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czarina84

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Everything posted by czarina84

  1. I agree with reverserewind. I don't teach, but the teachers that I have learned from used everyday objects, as opposed to textbooks, to help us learn. One used songs; the other used games. The only time that my French teacher used the textbook was for a game where he would say an object in French and we were to find what page it was on and say the page number in French.
  2. What exactly do you mean by "babble"? Is it speaking gibberish or just going on and on, sort of like rambling?
  3. There's a post that speaks about some of the basics of Hebrew, however, there's nothing about pronunciation. I was wondering if anyone on here speaks it. I know very small amount of pronunciation, like how the CH has that very specific sound, but beyond that I'm stumped. Are there any tips you can give someone with near nonexistent exposure to the language? I'm mainly concerned with pronunciation of the words.
  4. This is probably a silly question, but is there pop music in Hebrew? It doesn't have to specifically be pop; it could be rap or r&b or even some kind of music that is unique to Hebrew.
  5. I noticed you mentioned Ashkhanzi and Sefardi; are there different types of Hebrew? Different dialects as there are in other languages, like Chinese has Mandarin, Cantonese, Han and so on? I'm interested in learning it because I just started with a transcription company that is run by people who are Orthodox and they all speak Hebrew. They do speak English as well, but still, I would like to learn and it would be nice to learn the right one.
  6. Actually, I have already heard of Reggaeton. I love it. My favorite is probably the Kumbia Kings. I also like Daddy Yankee.
  7. I have heard murder used like this before. For example, "These heels (high-heeled shoes) are murder on my feet" or "killing my feet", meaning that they are making someone's feet hurt. They are making it more difficult to walk, dance, etc. I think the murder one is more commonly used in England than the US, though. Here we say killing instead.
  8. Where I live, you are lucky to get French and Spanish, much less languages like Hindi, Greek or Russian or anything else. It's terrible the lack of access you have to languages without the internet. What a wonderful invention to bring us together like this.
  9. Wow. These replies are great. I have so many new artists to look up. Keep them coming. DivaDee, I completely understand. I am also from the US. We used to have a college station that played the underground stuff, but that's been replaced by a classical music show. I also dislike most mainstream. I'll listen to some of it occasionally, but I'm more for the "worked my way up, struggled and this is how" kind of stuff. One of my favorite artists is Angie Martinez.
  10. They both sound very cool. I enjoy many types of music, real hip-hop (not just about drugs and sleeping around, but actual story-telling) is just the type I like best. I will see if I can find these artists. Thank you.
  11. I see a lot on here about experts in Spanish on YouTube, but how can you tell if they are teaching you properly? How can you tell who are the experts versus people who are just trying to make a YouTube video to get hits?
  12. "March to the beat of your own drummer" has always been my favorite. I means to be unique instead of conforming. To be yourself despite what is "normal". "Stop the music!" means to quiet down and pay attention. "Chin music" is basically talking or chatting.
  13. I haven't gotten to Japanese yet, but it is so wonderful to hear these kanji stories. I had no idea that they were two pieces. I always just thought it was one picture represents one word. I didn't realize that each part of the kanji represented a different part of the word. Very cool, indeed.
  14. I am confused by this word. In the Spanish dictionaries, it is always defined as dark hair or skin, so I thought that it was either a brunette or a Latina. Someone told me that it is used to describe women with dark skin and hair. If this is true, then what is the Spanish word for a Caucasian woman with dark hair, be it black or brown?
  15. I completely agree. I am a native speaker of English and I'm either teaching other native speakers new words or learning them myself.
  16. I don't know about that. I agree that Italian and Spanish have more in common, but I have been able to figure out some Italian because of words that I knew it both Spanish and French. Granted, I completely agree that French is a bit removed from the others, but some simple words, like, no, non, et cetera, are pronounced the same way, even though they are spelled differently. I wonder how French ended up so different when it is also a Romance language. However, look at English. It's a Germanic language and pretty different from Eastern European languages.
  17. That "old chestnut" means a joke, idea or story that has lost its novelty due to many retellings. "Lead up the garden path" means to make someone believe something is not true. "Off the beaten path" means somewhere secluded, isolated.
  18. I get what you are saying about expanding the students' learning, but how could you possibly teach all of the accents in a language? Let's take American, for example. We have Mid-Atlantic, Bostonian, Southern, Midwestern and New England, just to name a few. Most of them have not only their own accent, but their own words, as well. I'm not sure how you can fit all of that into a curriculum. Mentioning it to them so that they are aware is one thing, but I have no idea how anyone would have the time to teach/learn all of that.
  19. Okay. I just say the part where you said that he was criticized for his pronunciation not being correct. I didn't realize you meant that his accent just interfered. I thought you meant he was giving the wrong intonation. Like saying dove (bird), instead of dove (past tense of to dive). Obviously not those exact words, but an example of what happens when you pronounce something incorrectly and change it's meaning.
  20. Thank you. I would appreciate that. I was thinking of it before, but in the world of YouTube, it's difficult to tell sometimes who knows what they are talking about versus who just wants to be on the internet.
  21. Nope. At this point, I'm lucky if I'm conversational. The good news is that I can pick words out of conversations. The bad news is that with two jobs and a two-year-old, it harder and harder to find time to learn. Any downtime that I have goes to learning, but sadly, I don't have that much downtime.
  22. I forgot "to take it on the chin". It just popped into my head. It's derived from boxing. It means to take the full brunt of something or to not succumb to adversity.
  23. Thank you for the warning. I was not aware of that. I will look elsewhere for pronunciation, as well. If the pronunciation is wrong, that could anger a lot of native speakers, or in some cases, change the meaning of the word.
  24. I would have to say that it depends on the language. For the most part, pronunciation has not really been a problem for me. I can overcome most obstacle with that. In some languages, like Spanish, for example, sentence structure and idioms have me hung up. I have a lot of trouble with the syntax.
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