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Linguaholic

mleocasas

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  • Currently studying
    Latin, Spanish
  • Native tongue
    English
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  1. Is it exclusively for android? I mean...isn't it a little weird that an app named 'iHola' would be incompatible with the iPhone? Haha, just kind of a passing observation. :wacky:
  2. I second those translations! I would actually prefer to use the second one (substituting 'pensar' for the second 'que'), because I think it flows more naturally. It's also a fun way to play with the difference between the verb 'creer' and 'pensar,' which are often confused with one another.
  3. !Nunca creerán lo que pasó! Why do you like to eat spicy food?
  4. That kind of an inversion seems to be very experimental- almost like the way Shakespeare played with sentence structure. I would think focusing on an oddball phrasing like that would confuse your understanding of the language. I don't mean for that to sound condescending at all though. In fact, i think there's a lot of native English speakers who don't understand how tricky the grammar is in cases like that, and they take it for granted. So you're one step ahead of them as far as having a real understanding of the language.
  5. I'm a native English speaker, but I know if I tried to read books in the foreign languages I'm currently studying in I'd be super confused! But, that being said, I think it's great that so many people are dedicated enough to struggle through that to grapple with a new language. For me, when learning Spanish, I spent a lot of time watching Spanish American television and trying to piece together the conversations in context. I think it helped me a lot in understanding the flow of everyday spoken Spanish, and a as my vocabulary and accent improved I was able to speak more naturally because of it. Based on that, I'd recommend anyone learning English to try and be perceptive to conversations in English going on around them, and if there aren't any going on around you, start makin' them happen!
  6. Wow, I just started a thread about trying to find good beginner resources for learning Chinese...I think this'll be right up my alley once I get up and running with studying the language. Thanks so much:) How do you come across apps and resources like this though?
  7. You've come to the right place:) I'm relatively new to the forum myself, but it's already been a pretty amazing resource. Enjoy!
  8. So I'm a native English speaker, currently studying Latin, Spanish, and a bit of French, but I want to break out of the romantic language mold and try to study a Semitic language like Aramaic or Far Eastern Language like Chinese. The problem is that i don't even know what resources to start with. The languages are constructed very differently since they're not even in the same family as the languages I'm accustomed to, right? Could anyone point me in the direction of some goo beginner resources? Thanks:)
  9. Spanish is one of the most widely spoken languages, both by geographic spread and total number of speakers. It's such a door-opener for anyone looking to learn about or within other cultures. As a language nerd, like most people on this forum are, I also think that if you live in North America, Spanish is a very good 'gateway' language. It's easily accessible and applicable to things around us Americans in everything from street signs to on-the-street conversations. Learning Spanish can really help get people interested in studying the nuances of languages that make them similar at times, and very different at other times.
  10. I hope this isn't to inappropriate for the forum! I think it's all in good fun:)
  11. Just to clarify; a copular verb links the subject and the complement. ex) He WALKS funny. She STANDS erect. He ACTS mean. In all of these sentences the complements, like 'funny', 'erect', and 'mean', clarify how the verb is being done, unlike simple adverbs which qualify the verb. The verb form in these sentences is copular, or linking.
  12. Try using similar terms like these in context to get clarity: ex) I eat the most apples out of all of my friends. I eat most apples, but not all of them. 'The most' implies a comparison involving the subject, and 'most' implies a majority of the predicate. You can say how when using 'the most' we are talking about how YOU are eating more apples then THEM. When we use 'most', however, we are talking about of you eat the majority of APPLES.
  13. I want to read the 'four classics' of Chinese literature, but I don't speak Chinese! I'm trying to track down the best translations of the texts. So far I've conquered Journey to the West, and next on my list is Dream of the Red Chamber (sometimes translated as Dream of the Red Mansion) I was wondering if anyone could help...Even if you don't know of a good specific translation, are there any tips or tricks to choosing a good Chinese to English translation of a novel that I should know about? Thanks guys:)
  14. I could not agree with Marie more. First and foremost we must keep the student's comfort level with the texture and sound of the language as our top priority. Obviously though, we can't expect all of the rules of syntax, grammar, and writing style to simple come together out fo the ability to hold simple conversation. They will have to be taught- I just think that trying to do that first would be like teaching a pilot how to fly before she learns how to take off and land.
  15. So I'm rereading Notes From Underground by Dostoevsky right now, and in the introductory notes there is a lengthy explanation fo how difficult it can be to translate from Russian to English, especially when such emotional and 'weighty' sentences are used. It's interesting to me how there can almost always be a well fitting direct translation, but there isn't always a translation that carries the emotional weight of a sentence across languages. Are there any bilingual people that can think of a sentence that can be translated between languages but just doesn't have the same ring to it in one of the languages as it does in the other? Do you think this is because different languages are built in different ways, or because of cultural differences between where the languages are spoken?
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