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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| guesto Groupie Australia Joined 5744 days ago 76 posts - 118 votes  Speaks: English* Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 9 of 59 14 March 2010 at 1:36am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
I completely agree with you. This was exactly my opinion only a short while ago. I could read very advanced stuff but couldn't understand a basic conversation. But there is hope! I picked the hardest accent I could find (Rioplatense) and started watching a TV series. At first I understood only about 15% but by episode 135 (yes, you can find full series on Youtube) I can usually understand between 90% and 100%. By choosing a difficult accent I found that if you can understand that then anything less difficult become a piece of cake. Well, in most cases, as I seem to have lost the ability to understand Spanish Spanish, which I used to be good at... And I definitely agree that Spanish is a very difficult language to understand. A lot of people disagree here, but I think the simple phonetics tend to make it more difficult. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| duschan Bilingual Triglot Newbie Australia Joined 6086 days ago 18 posts - 22 votes Speaks: Bulgarian*, Macedonian*, English | Message 10 of 59 14 March 2010 at 3:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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You've given me some pretty sensible advice. Especially about focusing on one variety.
I thought by listening everything that comes to hand I am doing myself a favour. But, you don't get much continuity by watching a Pedro Almodovar's movie first (I have 6 of them) and an episode of a Mexican telenovela afterwards (I bought a 45-hour one from Amazon). Beyond the basics, that is as hard as trying to develop listening comprehension in two different languages at the same time. Not only the pronunciation, but also the words people choose to express themselves even when trying to say the same thing in similar situations (the vocabulary) are very different. Maybe consistency and repetition is the key to it. And I like the comparison to Arabic. Take only Spain: the Spanish spoken in the regions that border Portugal (Galicia for example) and that spoken in Andalucia or Catalonia may be as different as, I don't know, Egyptian from Lebanese from Bahrain Arabic. The fact that in Galicia and Catalonia they have their own distinctive languages (Galician and Catalan), makes people transfer the sounds and rhythm of those languages even when they speak Spanish. And add to that the countless Latin American varieties...But they all have one thing in common: the omission of sounds and elisions. There is no variety of Spanish that is clearly articulated and one that sounds even close to the standard pronunciation that we are taught. By the way, telenovelas are indeed easy to understand, and there is a reason for it. A telenovela made in Argentina is marketed all over Latin America and even Spain, and the actors have extensive training to make sure they use the standard Latin American pronunciation and not the local varieties. They tend to pronounce clearly, and their speech is even affected, very much school-like Spanish. Yes, there will be some regional differences from a Chilean to a Mexican telenovela (Chileans will tend to omit the final -s sounds in particular) but they will not be drastic, because their interst is strictly commercial, to sell the series to a as much wider audience as possible. But look on YouTube for interviews with the same actors (made by their local TV stations) and you get the same problem. Their actual language is very difficult to understand and they sound nothing like the character in the telenovela. Spanish is overwhelming. I dare say it's the easiest language to learn to read (I was able to read newspaper articles in 3 months limited self-study, an impossible task in German for example). At the same time it may be the most difficult European language to master when it comes to the colloquial language. And again, I think the way it is taught is very incorrect. I learnt the basics with Assimil. Very soon, the lessons get to conversational speed. But even so, that Spanish (where every single syllable is clearly pronounced) is ridiculously remote from the language of the people. All that listening practice is useless beyond the basics. For comparison, I also learnt the basics of German with Assimil. And in contrast to Spanish, when German gets to conversational speed, it's pretty much the standard German that people of different regions of Germany will use when they talk to each other. Edited by duschan on 14 March 2010 at 3:26am 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5425 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 11 of 59 14 March 2010 at 5:29am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| brandon Tetraglot Groupie United States Joined 7050 days ago 54 posts - 55 votes Speaks: English*, German, Spanish, French Studies: Dutch, Swedish, Italian | Message 12 of 59 17 March 2010 at 1:14am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
What's the name of this series? Not sure what to search for on YouTube to see one. ¡Gracias! 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| JacobTM Groupie United States Joined 5601 days ago 56 posts - 67 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 13 of 59 17 March 2010 at 1:26am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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I have no particular gift for languages. I studied Spanish in school and got nowhere, and last year began studying seriously. I took classes at University and re-learned all the basics, the whole while reading Newspapers online.
I first started listening to Spanish regularly through music, specifically Puerto Rican music. It just so happened that the stuff I liked was almost all from Puerto Rico. I then spent 4 months studying in Mexico. Upon arriving, after only about a year of casual study and music listening, I was doing OK. Just living there obviously made me very comfortable with Mexican Spanish. I still find it harder to understand people from the Southern Cone and some types of Peninsular Spanish, but it's not a huge problem. If spending time abroad isn't an option, I would definitely advise as much music as you can listen to, but it has to be music you actually like. That's the hardest part, but it really pays off in the end. The common phrases and ways of playing with words really help you understand the language better. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| datsunking1 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5588 days ago 1014 posts - 1533 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: German, Russian, Dutch, French | Message 14 of 59 17 March 2010 at 2:00am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
jajaja está bien mano :D tienes que aprender una manera u otra :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Johntm Senior Member United StatesRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5425 days ago 616 posts - 725 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 15 of 59 17 March 2010 at 5:33am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Talairan Tetraglot Senior Member Spain Joined 6595 days ago 194 posts - 258 votes Speaks: Afrikaans, English*, Gypsy/Romani, Dutch Studies: Spanish, Flemish, Galician, Aramaic | Message 16 of 59 17 March 2010 at 10:12am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
A second request for the name of the series :) 1 person has voted this message useful |
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