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  1. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

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    Let's Learn Spanish

    Discussion in 'The Lounge' started by Daniel, May 31, 2018.

    Hola! Me llamo Daniel. Yo quiero estudiar y comprender español mucho. Creo español es muy bonito y elegante, y yo creo estudiar con mucho personas es importante. Hablar español con mi, por favor.

    I've recently gotten serious about learning the Spanish language and am seeking every opportunity to learn faster, practice, and develop my skills. I thought it might be a good idea to create a WF thread, I'm sure I'm not the only one trying to learn the language.

    This thread is meant for anyone who's trying to learn Spanish to converse, ask questions, and hopefully receive advice from any native or fluent Spanish speakers.

    Personally, I'm moving to Phoenix at the end of the summer and hope to have a strong base by then. I know it's not a lot of time, but I have three years foundational Spanish in high school (very rusty) and I try to speak it at every opportunity. Over the past two weeks I've been hitting DuoLingo hard, putting in a minimum of one hour a night (sometimes two).

    If anyone's interested, I just started a private DuoLingo club for my personal friends and WritingForums.org members who are serious about learning Spanish. Below is the invite, I encourage you to join.

    5F3AF587-DA28-4898-A7CB-91F9E18E0FC5.png

    Adios!
     
  2. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    Get a job in a restaurant. You'll be fluent after a handful of shifts.
     
  3. GingerCoffee

    GingerCoffee Web Surfer Girl Contributor

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    Doubtful. But get a decent background in the language then submerse yourself in it by spending time in a Spanish language speaking country and you will make great strides.
     
  4. Homer Potvin

    Homer Potvin A tombstone hand and a graveyard mind Staff Supporter Contributor

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    That's how I learned. Different dialects too. As close to immersion as you'll get in America.
     
  5. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

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    @Homer Potvin Actualmente, yo trabajo en el restaurante a la momenta, pero solamente un poco oportunidad en mi ciudad. Yo soy vivir en la Midwest Estados Unidos. En dos o tres meses yo voy a vivir en la Valle del Sol. Más oportunidades.

    Como se dice “there will be” o “I will” en español?
     
  6. BayView

    BayView Huh. Interesting. Contributor

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    I've never studied Spanish, but I've always felt like I can almost understand it anyway, when it's slow enough. (Possibly because I have enough French to figure out a lot of the words?) I could never speak or write it, but I totally understood what you said in that post...

    So I don't have to learn it! I already know it!!! :rolleyes:
     
    Necronox likes this.
  7. big soft moose

    big soft moose An Admoostrator Admin Staff Supporter Contributor Community Volunteer

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    The worrying thing is that I don't speak Spanish, but I understood most of that ... spoken I have no chance
     
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  8. Daniel

    Daniel I'm sure you've heard the rumors Founder Staff

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    Spanish is pretty close to English as far as languages go, so that’s probably why you guys can understand. I’m also a beginner and have a limited vocabulary. With a language like Spanish I think developing a wide vocabulary will be the hardest.

    For those of you who taught yourself Spanish, how long did it take you and how long were you studying each day?

    I’m putting in an average of 1.5-2 hours/day, is it realistic to aim for conversational fluency in one year with consistent studying?
     
  9. katina

    katina Banned Contributor

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    ''I will'' I believe ''voy a''
    ''there will be'' va hacer/ estara
    I think :)
     
  10. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    I recommend listening to music. I learned about five languages but could speak none, because I learned to read them. I dusted off my college Russian ten years ago with some pop music CDs I got visiting the country. It helped but then I found French Candian music on SIrius, and I finally learned that I had to turn off the translator and grammar parser in my brain and just LISTEN. I am finally reaching that happy state of occasionally following several sentences of lyrics without thinking about it. Then, like Peter walking on the water, I think about it and lose the thread. But it is getting better. Something like SIrius is better than CDs, or ordinary radio, as you don't just memorize the lyrics by replaying them. Buena Fortuna! BTW, you have a PM from me about my wife member publication Parham's Mill. Welcome back, we have missed you
     
  11. Steerpike

    Steerpike Felis amatus Contributor

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    Another good approach is to watch children’s television shows in Spanish. I like the Duolingo club. I’m in.
     
  12. Lew

    Lew Contributor Contributor

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    My music time in Frnech runs 1-2 hours per day, to and from work
     
  13. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Perfect.

    Spanish is a pro-drop language, which means we rarely use subject pronouns unless there is a reason for emphasis of the person. The verb already carries the information as to grammatical person, so we let it do the job by itself. Articles are a must in Spanish and have a somewhat different sense of logic than in English, so the el before Español is obligatory. When Español is used as the name of the language, it's capitalized. When it serves as an adjective, it's lower case. Also, we don't use mucho in the way you've used it here. We would rephrase this to something like Estoy muy interesado en estudiar y entender el Español.

    As you can see, while Spanish syntax does have some similarity to English, in many ways they are quite distinct.

    Creo que el Español es muy bonito y elegante, y creo que es muy importante estudiar con muchas personas. ¡Habla Español conmigo por favor!
     
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  14. OurJud

    OurJud Contributor Contributor

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    To demonstrate my brilliant understanding of Spanish, I'll list the words from this quote I was able to decipher.

    Homer Potvin
    Restaurant
    Moment (?)
    Opportunity (?)

    Now how impressive is that??

    Can we learn German, please? It sounds nicer to my ears.
     
  15. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    Actual/actualmente and actual/actually are false-friend cognates. Look the same; very different meanings. In Spanish those words mean current/currently. In Spanish we would head that sentence with La verdad es que... And it's momento, not momenta, and that's a masculine noun.

    La verdad es que trabajo en un restaurante actualmente.

    Oportunidad is a feminine noun and we're missing a copula verb here.

    ..., pero hay poca oportunidad en mi cuidad.

    When Anglicisms (Midwest) are introduced, unless they have a long history of being borrowed in a different form, they are almost always brought in as masculine nouns. Valle is also masculine.

    There will be, in the way you've intended to use it in the above sentence, doesn't have a single, simple translation. It depends on the circumstance of the rest of the sentence. In the case of There will be more opportunities, we would say either There are more opportunities (Hay más oportunidades) or I will find more opportunities (Encontraré más oportunidades).

    Voy a vivir en el Midwest de los Estados Unidos. En dos o tres meses voy a vivir en el Valle del Sol. Ahí hay más oportunidades.
     
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  16. Artifacs

    Artifacs Senior Member

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    "I will" alone it hasn't a Spanish translation. It lacks information. You cannot translate "I will" in Spanish without a context.

    You may say:
    A: Will you come to my party tonight? /¿Vendrás a mi fiesta esta noche?
    B: I will (go to your...) / Iré.

    So, I will = Iré (first singular person of the future of the verb IR)

    But If you ask anything else...

    A: Will you close the door, please? /¿Cierras la puerta, por favor?
    B: I will (close the...) / Sí (Yes)
    Because we usually are too lazy to answer, (La cerraré)

    I will = Sí.

    There's no unique translation.
     
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  17. Wreybies

    Wreybies Thrice Retired Supporter Contributor

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    This is because the use of will in this context in English is part of do-support, which is a grammatical feature not many languages have. Spanish does* not make use of do-support at all; hence, the different ways to create the same structure lean on other, varied syntactic structures.

    *That's do-support in action. ;)
     
  18. Bobby Burrows

    Bobby Burrows Banned Contributor

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    Hola amigas y amigos.
     
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  19. Bobby Burrows

    Bobby Burrows Banned Contributor

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    I must confess, I do Spanglish.
     

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