciation and I added an image for the video-slide from Pixabay, among those can be freely used. You find it here:

https://pixabay.com/es/photos/radio-viejo-radio-del-tubo-1682531/

Video-slide prepared with the free tools Slideshow Creator and ClipChamp default for Windows11.

Did you read the lesson and watched the video-slide? Very well, let's go now to see the English translation🤗:

DIEGO'S DIARY (=EL DIARIO DE DIEGO): lesson n.10

My dear friends, if my family and I live in a slum, the reason is our level of poverty. My mother says we don't have enough money to pay our electricity and water bills. Nor the rent for an apartment in a decent neighbourhood. For gas for cooking, we cope with the dear old cylinder. Of course. As usual. We are a very poor family and poor people of our financial level can't even choose where to live. However, in the slums you don't have to pay for water or electricity. In the worst ones, there is no rent to pay either. The only thing you have to pay is the wifi bill and that's it. For those who have it, there is also cable TV. Obviously, we don't have cable TV. We don't have TV sets in our house either, neither cable nor free-to-air TV. It's an expense we can't afford, so we cope with a simple radio to listen to the news.

Previous lesson:

https://steemit.com/hive-135004/@pousinha/spanish-lessons-through-literature-creative-writing-clase-n-9