Art and culture

What holds these lists together

A painting, a novel, a staging, a piece of music, a ring from the workshop: these lists describe the same situation. You stand in front of a work with the everyday words for it, but not the ones used by the people who made it. Many share a Latin root with English and look simpler than they are. La función in a theatre is the performance, el argumento of a film is its plot rather than an argument, and la obra can be the work, the play or the building site. Even the shop is a trap: books are bought in a librería and borrowed from a biblioteca.

For example: el museo de arte (the art museum), el narrador (the narrator), la producción (the production), el óleo sobre lienzo (oil on canvas), la tonalidad (the key a piece is in), la dramaturgia (the shaping of the text for the stage)

Spread across the levels

The category runs across the levels — it is an area, not a difficulty. If you practise it, you can also choose a level at the top of the practice page and then get only the part that sits there.