spanish...ugh
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Etienne
Oct 10, 2007
0
#21
Alright, thanks AlecKeen.
Oct 10, 2007
0
#22
Embrace it and be thankful you have a class to learn it in. You never know when,where or what situation may arise that you will find yourself in need of this langauge. Once it starts making sense you will be gald you know it..
Oct 10, 2007
0
#23
tonightonly7 wrote: I love and hate spanish. I really want to learn it, and it is a beautiful language. However, I find it very frustrating to try to hold a conversation. I have spent two years of classes trying to learn it, and I know a decent amount. But when I have to use it exclusively, I still end up speaking in a very elementary manner and stutter constantly. I should just move to Spain like Chessbot.
I hear your frustration.. I spent 5 years in a remote part of Quebec where French is the only openly spoken language. It was very stressful and I was very shy to try and so remaind largely quite and alone for that matter. It took me 4 years without courses to finally catch on to some degree. Now I'm leaving the area and my frustration has changed as I am finally getting it,,,how now I realizes on just what all I missed out on. That said I plan to take courses once out west as I really want to learn this wonderful language..
With any luck I'll find a cute teacher too! (:
I only speak rudimentary Spanish, French, and German (rudimentary as in greetings and numbers only), but I am a little bit more fluent in Japanese. Even though Japanese is in absolutely no way related to English, it still helps me learn about English. Mostly, it teaches me about phrases. It shows me how the structure of phrases is often related between languages. It also showed me that English is one of the few (if any other) languages that puts the adjectives before the nouns. (Maybe I should be saying: "Pawn white" instead of "White pawn. lol) I'd like to learn to speak fluent Spanish, and maybe even French. Does anyone know any programs I could use to get started? Preferably cheap or free, I know about a few programs, but they're all expensive and I don't have the money for them.
I'd like to learn to speak fluent Spanish, and maybe even French. Does anyone know any programs I could use to get started? Preferably cheap or free, I know about a few programs, but they're all expensive and I don't have the money for them.
Try a course at your local college. You'll get a mix of reading, writing, listening, and speaking assignments. All are important if you want to be fluent. If you just want to impress your friends with a few words and phrases then try the Pimsleur introductory CDs. They're cheap, fast, and have good accents. Also, there's two ways to speak spoken Spanish... as in Spain, or as in Latin America. Know which one you want to learn, because there are noticeable differences.
I can't say spanish is hard to learn cause, well, it's my native toung, but in my opinion, what makes it hard for others to learn is that some words change in definition every day, also, some words have diferent meanings, depending on what spanish-speaking country you're in.
joeyson wrote:
....
i barely know any
i have to pass it to go to a college, but i skip it like everyday
Take French instead. I'm currently taking a second semester French class--though I'm long out of college--and, albeit I'm years away from being able to communicate proficiently, I love it.
In either case, here's a site that will help with pronunciation - http://public.research.att.com/~ttsweb/tts/demo.php
cmh0114 wrote: Does anyone know any programs I could use to get started? Preferably cheap or free, I know about a few programs, but they're all expensive and I don't have the money for them.
I'm certainly not suggesting that you break any of the laws of where ever you live, but they are all free if you know where to look, wink wink nudge nudge.
English is 60% latin said pop tart
no it is 90%
In Summer '08, I'll be in Spain for two weeks. I'm sure I'll stutter a lot. With knowing French, I'm able to speed my way through learning Spanish because I see relationships in the grammar, for example, my mother's house, la maison de ma mere and la casa de mi madre. That's a simple example, but there are more. Even similarities in words, travailler- to work and trabajar- to work. The faux amis, the false cognates, work in the three language and I have to be careful.
I lived in South Korea for a year and was amazed at the end of my year how much of the language I picked up. What helped me with pronunciation was studying French in school. Sometimes, a vowel was pronounced as an English one and sometimes as a French one. Having both languages helped with Korean pronunciation. I was even told I barely had an accent in Korean, although I'm sure they were just flattering me. I taught English while I was there, but my services were only used for pronunciation, not grammar, and I remember thinking the joke was on them because they'd have a bunch of Koreans walking around with Cajun accents.
Oct 12, 2007
0
#31
Yep, french and spanish are very similar, the grammar is much the same, but without all the exceptions and much more simple. I find the only annoying things in spanish is things like ahi/aqui/aquel and ser/estar, but you just have to get used to it.
ser/ estar gets me every time. Just like etre and avoir to state hunger, thirst, hot, cold would do before practice made it automatic stating it correctly. On the opposite token, when my mother law (she's French) wants to speak English with me, I always find it cute when she tells me I have hungry, thirsty, cold, hot. Therefore, etre/ avoir in that regard trips English and French speakers in the beginning.
I was also thinking of another point about learning languages, one that may make it difficult for some. If your first language is poor, you will have a difficult time or have to put in more effort to learn a second language. That's my example. I grew up in southeast Louisiana, deep Cajun country, and discovered how poor my English was when I entered the military. The first two years of my enlistment, everyone corrected me. In fact, in the beginning, every one (Americans) thought I was European or Canadian. After five years of military life, and 10 years living in Washington DC, people now think I'm from Massachusetts. I digress. |
Etienne wrote: I'm no english philologist, nor do I know german, so I can't tell much, but I can see some similarities between spoken German and spoken modern English.
Basically, modern English is about 50/50 Romantic/Germanic. But it has changed over centuries , you can still find the roots of the words with a little imagination. generally, blunt every day words boil down to Germanic, and fancy words are like Latin. E.g. cat is like die Katze (German), feline is like felix (Roman). Field is like Felde (German) , agriculture comes from the Latin for farmer (agricola). Even modern words have a Latin base e.g. internet. In fact you can hardly avoid Latin even if you wanted to
