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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes  Studies: Spanish | Message 49 of 154 06 March 2013 at 4:20am | IP Logged | ||
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Hello, I just got home from a meetup. There was 14 of us and 2 native speakers. I never got a chance to sit at the table with the native speakers but I did notice how humbling it is to not know a language. Not being able to communicate really saps a person's power. One of the native speaks was a guy who was fairly big and tall. I imagine in general he's an confident and socialable person, but at the meet up he was acting extremely passive. I've traveled enough to know exactly how he felt, like a big baby completely dependent on your friend for everything. It's a difficult sitation for anyone but I think it's especially hard on a man. To go from the big cheese to a deer in the headlights is not fun.
That being said, I had a great time. I didn't speak as well as I would have liked and I made tons of mistakes but it's all good. We spoke about the death of Hugo Chavez,world travels, in-laws, work issues, kids, and the death of the English language in the US. By no means am I a super language snob or anything like that, but the level of functional illiteracy in this country is staggering. There were several teachers in the meeting and they were getting pretty riled up about it. I like people who are passionate about something so I was loving it. I have a new favorite song. I heard it on the radio yesterday and I couldn't get it out of my head. "Le quito la fresa." Which translates into "I take the strawberry." A coworker explained to me that a strawberry is a woman who is stuck up or comes from a family with money. I haven't read the lyrics but I think it's really sexually suggestive so don't go asking around about it to people you don't know. Anyway it's of the banda type of music and it has tremendous energy. Everytime I listen to it I have to at least tap my feet. I had a really complex conversation on the instant messenger today. It started because a memeory popped into my head. A coworker told me, during the last time I was in Mexico, that there was a crazy guy who was killing people and making tacos out of them. I started laughing when I thought about it and sent her a message saying, "why did you tell us that crazy story." Then the conversation got weird, but challenging from a language standpoint. I had to use all tenses plus a few words that I don't use that often. I think that getting over the fear of speaking is the most important thing. I've had my ego hurt a few times in the past year, but no one threatened to beat me up if I didn't conjugate the next word perfectly. It's not that big of a deal you'll live and probably learn that most people are compassionate. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Youngbin Diglot Newbie Korea, South youngbinlee.comRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5234 days ago 24 posts - 30 votes Speaks: Korean*, EnglishC2 Studies: Japanese, Spanish, Mandarin | Message 50 of 154 06 March 2013 at 4:59am | IP Logged | ||
I enjoy reading your log updates time to time although I'm not currently actively studying Spanish. I somewhat feel related with you mainly because I'm working in an automotive engineering company too. :) What you mentioned above is exactly what I need as well in my Chinese learning. I'm still a very beginner, but I definitely could form decent sentences. Sometimes my ego keeps me from spitting those out, which is quite sad considering all those years I put into learning foreign languages such as English and Japanese. I should have gotten over the fear by now, but it seems like it never disappear. As you said, why fears? Some random Chinese experts are going to pop out of nowhere and start kicking me because I pronounce 1st tone instead of 4th tone? Quite funny scene to think about though. :) Anyway, I'd just like to say that I'm totally with you. And I hope I come back to Spanish learning journey in the near future and become your pal. lol :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 51 of 154 12 March 2013 at 3:35am | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Youngbin,
Engineers in the house!!! :-) We make life as we know it possible, but everyone else makes it worth living. (my wife taught me the second part and it's very true) I'm glad you like my blog. I have a bunch of fun writing it. LOL @ you getting a kung-fu kick for not saying a word right. (Although I bet you'd learn whole lot faster after the first boot to the head) I have heard of Parisians making fun of Americans who are trying to speak and/or going out of their way to criticize, but my personal experiences in France/Paris were all good. I think it just depends on the person, an a-hole is an a-hole all over the world. I think it's good to learn how to curse in any language that you're trying to learn. If someone is trying to give you some $h*t you can at least tell them to @#%^ off or something good like that. This is the reason why I learned how to say, "Don't make me!!" in Spanish. I only use it on my co-workers in jest, but it's ready when/if I need to lay it on someone. This is why I recommend going to a restaurant and trying to speak there. They want your repeat business, plus most people are nice and will humor you. Not to mention the fact that they may just be excited that you're trying to learn their language. When we (me and 2 other guys) did the whole Europe backpack thing after college we tried to learn how to say "please", "thank you," and "I'm sorry" in every country we visited. You'd be surprised at how far those words can go. A few weeks ago I went to a Greek restaurant with some friends. The cashier was being pleasant enough, but it was probably just a long Saturday for her. When I paid my bill I said thank you in Greek (I couldn't believe I still remembered it after almost 11 years). Immediately she was grinning from ear to ear and said something back in Greek, which was probably "You're welcome." or could have been, "you're the most handsome man I've ever seen." hahaha! Anyway, just by speaking one drop of her language I lightened her load just a bit and that made me feel good. Maybe you could also work on a few crazy sayings. I've found that if I'm speaking to someone and I say a funny translation to someone who knows English and Spanish (something obviously wrong like esa fue mess-ado arriba for "that was messed up" they will laugh and want to play the language game with me. Just keep trying, someone will have mercy. I learned a good lesson today. Don't assume someone speaks a language. You could end up in a very embarrassing situation. Fortunately I had the wisdom to ask a buddy if a lady spoke Spanish. I just kind of assumed she did because she lives close to the border and has a Spanish last name. My buddy told me, no, she doesn't speak Spanish. She's actually Native American and knows some of her people's language. How insulting it could have been to assume that a person speaks the language of one of their destroyers. (I think most don't think like that but some do and that's a generational wound that can never be fully healed) Dodged a bullet there. I think a better approach is just to come out and ask, "Do you speak Spanish." Edited by HermonMunster on 12 March 2013 at 3:59am 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 52 of 154 13 March 2013 at 3:56am | IP Logged | ||
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This will be a quick post...
Just got back from a cigar tasting. The owner from a cigar company was there. He's from Honduras. I went up to him and started speaking Spanish. I stunk it up. Not my best performance but there was one positive part. He told me, "You will get it down. Most people wouldn't just walk up to a person and start trying to speak." Fear it is a mind killer it is a little evil eating me from the inside out I must face it and control it Fear 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| garyb Triglot Senior Member ScotlandRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5210 days ago 1468 posts - 2413 votes Speaks: English*, Italian, French Studies: Spanish | Message 53 of 154 13 March 2013 at 3:12pm | IP Logged | ||
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Very interesting log, and I can relate to a lot of what you're saying. When I first started going to meetups a couple of years ago, it was often tough: the situation with all the native speakers (if there were even any) being at a different table was common, I often felt stupid for not being able to say what I want to say or for making mistakes, and it often even seemed that people didn't want to talk to me. So in general I really felt like I wasn't getting what I wanted out of them, not to mention the ego bruising that you mention. But I just kept going and faced the fear. Now it's a lot better and easier, which I suppose is some combination of my skill level increasing, me having a thicker skin and becoming a bit more confident, and the format and crowd of the meetups improving. Keep it up!
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5378 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 54 of 154 15 March 2013 at 1:27pm | IP Logged | ||
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Your comments about assuming the native american woman could speak Spanish remind me of something stupid I did. There are very few Latinos where I live, but there is a cashier at my local drug store who appeared obviously Latina and had a Latin sounding name on her nametag so I spoke to her in Spanish. I was an idiot. She was from India!
2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 55 of 154 18 March 2013 at 6:14pm | IP Logged | ||
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happy benito juarez day! I blew my coworker mind when I told him that I knew who Benito was and why he was important in Mexican history. He was like, "How do you know these things!" thank you platiquemos. All those little tidbits at the end of the lessons were pretty informative.
Garyb, Thanks for the post. Glad to hear that it got much easier for you. The last week or so has been frustrating for me. I just haven't been able to think/speak of the fly too well. I'll just have to power through. Hopefully I'll do well at my meet up tomorrow. James29, LOL at the Indian Latino. One time when I was walking around in Hermosillo just seeing the sights, a guy walked straight towards me. I was thinking to myself, "OK just tell him that you don't have any money in Spanish." When he got close he said, "Wassup man!" He knew perfect English and we talked for a bit. I'm really getting alot out of newsinslowspanish dot com. It's fun and is giving me tons of words and sayings. Today I learned how to say, "I'm dying + noun/verb" Like I'm dying to meet you or I'm dying for some icecream. Also learned some good nouns like lung, heart attack, fright, trial and a bunch of other useful words that don't really come up in a standard word list. More of my Mexican coworkers are only emailing me in Spanish which is good. I need to get them to give me more corrections. I think they are letting me slide on some syntax because they can understand what I'm trying to say. (I'm guilty of the same thing) Also I learned that the company is offering English classes. I think that's great. I'm really happy for them. One lady that I correspond with alot has made major improvements. I just hope she can get over being shy. Knowing all the language in the world doesn't help if you can't look a person in the eye and open your mouth. I've been studying Spanish for 984.5 hrs in just under 13mos. I think that I should be more or less fluent in 36mos. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| HermonMunster Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4636 days ago 119 posts - 211 votes Studies: Spanish | Message 56 of 154 07 April 2013 at 10:22pm | IP Logged | ||
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Hey Everyone, it’s been a minute since I’ve posted. I’m still plugging along. I’ve been to two meetups since I last posted and they were both fun. We played a game where we had to name body parts as fast as possible. We also talked about the Spanish (Mexican) equivalents of English sayings. I told the folks about what my coworkers told me.
Warning: crude guy sayings that could be offensive to some. In English cougar = an older women that likes to date younger guys. They are called that because cougars stalk their prey then pounce on them. In Spanish (Mexican) cougar = iguana because they wait for the younger guys that they like and then shoot out their tongue and catch them. In English there is a saying for a woman that has a great body but not so pretty face, butherface, pronounced butterface, as in “Everything looks good but her face.” In Mexican Spanish the word for this is shrimp, because with a shrimp you keep the body but get rid of the head. I spent a lot of time traveling lately and I ate at the same Mexican restaurant for 4 days in a row. I got to talk to most of the staff and learned their names. They all commented on how much I have improved. One lady said, “when you first started coming you could only say a couple of words and now we are talking in sentences.” I asked them where they were from and about their families. One lady was correcting my Spanish a lot but I was very appreciative. I keep telling everyone that I don’t what to sound like a guy off the street. I want to sound like a professor that knows a little bit about the street. She told me that her daughter is teaching her English and corrects her all the time. To people reading this, learn how to read/write. I know many people who speak English very well whose written English is so bad that you can barely understand what they are talking about. This Friday I learned the difference between 2 ways to say “to rub” Frotar is “to rub” as in that edge is sharp and will rub through the cloth. The other is sobrar as you were kissing and rubbing your girlfriend. The difference between the 2 words makes it important to always ready the 2nd and 3rd definitions of a word, or else people will be laughing even though you didn’t make a joke. A coworker told me that my Spanish pursuits have been really impressive and that people are noticing. That made me very happy. While I’m learning for myself, it’s good that people are acknowledging my efforts. It looks like moving to Mexico is out of the picture. We have moved many times and my wife’s career has suffered. We need to stay in one place for a substantial amount of time for her to get established as a writer/educator. I was disappointed in this at first, but when I really thought about the reality of moving down there, it probably wouldn’t have worked out the way I wanted. I’ll just keep on studying and by the end of this year I should be pretty good. I’ve also thought about trying to get my company to pay for a Spanish immersion class. I figure I would pay for the travel and the company could pay for the class. Of course, I will continue to make the most of every trip that I make to Mexico. My buddies are getting a lot better in English. They are starting to make a lot more jokes and string together complex sentences. I think the English classes that the company offers are paying off. There are so many common words and phrases that I have to learn. A coworker came up from Mexico and she has a 6mo old baby and a 3 year old. She was trying to tell me that the eldest may get jealous of the newborn and start acting like and infant again. She was trying to say breast feeding again, but couldn’t think of the word. After trying to say it a few different ways she had to act it out and say “taking the milk.” Finally I understood. Her acting was quite hilarious. I can’t say enough good things about newsinslowspanish dot com. I think it’s helping my reading comprehension and my listening. This week, on lesson 38 I finally felt that the audio was too slow for me. That’s a huge improvement. The good thing is that in later lessons they have the news in slow and normal speeds. I’m sure when the normal speed starts I will be lost for a lesson or two. I’m picking up good vocab and learning other ways to say the same thing. It’s no good to only know how to say /understand something in one manner. I’ve had a few conversations where I got lost because someone was speaking in an unfamiliar manner covering very basic topic. I follow world news pretty closely so that majority of the news stories are a review for me. This helps me because I already know how the story ends. I know 2400 words and have been studying for 1043 hrs 2 persons have voted this message useful |
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