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James29’s Spanish Log | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 561 of 668 30 November 2014 at 3:47pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm curious if you've ever thought about making the transition to Spanish authors? There's a huge wealth of stuff available, and you can find lots of used books cheap at Abebooks and other online used book sites. There's lots of fun stuff and a few classics that are definitely worth reading.
Also, in sad news, El Chavo/Chespirito passed way this past Friday. 4 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Cavesa Triglot Senior Member Czech Republic Joined 5010 days ago 3277 posts - 6779 votes Speaks: Czech*, FrenchC2, EnglishC1 Studies: Spanish, German, Italian | Message 562 of 668 30 November 2014 at 4:49pm | IP Logged | ||
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Pratchett is not your typical young adults fantasy "give me the money for the popular
tolkien clones" author. He is very intelligent and his books are awesome, entertaining, making fun of our real world and the fantasy genre itself. I recommend him. He is not that easy (I'm just looking into his Mascarada in Spanish), but not extremely difficult either. And he wrote several "novels" which are all about natural sciences and history and so on. I think you might like him but you won't find out unless you try. It's possible you will put him on the shelf "to rot" with other novels. ;-) It's great to hear about your progress and chatting with natives. By the way, how did you get into the conversation? I am not as good at this as I'd like to so I am always glad for inspiration. I am just a bit shy to disturb perhaps. 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 563 of 668 30 November 2014 at 6:44pm | IP Logged | ||
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My biggest concern with reading material is if I will like it. I just don't want to read something and quit. There are not a lot of books I really like to read and with many of the popular authors I have a much better sense if I will like them or not. I also recently read a link in someone's log to an article on "narrow reading" and the author really stressed the fact that what was really important was simply reading in the target language and finding something that you would read. I certainly don't have anything against reading native material and fully intend to do so at some point, but feel much more interested in reading translations right now. If I am faced with the choice of reading a Grisham novel or a book from a well known Spanish speaking write I'd definitely choose the Grisham novel because the probability I'd like it is much higher. I'm a big guy for going with probabilities. I did read La Reina del Sur in English and would like to read it in Spanish sometime. I also have that parallel text version of 100 years in solitude that I'd like to read sometime soon.
Regarding your question, Cavesa, on barging into conversations. My present problem is the eavesdropping phase where I think they are speaking Spanish but not yet 100% sure. Once I confirm it is Spanish I then seem to default to something similar to a line in Assimil: "perdonen la indiscrecion, pero he notado que hablan ustedes el espanol con perfeccion. de donde son?" (forgive my written Spanish, I don't like to write in Spanish and probably screwed something up in that sentence). Something like that seems to work because I can say it very confidently. Another "trick" I seem to use is to say something that calls for a "reflex" answer from the other person. They will reply in Spanish without even thinking... "que tal estan ustedes?" or something like that. I've NEVER had a bad experience approaching someone in Spanish. Everyone seems so willing to chat. Regarding Pratchett... I might have to take another look. I really don't like to start something and not finish it. I find that if I have that general rule I will make better decisions to begin with. I've seen people make a ton of bad decisions by not having full commitment to something when they start out. At some point my goals for a year are going to be to not buy any more Spanish books or resources for my bookshelf. I buy stuff much faster than I can consume stuff. But, it is fun and I finally have my first guilty pleasure :) 2 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Random review Diglot Senior Member United Kingdom Joined 5784 days ago 781 posts - 1310 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Portuguese, Mandarin, Yiddish, German | Message 564 of 668 30 November 2014 at 11:32pm | IP Logged | ||
Oh, that's really sad. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| mitcht Newbie Australia Joined 3742 days ago 32 posts - 36 votes Speaks: English* | Message 565 of 668 01 December 2014 at 6:09am | IP Logged | ||
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Not a hugely useful post here but just wanted to say that this log is a great motivator from what I have read
thus far, intend to take a closer look in the next few days but thanks for documenting your journey, it's a great resource for people like myself. Also, I had a copy of that tales of Puerto Rico dual language book given to me, I'll have to check it out. Mitch 3 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Crush Tetraglot Senior Member ChinaRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 5866 days ago 1622 posts - 2299 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Mandarin, Esperanto Studies: Basque | Message 566 of 668 01 December 2014 at 12:55pm | IP Logged | ||
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As for breaching into conversations, the line i use almost 100% of the time is "¿De dónde eres?" (or ¿De dónde son ustedes?" if it's more than one person). Basically a simplified version of James', and like James i don't think it's ever failed me. Though it of course works much better when you live in a country that doesn't have Spanish as an official language ;) Seriously, a simple "Perdona, ¿de dónde eres?" is all you really need.
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| James29 Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5376 days ago 1265 posts - 2113 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: French | Message 567 of 668 01 December 2014 at 2:09pm | IP Logged | ||
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Mitch, there are a number of audio files of the Stories from Puerto Rico on the publisher's website. If you cannot find it let me know and I'll send them to you. I downloaded them and have them somewhere. They are worth listening to. Also, there are a number of other books in this series "Stories from... Mexico, Latin America, Spain, etc."
The "de donde son ustedes" works good. I will say that I have noticed that many people are really thrown for a loop when I say something in Spanish to them and they simply cannot comprehend what is going on at first and merely give me a blank stare while they try to figure out what is going on (because I think they are extremely surprised I speak Spanish. There are very few Spanish speakers around here). So if you get a response like that just be patient and smile :) Edited by James29 on 01 December 2014 at 2:10pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Stelle Bilingual Triglot Senior Member Canada tobefluent.com Joined 4145 days ago 949 posts - 1686 votes Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish Studies: Tagalog | Message 568 of 668 01 December 2014 at 2:39pm | IP Logged | ||
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I'm still working on getting enough courage to talk to strangers in my target languages! Yesterday I spoke to the
cashier in Tagalog. She was thrilled. My 15-year-old niece was embarrassed. (But then she's 15. Everything anyone over 30 does is mortifying. Ha!) I also spoke to some other customers in Spanish, but that didn't go as well for some reason. I think because - based on the dirty looks she was throwing at him - the people may have been arguing a few minutes prior. Ah, adventures in an urban grocery store! 1 person has voted this message useful |
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