Learning Spanish

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Jeygonza
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Re: Learnign Spanish

Post by Jeygonza »

drealm wrote:I searched and didn't find any threads. Short of complete immersion, what's the best way to learn a language (Spanish in this case)? I'd prefer something I can do at home without anyone else. I've heard Rosetta stone isn't any good.

Hi, I'm a Spanish speaker cause i'm Latin, but i have to say learning decent Spanish is not easy. I met someone who started " Simon and Schuster's Pimsleur" its a foreign language learning program, I don't know how it work but you can search for information here http://www.pimsleur.com
Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.
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Jester
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Post by Jester »

momopi wrote:
This reminds me of a funny incident in Paris. I had to ask for directions and found myself surrounded by Spanish tourists, so my HS Spanish class lessons actually came in handy.

This reminds of something that hapened when I was a teen. I was attending a science conference in (Soviet) Armenia with my Dad, looking to have some fun while he attended seminars. The meeting was held at the Soviet Olympic team's mountaintop summer training complex in Tsakhadzor. It had indoor/outdoor pool, gym, and also... foosball.

I LOVED foosball.

I played a Russian student there who spoke no English, Armenian or French. But we made friends. I spoke Latin, he spoke Italian. It worked.

Kind of neat.
Jester
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Post by Jester »

Speaking of language school I am musing about using it as a way to exist in a country and make connections.

This one looked interesting, since it is on a real Uni campus, presumably surrounded by real Uni chiquitas.

http://www.studyspanishcolombia.com/stu ... niversity/

At $500 a month for 2 hours a day 5 days a week (I think) that means $500 for 40+ hours, not a bad rate at all.

A guy could go for a 1 month, 2 month, or 3 month stay without having to hassle with visa renewal. (Assuming a tourist visa is OK(.
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WindowLicker
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Post by WindowLicker »

Get some old-fashioned books (used textbooks), study them and work out the practise problems, and chat daily to language-exchangers on Skype.
Halwick
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Post by Halwick »

Jester wrote:
momopi wrote:
This reminds me of a funny incident in Paris. I had to ask for directions and found myself surrounded by Spanish tourists, so my HS Spanish class lessons actually came in handy.

This reminds of something that hapened when I was a teen. I was attending a science conference in (Soviet) Armenia with my Dad, looking to have some fun while he attended seminars. The meeting was held at the Soviet Olympic team's mountaintop summer training complex in Tsakhadzor. It had indoor/outdoor pool, gym, and also... foosball.

I LOVED foosball.

I played a Russian student there who spoke no English, Armenian or French. But we made friends. I spoke Latin, he spoke Italian. It worked.

Kind of neat.
Echoes the same experience a friend of mine had. He remembered his Latin and was able to communicate with someone who spoke Spanish. I understand many Spanish and Italian words has root origins in Latin; if you know Latin, then learning Spanish or Italian is easy.

Reminds me of the time while trying to romance a certain girl while in high school, I tried to say the phrase, "Je t'adore".......and she responded, "Shut the door yourself." I wish I had the ear for languages and the ability to get accents right.
Jester
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Post by Jester »

Halwick wrote:
Reminds me of the time while trying to romance a certain girl while in high school, I tried to say the phrase, "Je t'adore".......and she responded, "Shut the door yourself."
Sorry but that sounds like one of the old Benny Hill skits.
Halwick
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Post by Halwick »

Jester wrote:
Halwick wrote:
Reminds me of the time while trying to romance a certain girl while in high school, I tried to say the phrase, "Je t'adore".......and she responded, "Shut the door yourself."
Sorry but that sounds like one of the old Benny Hill skits.
Ha ha. Now that you mention it, I recall the girl liked British humour. So THAT's where she got the response from...
BTW, do you like Benny Hill and his antics?

Back to languages: You mentioned you speak Latin. How's your Spanish? Did you find knowing latin helped with your Spanish?
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Post by Contrarian Expatriate »

As an unofficial linguist of sorts, I can tell you the best way to learn a language is to find your individual best way to pick up a language.

Everyone learns differently, so all of these pronouncements about Pimsleur, Rosetta Stone, etc might be good for some but bad for you.

The best way for me to learn a language is to first learn the alphabet, then learn to count, tell time, and build vocabulary relevant to my life. The grammar refinement and the listening comprehension comes much later. It is best to join a language meet-up group to practice your conversational skills when you are ready.

Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone will only get you so far but if you want to be conversant in a new language rather than just reciting basic phrases, a multifaceted approach is best in my experience.

I'll be starting intense study of Russian shortly which will be the most difficult language in my repertoire.
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pinaypalace
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Re: Learning Spanish

Post by pinaypalace »

I bought rosetta stone earlier this year. I haven't had that much time to use it alot. It is sort of boring to me but if you are committed to using it every day I think it will do alot of good in your learning.
100 countries before I die http://www.pinaypalace.com
mattyman
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Re: Learning Spanish

Post by mattyman »

RE
what's the best way to learn a language (Spanish in this case)?
One incredibly, incredibly useful way to learn new languages, especially to put sentences together quickly and be able to understand texts is to learn constructions with infinitives. For example;
-want to/would like to
-can/to be able to
-have to
-going to
-need to
-like to
I can't give an exhaustive list. For me learning Spanish and Russian, this has been bloody excellent.

The great thing about those sorts of constructions, especially for languages like Spanish where the verbs can be a bugger is that you only have to worry about conjugating the verb in the phrase (e.g. poder, querer, ir etc.) & use can use what you're liking, want to do have to do in the infinitive.

When making vocab lists, it's helpful to divide it into types of words for example; 'what might you do (verbs in infinitive)', 'how might you describe things (for adjectives)', 'to what degree (adverbs), how often does that happen (adverbs). It's helpful to do that because if you want to exercise grammar, you've got a neatly-organized list.

NOTE;
In some languages such as Spanish and Russian and some other languages, you'll find 'back to front' verbs of which 'to like' something is one. The sentence is arranged;
Indirect object (to me)+verb+thing being liked (subject or infinitive). The example phrases are

me gusta/me gustan+vocab (infinitive or noun)
мне нравится+vocab (infinitive or noun nominative case)

These constructions literally translate as 'to me is pleasing x'.

me gusta tomar cerveza con mis amigos. I like to drink beer with my friends. That literally translates into 'to me is pleasing drinking beer ('tomar' meaning both to take and to have a drink in the infinitive form) with my friends. In this 'me' translates to 'to me'. We can use this construction both to talk about things we like and things we like doing (using the infinitive). For example, talking about things we like doing; me gusta nadar, me gusta viajar. Talking about things; no me gustan perros, me gusta mucho cervaza.

other verbs in Spanish used in this construction include importar (to be important to), cae bien (to like someone), cae mal (to dislike someone)

Now Russian

мне нравится читать книги;
I like to read books, literally translating into 'to me it's pleasing reading books'. The word 'читать' is an infinitive, (the imperfective version talking about something habitual, haven't got time to go into specifics of the language).

'мне' is the 'to me' or 'for me' form of 'я' (I), known as the dative case. The construction is the same; indirect object (dative)+verb (agreeing with subject)+subject (nominative case). The great thing about Russian is that nouns and adjectives are also case-sensitive not just pronouns, trust me, it's not that scary, it's fun.

To conclude
Anyway, sentence constructions that can use infinitives regardless of what language you're learning are incredibly useful little tools for talking about anything and for learning vocabulary. Once you're got a few ways to cobble sentences together, and can recognize the infinitive forms of verbs in texts then hey presto.
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