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Tags: Spain | Introduction | ||
 Language Learning Forum : Members profiles |  | |
| Pallister Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 4856 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, PortugueseC1 Studies: German | Message 1 of 7 31 August 2011 at 10:53pm | IP Logged |
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Hi Everyone!
I'm an Spaniard English teacher and I'm also studing a degree in environmental science. I'm interested in learning other european languages (Portuguese first). I learned my English in school for many years, I was decent but I really mastered it by living one year in the US in the early 90's. I lived there as an exchange student in a small town where I almost didn't have any contact with other Spanish speaking people. That's something more difficult now due to inmigration and the internet (back then I could only write letters or call home and it was expensive). After that experience I've expanded my knowledge further by reading, writting, watching movies and interacting with people. I have used English for a wide number of uses both recreational and profesional from writting songs for a band I had to meeting girls to finding a new job (the one I have now) in these times of crisis. All in all it's the best thing I've done. I'm shy to call myself bilingual (to achieve that, according to my standards, I'd probably have to live and work a couple more years in an English speaking country and study and read a lot more), but I know people who would, and in short conversations I've been confused with a native from an English speaking country different from that of the person who said so (that feels really nice by the way :-D). Spain, at least the part of Spain I live in, is quite monolingual. And knowing English has granted me access to a wide array of materials. For all these reasons and more I am interested in learning more languages. Being a student and a worker at the same time leaves me without much time to go to classes regularly and makes learning a difficult language difficult. That's why, after thinking about this for a long time now, I have reached the conclusion that the best way for me to go, is to learn other romance languages first and to do it on my own. The idea is to go from easier/closer to more difficult/more distant languages, all that while considering only languages with certain international importance and weight population/economy. Thus the road for me is, Portuguese (2012), Italian (2013), French (2014), German (2017) and then maybe I'll take a break and go back to Esperanto (I learnt a bit a couple years ago, just for fun), maybe I'll take up Russian (so I can have one Slavonic, the third big indoeuropean branch of languages), maybe I'll go to other small but interesting Romance/Germanic languages (Catalan/Galician/Romanian/Dutch/Norwegian/Swedish/Danish). This last part is way too far ahead anyway, and when I get there I'll probably be learning languages exclusively for fun (now it's a mixture of fun and job interest), so it's just in the air. I know maybe it was obvious to choose that road, but I really had lot's of background noise and I've needed to shut it out to be able to see it clear. Exposure to Germans/Polish/Bulgarian/Russian/Swahili/Kikuyu/Italian/Dutc h/Catalan... speaking people in the last three years made me emotional about those languages. The truth for me is that the most efficient way and the only one I have time to devote to right now, is probably the one explained above. I'm starting in two weeks with Portuguese, now I'm just gathering material and busy with other stuff. Sorry for the loong and probably uninteresting introduction. See you around. 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| patuco Diglot Moderator Gibraltar Joined 7006 days ago 3795 posts - 4268 votes  Speaks: Spanish, English* Personal Language Map | Message 2 of 7 01 September 2011 at 12:08am | IP Logged |
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Don't worry, your introduction was "not uninteresting" :)
Bienvenido al foro. Edited by patuco on 01 September 2011 at 12:09am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5253 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 3 of 7 01 September 2011 at 12:50am | IP Logged |
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¡Bienvenido al foro! Bem-vindo ao foro! Welcome to the forum, Pallister. Nice introduction. Good to have a new Portuguese learner here. Can I assume that you'll be learning Iberian Portuguese? If so, Centro Virtual Camões has some good resources to help supplement your materials. You might also check out Deutsche Welle Aprender do ouvido for Portuguese podcasts with transcripts.
Again, welcome to the forum. If I can help you, please let me know. Boa sorte! Edited by iguanamon on 01 September 2011 at 12:52am 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Pallister Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 4856 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, PortugueseC1 Studies: German | Message 4 of 7 01 September 2011 at 11:19am | IP Logged |
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Gracias por la recepción!
iguanamon: yes, my idea is to learn Iberian Portuguese. The perks are proximity: I live 200Km from the border, also being a native speaker of the northern Spanish and speaking from intuition more than knowledge, I think that northern Spanish is more difficult to pronounce than southern Spanish and the american dialects. The vocabulary, idioms... make the dialects interesting but it's not a big deal, but they are more of a source of amusement than a real problem. It also happens with English in my opinion, the british accent is more difficult than the american one (I may be biased here). I percieve Brazilian Portuguese to be closer to Spanish (at least in pronunciation), thus easier for me. So if I can get the Euro-Portugese down the Brazilian one should pose no real problem. Do you agree with me? Thanks for the links I've bookmarked for later in the month (12th) when I'll have time to get started. I have to get used to the forum and how it works. I see that there are really interesting people around. Patuco: "not uninteresting" :-D Thanks for the welcome 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5253 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 6 of 7 01 September 2011 at 5:18pm | IP Logged |
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Yes, I agree with you, Pallister. I find Brazilian Portuguese to be clearer and easier to understand, for the most part, than Iberian Portuguese.
Be sure to read this short article by David Samper Eu não falo português It is a humorous anecdote written in Spanish from the perspective of a Colombian journalist beginning to learn Portuguese and finding, to his surprise, that Portuguese is indeed a very separate language distinct from Spanish. Glad you're enjoying the forum! Edited by iguanamon on 01 September 2011 at 6:17pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |
| Pallister Triglot Newbie Spain Joined 4856 days ago 3 posts - 3 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishC2, PortugueseC1 Studies: German | Message 7 of 7 01 September 2011 at 10:25pm | IP Logged |
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Kuikentje: No es que crea que haya una gran diferencia en la forma de hablarlo
(gramaticalmente), la diferencia es sobre todo de pronunciación como dices y en el norte se pronuncia casi todo, los sonidos z y s, cosa que en el resto del mundo hispánico no. En la zona donde vivo hay incluso algunos pueblos en los que se distingue entre la 'll' y la 'y'. Reconozco que mucha gente habla deprisa, a mi me pasa bastante. A los 'guiris' (extranjeros), en España se les suele perdonar la pronunciación, pero creo que el estándar en este foro será mejor, ¿no ;-)? ---- Iguanamon: Trying to disencourage me? Well you've done it! I quit!... Just kidding. Quite amusing. ---- I'm going to be out for a week and a half (examination time). I'll be back on the 12th and I'll start to work then. Enjoy. No voy a estar por aquí durante una semana y media (tiempo de exámenes). Volveré el 12 y empezaré a trabajar entonces. Pasadlo bien. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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