nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3915 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written)
| Message 121 of 196 01 May 2014 at 2:38pm | IP Logged |
Thanks so much, Crush for checking up on me! I have not disappeared, but I am on the road. I just have
this silly phone with me, so it is a real pain to type! And I haven't gotten a Spanish keyboard yet. I posted
a new nournal on lang -8 the other day, and I was writing another yesterday when the computer I was
using crashed, so I gave up. As soon as I can get my hands on a decent computor, I will post more. On
lang-8 I am white rabbit. I am working on Assimil and FSI and Mastering Arabic everyday. Being in the car
so much makes it more difficult to find much time, but a little progress is better than none!
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nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3915 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written)
| Message 122 of 196 01 May 2014 at 8:10pm | IP Logged |
I am sorry that I don't have time to do a proper update for this week, but wanted to put up a link to my journal entries on Lang-8. I want to do two per week, starting with the following two. Ayer y El Error.
I am progressing on Assimil, FSI and on Arabic. I am doing some reviewing with Arabic, to try to solidify a few things. I hope to post more entries on Lang-8 and here as I have time. Thanks to everyone for your encouragement and help!
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Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5858 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque
| Message 123 of 196 01 May 2014 at 11:12pm | IP Logged |
He leído tus entradas y están muy bien, aunque se ve que te gusta emplear las formas reflexivas de los verbos ;) Con algunos verbos se usa para enfatizar la acción o cuando es determinado, como en "Voy a comer manzanas" y "Voy a comerme UNA manzana".
Otra cosa, no se usa "un/a" antes de "otro/a". "Esta mañana (me) comí una manzana, ahora quiero comerme otra" (y no "una otra").
Creo que la mayoría de los móviles(/celulares) viene preinstalados con un teclado español, al menos en EE.UU. Pero aún así no es muy conveniente escribir, yo prefiero el teclado de mi portátil o un papel y lápiz :)
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nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3915 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written)
| Message 124 of 196 02 May 2014 at 12:48am | IP Logged |
¡Gracias por leer mis entradas! No sé porque empleo las formas reflexivas tanto... Tengo que acostumbrarme a no utilizar el pronombre sujeto. Parece que se están perdiendo,
así que empleo las formas reflexivas para sustituir.
I was a little bit hesitant to link my posts here because they aren't very good! I make a lot of mistakes, even silly things like having an English word in there! I am not detail oriented, so when I took bookkeeping in high school, I would have one number wrong, and when I would go back and check, they looked right... Well, with the Spanish, when I read over what I have written, the English words that I accidentally wrote don't jump out at me! :-) So I have lots and lots of practice still needed! I am hoping that after 100 entries of 100 or more words that things will get easier. It takes me so long to write something in Spanish right now that I have to block off a bit of time to do it... But I do think it is worth it, and I need to go back through my corrections and try to remember how to do it correctly!
Unfortunately, I still haven't learned enough grammar to really write a whole lot, so I am trying to write things that I'm not actually sure the correct way to do it, and with looking it up online, I figure out some of the usage, but make a lot of mistakes that way.
I hope to write a couple more entries this week! Thanks again for reading and for your help!
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iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5255 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)
| Message 125 of 196 02 May 2014 at 2:51am | IP Logged |
I too had a look at your entries, which are pretty good for someone at your stage. When you're at the beginning of a task (writing 100 posts on lang8) it's hard to see the end game. The thing is, it takes time. The more you do something, the better you'll be at doing it. Right now it's difficult. Just try to keep at it and it will get easier. The end game is being able to express yourself easily, as you wish, and as correctly as possible.
In order to get more and better corrections, I can't emphasize enough how important it is to correct Spanish-speakers' English writings by going beyond the minimum with useful explanations (like Crush). That, in turn, will give you better, more useful, corrections too. It can also lead to off-site language exchanges, which will help you improve even more.
I know it may seem counter-intuitive to spend time correcting English when you could be using that time for learning Spanish instead, but doing so will pay off in spades for you. Also, oddly enough, Spanish-speakers' English mistakes can help you to see how Spanish works in reverse.
Edited by iguanamon on 02 May 2014 at 2:52am
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nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3915 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written)
| Message 126 of 196 02 May 2014 at 3:50am | IP Logged |
Thanks, Iguanamon! Sometimes I browse posts on lang-8 to find Spanish speakers. There aren't so many.
Seems there are far more Asian natives! But I do have a few Spanish friends. I have many, many Arabic
friends. I sure do wish my Arabic was good enough to make Arabic posts!
I know that daily work is what will bring progress, so I will try to keep diligent. I am really enjoying the
process! And I am really enjoying Fsi. I love the way they introduce new grammar and then drill it. I feel
like the things I learn from Fsi are sticking more than Assimil, but I am continuing with it, too.
It is wonderful to be able to come here and lang 8-8 and to get so mucb help! Thank you for all of your
help and suggestions. I read what you post on Bolio's log, too! Thanks for sharing your experiences and
helping us newbies to keep going and helping is to see that it is possible! :-)
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napoleon Tetraglot Senior Member India Joined 5009 days ago 543 posts - 874 votes Speaks: Bengali*, English, Hindi, Urdu Studies: French, Arabic (Written)
| Message 127 of 196 02 May 2014 at 7:45am | IP Logged |
nancydowns wrote:
...Sometimes I browse posts on lang-8 to find Spanish speakers. There aren't so many.
Seems there are far more Asian natives! But I do have a few Spanish friends. I have many, many Arabic
friends.
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Just replace "Spanish" with "French" and your post would describe my situation to a T.
Quote:
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I sure do wish my Arabic was good enough to make Arabic posts!
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You and me both. :)
Edited by napoleon on 02 May 2014 at 7:54am
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nancydowns Senior Member United States Joined 3915 days ago 184 posts - 288 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, Arabic (Written)
| Message 128 of 196 02 May 2014 at 2:36pm | IP Logged |
Regarding lang-8, I am curious about people's opinion about something. In order to make posts, I am using
grammar that I haven't formally covered in my texts, so there are a couple of websites tbat I look at to
check my conjugations and word order, vocabulary etc. Is that a good idea, or should I try to write only
using vocabulary and grammar that I already know?
And for those who have looked at my posts, do you think I am making so many mistakes as to make it
annoying to correct? In other words, should I try to keep it simpler with fewer mistakes, or is it ok to
write at a higher level (with looking things up) than I actually know?
I will do a search to see if there are any old threads about writing. I do feel it is beneficial for me. But I
don't want to annoy the correctors! :-)
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