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mleocasas

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Everything posted by mleocasas

  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?
  16. This is interesting...does the idiom have the same weight in Spanish? I mean, is it a common term, or just the best fitting translation of the text?
  17. 'fuddy-duddy'- real hyphenated word for a person who is outdated or socially awkward. But English has lots of weird instances in which slang words have been inducted into the Oxford and Webster canons. 'Bootylicious' became a codified word according these dictionaries a few years back.
  18. I had not even an inkling of a clue about the origins of 'kick the bucket' before reading this thread. That's really interesting. I wish I knew more about the ontology of all of those kinds of idioms and phrases....I'll definitely be checking out that Lakoff book. Does anyone have any further book recommendations as far as the etymology of English words? Like where the roots, prefixes, and suffixes originate from linguistically/historically? I just have no idea where to begin to research that kind of thing.
  19. I like "mum's the word," which is an assurance that a secret will be kept. As an example for any non-native speakers: P1: Please don't tell anyone P2: Mum's the word. P1: Thank you. It's really more British, and I'm a US speaker, but it jsut had such a fun, old-timey ring to it.
  20. I would be more inclined to say: 1-He told me he would go tot he pool (you don't need 'has,' because the indefinite past is already implied by 'told') alternate example: I was sick, so he BROUGHT me flowers last week 2-He had told me he would go to school (This is correct, but unlike sentence one, the use of the word 'had' implies a more specific instance in which he told you where he was going) alternate example: He HAD BROUGHT me flowers when I was sick.
  21. 'I stopped smoking' implies that you stopped smoking at some unspecified point in the past, either temporarily or permanently (the sentence doesn't state which). ex. I stopped smoking and went inside. 'I stopped to smoke' means that you stopped doing something else and began to smoke. ex. I was eating a sandwich, but then I stopped to smoke.
  22. Internet speak (like using words like 'thru' and 'watever') has definitely invaded the way we speak off the internet at this point. I'm a little torn about how I feel about it...I mean, so long as communication is occurring in a natural and uninhibited way we should be satisfied...but on the other hand, it does feel a little like we are condoning less than par effort in learning the language. I haven't really noticed this kind of thing having an effect on people being able to understand correct spellings and syntax though. Like I don't see anyone who commonly uses acronyms and internet speak struggling with Twain or Orwell directly because of this. Has anyone else seen this? it would be interesting to investigate the effects of mass communication on our understanding of 'formal' language.
  23. I'm a huge advocate of learning through examples and context rather than using the systematic approach. At the end of the day the goal should be to make students comfortable with language first, then they can be analytical about it. Of course, the rules of conjugation, gender assignment, and sentence structure are necessary tools for learning, but I think we too often confuse kids and adults alike by throwing drills and out of context structures at them. You're much more well equipped to communicate in a foreign language if you can say and understand simple things fluently than you are if you can deconstruct very complex things over time.
  24. I think learning to speak a new language colloquially is a lot easier now. Where you have a lot of people who moved to a foreign country as a child 50 years ago and learned to speak, say English, from watching 'I Love Lucy' and hearing the people around them talk, now you have people who can expose themselves to casual conversation and resources like that almost instantaneously. Conversely though, because people spend so much time communicating in these new ways we lose the 'edit before publishing' quality of books, encyclopedias, and dictionaries. The value of learning english from edited sources is in the fact that the quirky (and sometimes just incorrect) mannerisms of everyday speech are filtered out. Whether or not it's better to be comfortable with formal or informal speech though, is up for debate.
  25. English definitely opens up A world, if not THE world. I mean, just imagine what kind of new cultural and communicative experiences Spanish offers in South America, North America, and Europe...and French offers in Canada, the Caribbean, and France...and Arab offers in Northern Africa and Southern Asia...and Chinese for a sixth of the world's population....Glad you've found so much satisfaction with English:) Just don't stop there!
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