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 Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log |  | |
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6276 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes  Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 57 of 94 27 August 2007 at 4:35pm | IP Logged | ||
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Patuco is right, it depends whether the topic that "la" is substituting has already been introduced. Of course it's clear in your sentence as you are first writing the whole phrase and then its pronominalized (does this exist in English?) form, but actually you won't hear one phrase after the other in real life.
"Ayer encontramos la taza de Carmen y se la mandamos por mensajero." Of course depending on the phrase there's a possibility of ambiguity, as in all languages, but it's a matter of the speaker to use pronouns when they leave clearly enough who or what do they refer to. Edited by joan.carles on 27 August 2007 at 4:36pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6483 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 58 of 94 28 August 2007 at 12:15pm | IP Logged | ||
I think I see what's going on. I was really just quoting a drill I found in my Spanish course. Of course just saying the phrase "ayer se la mandamos" out of nowhere would make no sense.
This is a correct and natural sentence, right? I wasn't sure whether you were giving an example of something that one wouldn't hear or if you were showing what would be heard. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6483 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 59 of 94 29 August 2007 at 3:17pm | IP Logged | ||
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Lately, I've been pretty busy with preschool material (summer projects, getting schedules, going to orientations, obtaining supplies, etc.) so I've progressed a little slower in Spanish.
Anyway, I finished unit 21, which on loquella, had a record 875 sentences (a record!). Fortunately it wasn't a intensely hard 875 sentences, although I don't know if it would have been hard for people who had never know about these irregular preterits beforehand. Well, I'll never know. :( 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| joan.carles Bilingual Pentaglot Senior Member Canada Joined 6276 days ago 332 posts - 342 votes Speaks: Spanish*, Catalan*, French, EnglishC1, EnglishC2, Mandarin Studies: Hungarian, Russian, Georgian | Message 60 of 94 29 August 2007 at 3:25pm | IP Logged | ||
Right, it's natural, as an example of use of this pronoun in context. Rather, "ayer encontramos la taza de Carmen y mandamos la taza a Carmen por mensajero" would sound really unnatural for obvious reasons, unless you read it in the Bible or in those awful user manuals of home appliances. Edited by joan.carles on 29 August 2007 at 3:26pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6483 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 61 of 94 31 August 2007 at 2:57pm | IP Logged | ||
Haha, agreed. I finished unit 22 today; now with school stuff out of the way, I can focus slightly more on Spanish. Compared to la unidad anterior (21), this was as short as a pencil; 60% the length in # of sentences! less than 5 days until school! Edited by 236factorial on 31 August 2007 at 2:58pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6483 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 62 of 94 03 September 2007 at 3:20pm | IP Logged | ||
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I feel my fluency in Spanish is coming back slowly now that my learning of it is more intensive; less outside interruptions. I finished unit 23 a few minutes ago. For some reason, I am struggling hard with saying the conjugations of traer; I keep saying "ella traiga" or "traímos" for some strange reason. The first mistake is in the subjunctive, the second is in a form similar to the imperfect!
I also have been listening to a little bit of French lately, and my fluency in the language hasn't dropped significantly, although definitely not as polished as it was 4 months ago. A lot of the vocabulary seems somewhat foreign to me now, and as I'm listening to the FSI french course when I am really bored, I hope to being the forgotten words back to my brain. The grammar remains untouched. Edited by 236factorial on 04 September 2007 at 8:25pm 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| 236factorial Triglot Senior Member United States Joined 6483 days ago 192 posts - 213 votes Speaks: Mandarin, English*, French Studies: Spanish | Message 63 of 94 04 September 2007 at 8:30pm | IP Logged | ||
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I find that the Spanish course can improve on its review drills.
The review drills should refresh the memory of the students so that they will have the skills necessary for the next unit or units. For example, in unit 24 like I'm working through right now, a main topic is reflexive pronoun position in -ndo or infinitive phrases. The review drill of unit 22 or 23 should thus be on the progressive form or infinitive verb phrases - instead of on preterit forms and the relator "que". And why does the course call the preterit and imperfect the "past I" and "past II" tenses, respectively? Considering that the course goes through all this technical material on the other grammar topics, why would the names of the past tenses pose so much trouble for the students? 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| apparition Octoglot Senior Member United States Joined 6593 days ago 600 posts - 667 votes Speaks: English*, Arabic (Written), French, Arabic (Iraqi), Portuguese, German, Italian, Spanish Studies: Pashto | Message 64 of 94 04 September 2007 at 9:27pm | IP Logged | ||
It might just be convention for the author. I've seen all sorts of different grammatical terms applying to one concept throughout different books. It seems authors like to think they've found a simpler or better way. 1 person has voted this message useful |
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