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Language Virgin. Let’s Start With Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Heliion Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4318 days ago 25 posts - 32 votes Studies: English*, Spanish | Message 9 of 26 11 February 2013 at 7:28pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Thanks for the above advice Steve. I'm definitely going to try Assimil once I feel I can afford it. I figured I'd
stick with my current materials for a couple more months, I want to be sure I'm going to stick with this before I spend any more money. I do think I need a structured path to follow and I think Assimil lessons might help keep me going in the right direction. Just a random concern.. I've only been learning Spanish for about 2.5 months now, I guess it's been close to 1-2 hours/day during that time. I went through a 2 week period where I did 4-5 hours/day but then immediately followed that up with 2 weeks of inactivity due to heavy work commitments. Ideally, I want to stay consistent and do something everyday as I did spend a good few days going back over some stuff I'd forgotten about. So, I guess I've put in about 80 hours total up to this point. The thing is, I'm still unable to hear most sentences without translating it into English in my head. I hear the words but I can't piece them together to understand the meaning of the sentence without pausing the recording and putting it altogether into English first. So the way I've been getting through the recordings is to pause after each sentence, translate it in my head then listen to that sentence again as best I can by just hearing the Spanish. Then onto the next sentence repeating the same thing again. So I basically listen one sentence at a time in order to understand the entire thing. Once I've done this a few times, and figured out what each sentence means, I then attempt to listen to the whole thing without pausing, sometimes getting through the fist few sentences without stopping it, other times still needing to rewind because I lost concentration and missed what was said. I'm wondering if this is normal or whether I'm learning it incorrectly. I worry that I should already be hearing the Spanish without the need to translate, or perhaps it's normal at this stage in my learning. The conversations in question range from 2-3 minutes generally so they are of a fairly decent length for a beginner, and there are some early conversations that I can just about get through without stopping, but I've heard those many times now. I'm someone who needs to know EXACTLY what has been said before I move on, I can't just leave it thinking: "oh we'll, it doesn't matter, I got the gist of it." I'm wondering whether this is holding me back, perhaps I shouldn't be so thorough making sure I get it all 100%? Although it kind of seems like a waste to ignore things I don't understand, the material is there to learn from, to not try to understand EVERYTHING seems like cheating somehow, I don't know, I'm a little confused. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Heliion Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4318 days ago 25 posts - 32 votes Studies: English*, Spanish | Message 10 of 26 09 August 2013 at 8:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Still plugging away at Spanish after a break for a few months. I've experienced.a few light bulbs going off in
my head recently and I'm beginning to slowly understand more and more. Albeit at the beginners level. Just wanted some help with a verb.. I was listening to a conversation in Spanish and someone used 'tenia' (sorry no accent) when talking about bottles of fanta a shop used to have. His friend corrected him by saying 'habia' instead. I thought tener would be right since it's used for possession and the bottles are technically the shop's possession until someone buys them. Is that not correct? Why haber in this sentence? "Me acuerdo que en la tienda habia botellas de Fanta." Why is it habia and not tenia? Edited by Heliion on 09 August 2013 at 8:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| nicozerpa Triglot Senior Member Argentina Joined 4328 days ago 182 posts - 315 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, Portuguese, English Studies: Italian, German | Message 11 of 26 10 August 2013 at 6:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Hi! In this case, "tenía" is incorrect because "En la tienda" is not the subject of the sentence, it is an
adverbial phrase that indicates a location. If you wanted to use the verb "Tener", the owner must be the subject. For example: "La tienda tenía botellas de Fanta" (without the preposition "en"). It works very similar in English, you can say "The store had some Fanta bottles" or "In the store, there were some Fanta bottles", but it is incorrect to say "In the store had some Fanta bottles". 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Heliion Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4318 days ago 25 posts - 32 votes Studies: English*, Spanish | Message 12 of 26 10 August 2013 at 7:06pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks a lot man! That makes perfect sense. I must admit I hadn't read up on when to use which verb, I just knew that tener would indicate possession, I wasn't aware about the subject of the sentence. Thanks for your help! 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| I'm With Stupid Senior Member Vietnam Joined 4175 days ago 165 posts - 349 votes Speaks: English* Studies: German, Vietnamese | Message 13 of 26 10 August 2013 at 9:19pm | IP Logged | |||||
I'm a little bit behind you in German (a month and a half) and I would say that this is exactly right. In fact, I'm learning with Pimsleur, and it specifically says don't worry if you didn't get everything right. They recommend that as long as you responded to roughly 80% of it correctly, you're ready to move on. One of the most important things to note is that language learning isn't a linear thing. The reality is that you might be making mistakes after two years on things you learned in the first month. This is why massive input and output is key, because that's where you get the huge repetition of things and trial and error that will eventually drill into your brain. A lot of learners (and even teachers) seem to be under the impression that they can do a lesson on something, and then they should know it. And that causes a lot of people to believe they can't learn languages because they are still making mistakes on things they've already learned many times. Watching Anthony Lauder's talk from the Polyglot conference, he made an excellent point. People who are good at learning languages are usually not perfectionists and they're good at guessing. That means when you're reading a text, don't have the dictionary out, at least the first time you read it. Guess words from the context or even ignore them and see if you can work it out. As for your earlier point about having to translate things in your head, I find that context is key. Sometimes Pimsleur will just throw a random phrase or question at you to respond to, and it's quite difficult. But usually it will introduce a situation and get you to engage in a dialogue, and it becomes much easier, because you have the context to help you. Assimil is the same. Context is the most important part of input imo, because you associate the phrase with the situation rather than the English translation. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Heliion Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4318 days ago 25 posts - 32 votes Studies: English*, Spanish | Message 14 of 26 12 August 2013 at 8:50pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Things are still going fairly well of late. I'm definitely understanding basic dialogues better than I was 6
months ago. I'm understanding about 85-90% of material (audio) lasting 3-4 minutes and I'm not needing to pause after one sentence everytime now, although I still do that fairly often to try to soak in every word and structure. I'm not sure if this means that I'm hearing the Spanish without translating, I think my translating skills in my head have just sped up tbh, but at least that's allowing me to listen with more flow to the conversation. Now and then I catch myself not translating for really easy sentences but it doesn't last long and the mere thought of doing that then seems to throw my concentration and I have to rewind lol. I find I can understand perhaps 95% (sometimes more) when I read the dialogue, words that I couldn't pick out plus more time to figure out the structure. Also new words I just didn't know, obviously. I've begun to list words (with a few phrases) and new verbs in little note pads that I keep with me, although I'm yet to look through them, I intend to now and again. I'd rather not try to memorise things as forcing it like that never seems to stick for me. I'm just hoping the more I come across them, combined with glancing at the lists now and then will work best. I've recently started noticing Spanish words popping up in my head when I'm looking at something or thinking of a word in English. Like my phone wouldn't come on the other day and "no funciona" immediately popped into my head, little stuff like that. I've also noticed something happening in my brain where little fragments of sentences have begun to fire in my head a little bit. I'm definitely a little closer to formulating sentences than I was 6 months ago, this has started to happen very recently. These aren't exactly technically accurate passages but I'm pretty sure they're on the right lines. It almost feels like when a baby starts to produce sounds/basic words naturally. I'm sure I am a long way off actually speaking but for now I'm content with listening and reading to try to improve my comprehension more and more. I'm hoping more words/sentences will naturally start to come out eventually. It's a scary thought that one day I may start speaking but I'm not ready yet. I just ran into a sentence that I'm a little confused with.. "¿Qué preferís cenar condiciones en un restaurante o ir de tapas?" I can't figure out what preferís is. I'm sure it means "what do you prefer?" But what is preferís? If it means "¿what did you prefer?" Then surely it would be "preferiste" or else it's the present tense (which I think it should be) so should be "prefieres" Is that not correct? He both said it like preferís and it's spelt like that in the dialogue. Sorry if this is obvious, but I'm still a beginner. Help is much appreciated. Thanks. Edit: after a quick google I think it has something to do with the subjunctive which I haven't really got to yet. I know the subjunctive has something to do with doubt and perhaps two subjects in a sentence but I can't find that specific word in the verb table so I'm not sure. Edited by Heliion on 12 August 2013 at 9:01pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Heliion Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4318 days ago 25 posts - 32 votes Studies: English*, Spanish | Message 15 of 26 12 August 2013 at 9:08pm | IP Logged | |||||
Thanks for your imput. I've slowly begun to believe that too. I try not to worry too much now but I still can't help myself if something isn't making that much sense, I still try to work it out, I just don't beat myself up when I can't now haha. I agree with the context thing too, I've been listing new words from dialogues I've been reading in order and I think I'll remember them better when I read them in the order that is the same order as each dialogue was in, I think I'll remember the context or possibly even the exact sentence from where the word appeared and it'll help me to remember, hopefully. And yes, forgetting the first things you ever learned is really frustrating, I tend to start doubting that I know as much as I thought I did when I can't recall the most basic sentences haha. I hope you're right and it is normal lol. Thanks again, and gl with your German! Edited by Heliion on 12 August 2013 at 9:16pm 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Heliion Newbie United KingdomRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4318 days ago 25 posts - 32 votes Studies: English*, Spanish | Message 16 of 26 13 August 2013 at 7:46pm | IP Logged | |||||
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If anyone can explain why poner is used in this sentence I will appreciate it...
Puedes ponerte en contacto conmigo por email I know it means "You can get in contact with me by email" but I'm confused with "ponerte" which I thought would mean "you put on" or "to put on you" or something like that? It seems like saying "you can put yourself in contact with me by email" is that at all accurate? If so, I guess it makes sense. Actually thinking about it that does seem to be right, I guess I just stumbled across that one. Also are enviar and mandar used equally in Castilian Spanish for sending things? Like mail etc? I've only used enviar but I've just heard someone from Madrid using mandar all the time. Edited by Heliion on 13 August 2013 at 7:55pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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