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6WC: un poco de español | ||
Tags: 6 Weeks Challenge (6WC) | Spanish | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6952 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes  Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 25 of 41 06 May 2011 at 12:32pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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@tibbles
I'm really impressed... It's not often that a language learning podcast uses the target language 100% at the intermediate level. I already have the Intermediate series on my iPhone, and I'll definitely be using it when my listening improves (as it stands now, I can understand less than half when they speak in Spanish in the Inspired Beginners series!) Thanks for the tip! @Phantom Kat Wow, not only did you take the time to consider my mistakes so thoroughly, but you enlisted the help of your mother as well! Thanks a lot to both of you :D The alternatives you gave made sense to me, except that I wanted to ask about this one:
What does "tenga" mean here? I couldn't find it in my conjugation dictionary.
That would be awesome!! There are a lot of Mexicans and Mexican-Americans in LA, and I've been told that they use a lot of slang or Mexicanisms that are hard for learners to understand. I'd be really interested in learning some, if you have the time. Also, thanks for the book recommendation. It sounds like something I'd want to get at a more advanced level. Actually, I'm really interested in different dialects in any language. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| tibbles Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5194 days ago 245 posts - 422 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Korean | Message 26 of 41 06 May 2011 at 5:29pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
It's the present subjunctive of tener. As Michel Thomas says, the gogo verbs (1st person = tengo, traigo, etc) become gagas in the subjunctive and imperative. Anyways, the use of tenga in that phrase is to lend a feeling of possibility as in "so I **might** not have fever or cough". 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Phantom Kat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5066 days ago 160 posts - 253 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Finnish | Message 27 of 41 07 May 2011 at 1:05am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Yep, tibbles is right. ^-^
Here are some colloquial sayings/expressions I got from the top off my head. I'll ask my mom for more later. I tried to pick ones that don't have an English counterpart. (And my mom's happy to help. ^-^ Since I never went to school in Mexico my grammar may be off sometimes, so I ask her for clarification and/or verification. Plus she owes me for helping her with her English. :P) And as for me, you're welcomed. I enjoy helping you. :) Dar la lata To bother someone, to be a bother. For example, Siempre me das lata. (You always give me bother./You’re always bothering me.) Con el Jesús en la boca (With (the) Jesus in your mouth.) Basically it means the person is scared or anxious, much like the impression that you have your heart in your throat. Example: Cuando ella maneja siempre estoy con el Jesús en la boca. (When she drives I’m always on edge.) ¡Con ganas! Meaning to do something with energy, with excitement. Literally ‘with desire‘ Lava los platos con ganas y no con esa cara. (Wash the dishes with excitement and not with that face.) [You know, that face all teenagers get when facing chores. XD] This one is a favorite of my band director and will be one of the things I’ll always remember from Band. ¡Qué padre! (How awesome!) Literally ‘what (a) parent/dad!’ Ay, ¡qué padre! No tenemos escuela. (Ahh, how awesome! We don’t have school.) No manches. (Don’t pull my chain/don’t toy with me.) Literally ‘don’t stain’. ¿El profesor se casó con la mamá de Ana? ¡No manches! (The teacher got married to Ana’s mom? Don’t toy with me!/No way!) My sister and I always use this one. Tener la mala pata. To have bad luck. Literally ‘to have the/a bad foot.’ Qué mala pata tengo. Está lloviendo y no traje paraguas. (What bad luck I have. It’s raining and I didn’t bring an umbrella.) ¡Que bárbaro/a! An expression to show shock or awe. Literally ‘what a barbarian!’ ¡Que bárbaro! ¡Se comió cinco tortillas! (Damn! He ate five tortillas!) ¿Mande? This is the equivalent of ‘Pardon?’ when somebody asks you a question or calls for your attention. Literally it’s like saying ‘order me’. Fun Fact: In Mexico, though the word for ‘teacher’ is maestro/a, students address their teachers as profesor/a, ‘professor’. - Kat Edited by Phantom Kat on 07 May 2011 at 1:19am 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| vanillabean Groupie Canada Joined 5011 days ago 53 posts - 63 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 28 of 41 07 May 2011 at 4:37am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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^^ Wow, awesome input there! I found that list really interesting too, thanks for sharing!
You're doing an awesome job with the learning so far, and congrats on your #1 spot in the challenge!! You've definitely been putting in a lot of work! Keep it up :-) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6952 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 29 of 41 10 May 2011 at 6:22am | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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@tibbles,
Ah, I see. I don't know anything about the subjunctive yet. I'm trying to conquer one tense at a time. To be honest, I'm a little scared about the subjunctive based on what I've read on this forum. Is Michael Thomas good for learning it? @Phantom Kat, Thanks!! I'll try to use these with my Peruvian/Spanish friend and see which ones he understands. He'll either be really impressed or really confused ;) Update - Day 10 Until yesterday I was fiercely having to defend my position in the Top 3, but now that my position on the chart seems to be padded by a bumper zone of about 5 hours in each direction my motivation has gone down just a little bit. For better or for worse, I don't see myself breaking out of my position directly behind JNatAlkhimia unless something drastic happens. However, I understand that the current #1 spotholder, fuerte_viento, will be finishing his L-R marathon soon and then bowing out of the challenge for the most part, so at least I'll be able to aim for second-best! :) Yesterday I finished Notes in Spanish Inspired Beginners, which taught me a lot of colloquial language and gave me an overview of Spanish grammar in the indicative mood. I didn't take notes about the different tenses - only mental notes so that I would know what to expect in the future. Here are some of the things I learned: * There's a real future tense besides the "voy a comer" one I was familiar with. The one I knew can express things that are planned or fairly certain, whereas the real future tense can express more distant, uncertain, unplanned things, such as "In 50 years everyone will be speaking Chinese." * There are three basic conjugations used to express something that happened in the past. The one I had already known about was the "Yo he comido" one, very similar to "have eaten" in English, but which I found out must be used for things that happened earlier in the same day (or any time period which is not yet complete). Another one, which usually has the accent at the end as in "comí", is used for something that happened once and then finished. And the third one, which seems to generally end in "- ba" (as in "estaba"), is used for things that happened many times in the past, or which were extended over a long period of time. Some examples are "I used to go fishing with my dad" (repeated many times) and "I was living in England" (not something you can just do in one go and be done with). * The difference between "para" and "por". I did take notes on this, and plan to put the examples into Anki. My tentative conclusion is that "para" basically is a movement in one direction, and "por" is basically an exchange. I know this doesn't cover all the uses of these prepositions, but it's easier for me to create a paradigm and then memorize the exceptions than just to memorize each and every usage one by one. * Some idiomatic uses of "ser" and "estar". For example, "estar" is used for the location of a building, whereas "ser" is used for the location of an event. Since listening to the podcast, I've tried to read a few works of Spanish fiction (Curious George and Harry Potter) but found that it was really bugging me not knowing why a certain verb was conjugated the way it was. Some people learn these different conjugations through reading, but I guess I find it more enjoyable to learn the different conjugations first and then confirm/enforce my understanding while I'm reading. So I studied the pretérito yesterday and plan to cover the indicativo today so that I can start enjoying the childrens' books as soon as possible. Besides that, I've been continuing to read and listen to Assimil (lesson 16) and Easy Spanish Reader (chapter 17). I've also begun watching the BBC series Mi Vida Loca (episode 6), which is great not for the way it teaches Spanish, but for the English-Spanish dual language subtitles it uses throughout (and of course, for the novelty factor of the whole "interactive movie" setup). ¡Hasta la próxima! 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Lucky Charms Diglot Senior Member Japan lapacifica.net Joined 6952 days ago 752 posts - 1711 votes Speaks: English*, Japanese Studies: German, Spanish | Message 30 of 41 15 May 2011 at 5:52pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Update - Day 15/42
The competitors behind me have turned up the heat, forcing me to put more work in so that I wouldn't be overcome :) However, I'm still wasting too much time online this week. I think a major factor in my slight dip in motivation (although I still love Spanish!) has been frustration with myself for not being able to understand how to use Spanish pronouns. I generally enjoy studying grammar, and I'm pleased with the unexpected ease and rapidity with which I've been able to conquer the regular conjugations (and some common irregular ones) of Spanish verbs in the indicative mood. As I've mentioned before, I'm someone who has to know the "how" and "why" of everything I see in the text of a foreign language, and this really spurs me on to read up on grammar rules at an early stage. But it was starting to seem absurd to me that, despite my pleasing progress in most other areas, I was getting stuck on something as seemingly trivial as pronouns. The choice and placement of all these "lo" and "le" and reflexive pronouns seemed to me (and still does seem) to have little rhyme or reason no matter how often I read the explanations online and in my textbooks. So after realizing that this frustration and shame was probably the greatest thing that has been holding me back, I decided to purchase a book that dealt with the topic in- depth. The book I ended up going with was this one: http://amzn.to/ijT0yP Spanish Pronouns and Prepositions from the "Practice Makes Perfect" series ...and if I've gone through this one and decide I'd like an even more in-depth treatise on each and every pronoun, I plan to get this one as well, from the same series: http://amzn.to/kEegqW Spanish Pronouns Up Close The best part of my decision to buy a book dedicated to the topic (well, besides the fact that it will end up in my owning and reading a book dedicated to the topic) is that in reading the reviews I discovered that this is actually one of the greatest problem areas for learners of Spanish, so I'm not an idiot after all! ;) So, knowing that a solution will be arriving in the mail soon and that I'm not hopeless at Spanish has given me a boost to my confidence and motivation, although I still feel a tiny twinge of exasperation when I encounter a pronoun whose function I can't understand! Pronoun-induced woes aside, here are some highlights of my Spanish study as of late: * The all-Spanish Intermediate episodes of Notes in Spanish are roughly 40% comprehensible for me. I'm getting the main gist of the talks and can glean a lot from context. * The dialogues in the Newbie series at SpanishPod, which at first seemed impossibly fast, are now sometimes a piece of cake on the first listen (depending on the episode, and varying a lot depending on the voice actor), so that I've been able to skip past some episodes! * I went out drinking with Harold (from Perú) and Abe (a Mexican-American) last night. This time we focused heavily on helping Harold with his English, but in spite of speaking less Spanish than in our first meeting, I found this time much more productive for me because I was able to put together sentences, respond to what was said to me, put what I knew from my studies to use, and ask some specific questions that I had collected for the occasion. (Unfortunately, their explanations regarding manejar vs. conducir and mirar vs. ver were more confusing than enlightening, so I'd appreciate any input here!) I also was really excited to find that I could follow the conversation between the two of them with hardly any effort!! However, this was relying a lot on cognates between English and Spanish, which of course I can recognize but can't produce in conversation without active study. * I've been incorporating more reading into my studies, by flipping through Harry Potter or a Jorge el Curioso (Curious George) book and reading random sections until I feel tired, and then flipping to another random section to revive my interest. I don't stop and look up words when I read, but I pay careful attention to word choice - I see, it's "para" here and not "por". And this verb must be the imperfect indicative of the third person, and it's conjugated this way so it must be an "-ar" verb. Why the imperfect and not the preterit? Oh, this must be why. And here is "estar" rather than "ser" because...- I feel that constantly "testing" and confirming my knowledge in this way reinforces it in my mind several times over, so that it becomes more and more second-nature to me. * I've been making fair progress in Assimil (now grappling with lesson 20), but my success with a lesson is contigent upon two things: 1) my having some familiarity with the target grammar point beforehand, and 2) my listening to the lesson a few times with book in hand, then reading aloud several times myself, then shadowing several times, then listening to the dialogue a zillion times throughout the day. Otherwise, it all devolves into rapid machine gun fire, and my poor brain can't keep up. I never had such a problem with German with Ease, but now I'm pretty sure this is because of my prior academic study of the language. Until recently, I had been thinking that no matter what the language, just give me the Assimil course and I'll be at B1/B2 in a few months... Now I can't imagine what a struggle it would probably be to use Assimil as the primary method to learn a language with which I have zero background or familiarity! That's all for now, folks. ¡Buenas noches! <- "la noche" is feminine: another factoid picked up from attentive reading :D 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| Phantom Kat Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5066 days ago 160 posts - 253 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Finnish | Message 31 of 41 15 May 2011 at 7:24pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
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Yeah, from my Spanish classes here in high school I got the idea that the Spanish pronouns give Spanish learners trouble. At least it's something you encounter often in in texts and will get used to seeing in action. I'm just like you about learning grammar. I'm always saying things like, "They use this because of this," and can't stand not knowing why a word is written the way it is.
With "manejar vs. conducir" and "mirar vs. ver" they are pretty much the same. I never use "conducir" when speaking, just "manejar", but that's probably a side-effect from living in the United States all my life. "Mirar" and "ver" is more varied. I use "ver" whenever I'm talking about myself and somebody else. For example, I would say, "Yo veo la casa," and not "Yo miro la casa." If somebody else is doing the action, I also use "ver". "Él ve la casa." I tend to use "mirar" as a command more than somebody actively looking at something, "Mira, se comió la comida." I used to love reading "Jorge el Curioso" when I was little; he's so cute. :3 (As for Harry Potter, I read those in English.) Like I said before, I also analyze grammar as I read. It just feels the more I do that the more I assure myself that those grammar rules are sticking. I hope you conquer Assimil! The progress you've made so far is awesome and motivates me to try harder in my own studies. :) - Kat Edited by Phantom Kat on 15 May 2011 at 7:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||||||||||||||
| getreallanguage Diglot Senior Member Argentina youtube.com/getreall Joined 5474 days ago 240 posts - 371 votes Speaks: Spanish*, English Studies: Italian, Dutch | Message 32 of 41 23 May 2011 at 7:22pm | IP Logged | ||||||||||||||
Met mijn Nederlands gaat het goed, dank je. (He answers over two weeks later.) The amount of new vocabulary, even more pronounced when it refers to anything outside of everyday physical objects, makes me appreciate how transparent Italian vocabulary was in the beginning stages (and every step of the way after that). I have therefore started using Anki. This is the first time I use an SRS ever. I plan on keeping two decks, one for words and some expressions and turns of phrase, another for whole sentences, and gradually coming to rely more and more on the second. For the moment though I'm just building a basic vocabulary. My vocabulary deck is growing slowly with every time I come into contact with Dutch.
That's probably not the reason, at least not entirely. I live in Argentina. When people talk about driving a car here, they use 'manejar' almost exclusively. 'Conducir' is seen as very formal, foreign and very uncommon. The only case I can think of when people use it is when people say the more formal name for 'registro' (driver's license): 'licencia de conducir'. Otherwise 'conducir' has quite a different meaning, like 'conduce un programa de entrevistas' or 'el general condujo a las tropas al combate'. However in other regions people also use 'conducir' to mean 'manejar' (in the sense of 'manejar un auto'; 'manejar' can also mean something closer to 'managing'). With 'mirar' versus 'ver' I think they have two different meanings. 'Mirar' is more active and 'ver' is more passive. However there are about a bajillion exceptions to this general semantic rule of thumb and you are better served learning their use in context. This is when having a separate Anki deck for sentences / short dialogues / short texts can come in handy. Here is an example of the passive vs. active use of ver/mirar, which reminds me of the difference between 'seeing' on the one hand and 'looking/looking at' and 'watching' on the other: Estaba en la playa mirando el mar. De repente vi una gaviota.
I would say 'veo la casa', 'miro la casa', 've la casa' and 'mira la casa' depending on the shade of meaning I was going for; see above regarding 'estaba mirando el mar' and 'vi una gaviota'.
I would also say this: 'mirá, ya está lista la torta'. This is to me similar to the English 'look!'.
From what I gather from your post, the pronouns you are having trouble with are the third person object pronouns (for direct and indirect objects, as the forms can differ in the third person), that is, the object pronouns corresponding to él, ella, ese/esa/eso, ellos, ellas; and also with the reflexive pronouns. This is your first Romance language so I would guess it's to be expected that reflexive pronouns are giving you trouble. Picking up their use in Italian was for me quite straightforward, coming from Spanish. The thing is that reflexive pronouns are used, in Romance languages, for a lot more than actions that you do to yourself, like the obvious case of commiting suicide (suicidarse). The most obvious example here is the so-called 'medial voice' use of the reflexives, like in the incredibly common turn of phrase 'me gusta', which likely comes up in chapter 2 of every Spanish textbook out there, confounding Germanic language speakers to no end. You will come to terms with pronominal verbs, 'pronominalizing' of non-pronominal verbs, 'medial voice', etcetera in time. Keep plugging away at it and consult a grammar reference when needed, but rest assured that extended exposure to their use in context is what will make them stick. This is when reading comes in very handy (of course, you know to balance your diet with a lot of listening). 'Pronominal verb' is just another name for 'reflexive verb', by the way. I like the first name better since not all pronominal verbs are so obviously 'reflexive' in their meaning when you think about it. Here is a note on object pronouns. The use of pronouns to refer to direct and indirect objects in the third person varies according to regional dialect. I'm not sure what materials you're using besides Assimil but I'm assuming Assimil goes by the castizo norm. Here are some differences that show up when comparing the use in the Castile region to Rioplatense Spanish: Rioplatense: Third person singular: direct object LO/LA (depending on gender) / indirect object LE Third person plural: direct object LOS/LAS / indirect object LES Castile: Third person singular: direct object LO/LA, except when referring to a masculine human being, then LE indirect object LE Third person plural: direct object LOS/LAS, except when referring to a masculine human being, then LES indirect object LES With the caveat that anything perceived as 'humanish enough' can fall under the rule for humans. Animals can fall under this criteria. I wouldn't be all that surprised if a Castilian used 'le maté' when talking about a male dog. To the extent that this caveat applies maybe you could postulate that the distinction is not 'human/not human' but 'animated/inanimated'. (The RAE only admits as standard the use of LE for a single person of masculine gender.) I am NOT intimately acquainted with the situation 'on the ground' regarding these 'non-rioplatense' uses of LE and LES. I am putting this rough sketch together from a little bit of consulting various sources. If a Spaniard or someone more acquainted with the situation wants to pipe in, I'd be interested in hearing their opinion. However, if you want an account of what the RAE considers 'standard usage', you can check this link. One of the aspects where the RAE norm comes into conflict with the de facto norm is the use of LES for plural masculine human direct objects. The RAE rejects this usage while, for example, ABC and El País (very popular newspapers in Spain) accept it. The use of LE and LES for direct objects is commonly referred to as 'Leísmo'. The RAE article is useful for giving you a broad sweeping account, if not too thorough and detailed, of some of what takes place when people are using these third person pronouns, in Spain and out of it. I am not familiar with how the usage goes for other regions but, they either use the same rule as the one I described above, the same as rioplatense, or something else entirely. Like I said there is regional variation, even within the same country. There is variation in Argentina and within Spain too. You will come across this variation time and time again when dealing with materials and also when getting together with Harold and Abe. Variation doesn't just cover vocabulary. There are differences in grammar, too. Welcome to your second truly international language. I have some charts that I made a little while ago detailing pronoun forms and details and rules of their use. I would be happy to share them with you if you wanted. Just let me know. I of course only gave you a brief overview of some aspects of it here. La mejor de las suertes. Ah, y sí, 'la noche' y 'el día', como 'la luna' y 'el sol'. Edited by getreallanguage on 25 May 2011 at 4:49pm 1 person has voted this message useful |
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