What are the similarities and differences of Latin American music and African music?
A lot of Nigerian influences can be seen in Brazil. Tango, a popular Latin American dance, has African roots. Latin American music is more Spanish-based but incorporates elements of the ancestral culture (African, European, etc). I think Latin American music is also more for festivities and social purposes. African music tends to be trance-like, or hypnotic. For ceremonial or tribal purposes.
Elementary Latin: Difference uses of "quoque" and "etiam", and other questions...?
1. Straight from my Allen & Greenough, 322a: "Etiam (et iam) [also, even] is stronger than quoque [also, too] and usually precedes the emphatic word, while quoque follows it:" The two examples they give are: non verbis solum, sed etiam vi [not only by words, but also by force] hoc quoque maleficium [this crime too] 2. First off, amavi is perfect, so "I never liked/loved war..." "Laetus" is an adjective in opposition and agreement with the subject of pugnabo. The construction in Latin is hard to render naturally in English, word for word- "I, being happy, will fight..." English would construct it closer to: "I was never fond of wars, but I will be happy to fight for my country." 3. The directions in Latin can either be named by the movement of the sun: North = septentriones [the seven stars of the Wagon, i.e. the Big Dipper] East = oriens [rising (Sun)] South = meridies [mid-day] West = occidens [setting (Sun)] or the Winds: North = Boreas, Aquilo East = Apeliotes, Eurus South = Notus, Auster West = Zephyrus http://www.compassmuseum.com/diverstext/... Northern Italy was usually Gallia Cisalpina (Cisalpine Gaul). Google Translate's Insubrium (Lombardy) is a sub-region. Southern Italy (including Sicily) was Magna Graecia, due to all the Greek colonies. But it depends on what time period you are considering...
What's the difference between como estas, como estais and como esta?
Estás =you, familiar. tú. You use this to address a friend. Estáis = you, familiar, plural. vosotros, you use this to address a group of friends. Está = you, Formal, singular. Ud. You use this to address a single person formally. When you are addressing someone that you would call Sir or Madam, Mr. or Mrs. You haven't asked, but the fourth way to say you is Uds., plural formal. You use this to address two or more people, where at least one is an Ud. The form is Están. ALL those words: Estás, estáis, está, están, mean ARE. (Está is also he/she form, and etsán is also the they form.) Actually, you have taken this question completely basackwards. You may email me, and I can give you a couple of lessons through email, or you can go to spanish.about.com, and take the course from the beginning. Or go to studyspanish.com or http://www.colby.edu/~bknelson/SLC/ These are terrific courses. It's really important, if you are a grammar-centric person, to understand things in the right order!!! (Doing livemocha, are you? GREAT communicative course...not so strong on grammar explanations!) BTW, no gender in verbs in Spanish...Hebrew, yes, Not in Spanish.
What's the difference between centimeters and millimeters?
It would help if you understood that "cent" is 100 in Latin and "milli" is 1000 in Latin. A centimeter is 1/100th of a meter. A millimeter is 1/1000th of a meter. A meter is approximately 39.37 inches. A meter was originally defined as 1 / 10,000,000 of the distance between a pole and the equator. So it's strictly an empirical mathematical calculation, unlike inches, feet and yards, which were measured based on the length of the hand and foot of some ancient long-dead English king. Even the Brits don't use inches, feet and yards any more. It's time we USAns abandoned it, too.
Do any langueges pronounce 'w' or any letter like the English 'w'?
"W" is not pronounced as "v'" in Dutch (or German and French for that matter), it may sound less distinct to English speakers and is therefore often interpreted as a 'v'. Dutch speakers, however, do distinguish between the "v" (a so-called voiced labio-dental fricatives in phonetics) and "w" (a voiced labial-velar approximant) sounds as in, for instance, the Dutch words 'vaal' (pale, sallow), and 'faal' (fail - verb, first person singular). Native speakers of Dutch will be able to instantly distinguish between the two, whereas English speakers may struggle to hear a difference as the English "v" sound seems much more pronounced when compared to the "w" sound. The same goes for "s" and "z" sounds, btw. Most Dutch people, on the other hand, cannot make a distinction between the English "a" as in "bad", (phonetically written as 'bæd) and "e" as in "bed ('bed)", and will substitute the "e" for the "æ" sound, not unlike Australian and South-African English btw. In short, unless you're a native speaker or very well trained in a foreign language, you are likely to miss the subtle differences in pronunciation that are very obvious to native speakers.