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Sfeinst - learning Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| sfeinst Newbie United States Joined 4536 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 1 of 16 24 May 2012 at 10:00pm | IP Logged | ||
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This is my first post, so just a little background about me and my current techniques for learning.
I am trying to learn Spanish. Why? A few reasons: 1) There seems to be a ton of resources available to help. 2) After English, it is the most used language in my country. 3) I can access Spanish TV and radio. Other languages are not as accessible. 4) I will be visiting Spain in the near future and would like to have a basic understanding. The last language I learned was French. I had 3 years of high school about 30 years ago (so yes I opened the door for determining my age). I write computer programs for a living (too bad computer languages don't count otherwise I would be a polyglot already). For learning, I am doing the following: 1) Take lessons at Language101 (they use a method similar to Pimsleur, spaced repetition). This is the main part of my training. 2) Read Madrigal's Magic Key to Spanish. It's an interesting book. 3) Read children's books (my library has a few) as well as some beginner's books. 4) Use Anki for vocabulary 5) Watch Spanish language TV (I get about 3 channels). 6) Listen to Spanish language Radio (I get 2 stations). 7) Visit various learning web sites (such as this one) to pick up information. 8) Make use of my handy-dandy Spanish-English dictionary 9) Try writing Spanish daily. Anything. Just to try. Initially I plan on making a few entries because I have been studying for almost 2 months and I have run into some things worth noting. Then I will slow down more in line with my current learning. Edited by sfeinst on 24 May 2012 at 10:07pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfeinst Newbie United States Joined 4536 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 2 of 16 24 May 2012 at 10:06pm | IP Logged | ||
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After a month of using language101 and rating myself on phrases I am learning, I since found out that the letters b and v in Spanish are supposed to sound the same. The Vs sounded like Vs to me. So I listened closer and yes they did sound like Bs. I found, if I closed my eyes and listened for a V, it sounded like a V. But if I listened for a B, it sounded like a B. I'm guessing the sound is so close that the brain interprets what you want to hear. Probably why they are supposed to sound the same in Spanish.
Anyway, spent the last month redoing many phrases I knew because I was pronouncing them wrong. Now I'm back on track and moving at a pretty good clip. Edited by sfeinst on 24 May 2012 at 10:41pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfeinst Newbie United States Joined 4536 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 3 of 16 24 May 2012 at 10:18pm | IP Logged | ||
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One of my learning "techniques" is to write daily. What I decided to do was to try to write a story (I'm hoping this will help me think up sentences instead of just repeating others' sentences). The story is not going to be good and I don't plan on posting the story here. Just occasional paragraphs when I run into questions (hoping someone can help me out). This is my first post about the writing, so I am posting the first couple of sentences to see if grammatically/vocabulary, I am on the right track (so anyone reading please tear it apart).
What I decided to do was start with past tense. I find it easier to think up things that were done. This is why I went the story route. Since most stories have a past tense feel to them. Until my vocabulary improves, I am thinking of what I want the story to say in English and then trying to come up with Spanish equivalents, but not a straight literal translation. Long-term I want to picture the action of the story and write the Spanish without first using English. Anyway, here we go. Here is what I wrote: Juan abrió los ojos. Miró al despertador y los cerró. Él fue tarde, otra vez. Tres días seguidos. ¿Qué fue le problema? Desde que dejando el hospital, él no podía despertar antes mediodía. Y, no supo la razón. Lo fue la simple operación. Justo correctivo los ojos cirugía. Pero ya, a pesar de qué el tiempo él íba dormir, dormía hasta mediodía. Here is what I think I was writing: John opened his eyes. He looked at the alarm clock and closed them. He was late, again. Three days in a row. What was his problem? Ever since he left the hospital, he has not been able to wake up before noon. And, he didn't know why. It was a simple operation. Just corrective eye surgery. But now, no matter what time he went to sleep, he woke up after noon. 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| sfeinst Newbie United States Joined 4536 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 4 of 16 27 May 2012 at 3:38am | IP Logged | ||
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I've run into a wall with the Alveolar trill. I've visited I don't know how many web sites and watched multiple videos with some explanation of how to do the trill. I've practiced daily for a month and I am no closer to getting a trill. Very frustrating. The closest technique I had was using the tiger method (I've never had a problem vibrating the back of my tongue).
I can feel the tip vibrating a little, but when I speak it sounds like it is coming from the back of my throat like a growl. And, my throat starts to get irritated after a while of practicing so I know it is the whole tongue vibrating and no0t the tip. My kids who take Spanish in school, listened to me and said I sounded better just pronouncing the word with a tap then doing the growl. Using the tap though may be ok with words beginning or ending with R, but it doesn't work well with words with RR in the middle because it sounds like the R version. So I've taken to trying to drag my tongue or sometimes flicking it instead of tapping it for RR. Just to differentiate it. But this inability to perform the correct trill is extremely frustrating. I haven't given up yet, but I am getting close. Anyway, probably just needed to get that off my chest. Maybe it will get me to try longer. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4607 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes  Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 5 of 16 27 May 2012 at 3:52am | IP Logged | ||
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The trill is a really tough sound for many people. Unfortunately, I learned it when I was quite young in an introductory Spanish class, so I can't give any tips from experience on how I figured it out.
It's interesting that your situation is sort of the inverse of mine: I took three years of Spanish in high school, stopped doing languages for a long time, then recently decided to take up French. Good luck with getting that trill, and with the rest of your language learning. :-) 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| aodhanc Diglot Groupie Iceland Joined 6202 days ago 92 posts - 130 votes Speaks: English*, FrenchB2 Studies: Spanish | Message 6 of 16 27 May 2012 at 10:08am | IP Logged | ||
Hello, just a few suggestions to correct your text. "Él fue tarde" doesn't make sense in Spanish, it's a literal translation from English. You could say "llevaba tarde" or "llevaba un retraso" or "se había despertado tarde" i.e. he was running late or he had woken late. Also, "fue una operación sencilla". In relation to leaving the hospital, I would use "salir" rather than "dejar". Dejar means more to give up or quit. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfeinst Newbie United States Joined 4536 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 7 of 16 28 May 2012 at 2:24am | IP Logged | ||
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tastyonions:
Thanks for the response. Funny thing with Rs is I can do the French R without any issues (probably because I watched Fiddler on the Roof as a young boy and kept imitating the word L'chaim (from the song Too Life) to the point of being able to make a helicopter sound with a gutteral trill for as long as I wanted without any effort. No as an adult, I don't try French, I instead try Spanish and am having great difficulties with that trill. Some greater joke on me. aodhanc: Thank you for the help with the text. One thing I am learning is learning individual words without context is not good enough. I have to really learn phrases as well because what words we use in English does not necessarily match other languages. For example, I just recently learned in Spanish, you take dinner and you take food. In English we have dinner and have food. Knowing the words for to have and to take would not help unless I also learned the phrasing used as well. Thanks also for the tip on salir vs dejar. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| sfeinst Newbie United States Joined 4536 days ago 21 posts - 26 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 8 of 16 29 May 2012 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | ||
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A breakthrough!! I've been watching TV where they speak Spanish and listening to the radio when I can. Usually about 15 minutes a day, sometimes more. Instead of machine gun fire, I actually not only heard a few words and some of them I knew what they meant, but I understood part of a conversation. Still not understanding too much, but I definitely see improvement to keep me going.
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