altrouge

Hi there, if you're referring to the preterite tense, it goes like this : -ar é aste ó amos asteis aron -er í iste ió imos isteis ieron -ir í iste ió imos isteis ieron You just take off the -ar,-er, or -ir and replace it with these depending on whether it's first, second, or third person. The order for above goes : I You (singular) He/She/It We You (plural) They There's also the ones for imperfect, irregular imperfect and the one where you add a variation of "haber" before the verb, but those are the basics. I actually had notes on this back in secondary school since I always forgot them as well. Seems like they were a good idea after all.

Hello, welcome to linguaholic! Enjoy your stay In that Latin phrase you mentioned, I only understood "semper". I guess I've watched too much NCIS that "Semper fidelis" or "Semper fi" is just stuck on my head now.

Hi there, welcome to linguaholic! As you seem eager to learn a new language, which one are you thinking of? There's a lot of choices but there must be one that really fascinates you

Here that doesn't really come in until you're up for an interview. If you're applying for a job you usually just send in your CV (Curriculum Vitae) providing basic information about yourself, information about your skills, and your previous jobs and experiences if there's any. If you gained achievements in the previous work place (employee of the month etc.) or if you gained significant achievements in school (if applying for a part time job I guess) it's best to put it in as well. If they contact you for an interview that's where you usually prepare for that big question which is "Why should we hire you?".

I'm not sure, and my parents aren't here for me to ask, but I'm going to assume that it's either "Mammy" or "Daddy". After all I think most kids start of with those words. I've probably said a lot of gibberish already even before that but it wouldn't count as a proper word so :wacky:

I'm from Ireland and we do speak English here, and the term would be Mammy and Daddy. The difference is with the spelling for "mother" as well. In America it's Mommy/Mom, in England it's Mummy/Mum, but here it's Mammy/Mam.

Oh sorry about that, I was referring to your accent, actually. I believe I'm not using the right term to describe it but it was as close as I can think of. Well I think you haven't been able to shake off the accent because you haven't really figured out what exactly is making you still sound American. Well I think you can now try again based from what the other replies said that gives it away

I think they are, but I believe it still depends on what seems to work best for a specific person. Some people learn well in the classroom, others by textbooks and other resources, others online, and some by talking to native speakers. Still I don't think online tutorials are any less effective. If it's a video, it can get a lot of people started with the basics and give them an idea on pronunciations that aren't quite clear on books as well.

I just had to bookmark this thread. The thought of learning German is much better now especially when looking at video tutorials, as I have no idea of pronouncing a lot of things in their language.

My first Spanish lesson was back in secondary school. However, I already had some idea on the language even before that, so learning wasn't really that hard for me compared to my classmates at the time. I already knew a few sentences and the words were very familiar due to my mother's native tongue that I learned growing up. The only problem now though is for me to be fluent at it.

Hi there! I have listened to the link, and to me, you just sound American. I'm not that familiar with Mexican Spanish, but comparing it to that from Spain, your accent is "soft". I'm not sure how to explain it, but there's really a difference between what you and a Spanish person sounds like. It reminded me back in secondary school when my Maths teacher was asking my Spanish classmate not to be aggressive when she was asking a question.. She didn't realise that it was just her accent Aside from this, there are some words you said that gave it away. I'm not sure if it's the same in Mexico, but here in Spain a few letters are pronounced different from how it's usually said in English. For "c" it's supposed to sound like "th", same goes for "z". This is in some words only. For example, the name "Cecilia" will be pronounced as "The-thi-lia" and "caballo" will be "ka-ba-yo". The letter "h" is also not pronounced in some words, for example "hay" is pronounced as "ai". Overall though your accent is good and your pronunciations are clear. I'm pretty sure despite not sounding like a native you are able to communicate well with other people who speak the same language.

I believe that grammar is highly important when learning a language. Well I guess it depends. If you're only learning a few lines for when you're taking a holiday, getting your point across is probably just fine, regardless of grammar. However, if you're someone who is working towards fluency, taking it as a college course, hoping to be a translator and so on, grammar is very important. I guess the more you learn the more your grammar would improve over time anyway, so eventually it will all be fine.

How's it going? I'm altrouge, and I'm from the land of the leprechauns, Ireland. I am currently fluent in two languages, English being one of them obviously, and I am also currently trying to maintain and improve my Spanish. I love learning languages and general and in the future I hope to be able to learn German, Italian, Swedish, and Japanese as well. I know it's a handful but still, I'd love to know them all!

I guess I learned my second language even before I started going to school. I live in Ireland but my mother is not from here, so she is bilingual. Whenever we take holidays in her home country, people can speak English, but of course they would prefer using their primary language even if English was also an official language there. I had to learn to sort of fit in. However learning a language I really wanted to learn started in Secondary School. I chose Spanish. In my previous secondary school languages were not offered but when I transferred to a new one there was a choice of German, Spanish, and French. Everyone already started from first year and I transferred on senior year so I was pretty much behind everyone else. I chose Spanish not only because it interests me, but also because I knew that I would be able to pick it up in only two school years. I'd have to say that it was a fun experience and even if I graduated now, I still hope on maintaining and improving my Spanish. I'm still not fluent mainly because I have no one to talk to, so I've had no practice.