Trellum

That's really interesting, I'm a native english speaker and french is supposed to be easy to learn for me, but to be honest that language is way too tedious for me. It's interesting to hear the experience of a person who actually tried learning both languages, but decided to stick to spanish instead So... what's your spanish level now? Are you fluent enough or you're still having some trouble with the grammar and the accent?

This is the very first time I hear this word in my life! I'm not a native english speaker, but it sounds really wrong even for me! I find it hard to believe that someone on TV used this word, but I had heard that even native english speakers make a couple of mistakes. I guess there are mistakes that are really understandable. This is not the case at all tho, I don't need to be a native english speaker to know that word is just very wrong!

I really recommend you to read the books of Tony Buzan. He's an expert on this topic (truly), I've several books he has written on this subject, and let me tell you his books are very well organized and full of useful exercises that will help you improve your reading speed. Most of his books also include a very efficient method to measure your progress. He has also written a lot books on mental mapping. Mental mapping is a very amazing skill, but it requires a lot time and patience to master it. I recommend you Tony's book for this as well. If I recall right, he was the one who developed this method. Mental mapping is great because it can help you remember a lot things easily (useful for studying) and can also help you to organize your thought and think of new ideas.

The main difference between spanish and french is the pronunciation! The french pronunciation is so different! Actually french and spanish are really different from each other, but italian and spanish seem to be more alike. Those 3 languages are romance ones; they belong to the same language family. That's why they seem to be a bit similar. It's also easier to learn a romance language if your mother language is a romance language as well. But I think an italian guy wouldn't have such a hard time learning spanish, but a spanish speaker would have a hard time learning french.

Hi everyone! I'm a native spanish speaker, and I'm actually surprised to learn there are a lot people trying to learn this language. Spanish can be a bit difficult to learn for all those learners whose native language is not a romance language, this made me wonder... what could be motivating this people to learn spanish? I'd love to hear about your reasons behind the decision to learn spanish. What's motivating you to do so? Is there a real reason or you just like to learn new languages?

Well, I really love to watch movies in spanish, I specially love the spaniard cinema, but there are some really good mexican movies as well. Those are my favorite ones: - Bajo la sal - Kilometro 31 - El orfanato - Los ojos de julia - El espinazo del diablo - El laberinto del fauno - Carne tremula - Todo sobre mi madre - Amores perros - Biutiful Most of those films are spaniard or mexican, I hope you like them

I'd love to see a dutch subforum over here, I think it would be a great additon. I'm currently studying dutch, because I will be traveling there soon and I might be moving there in the future. So it would really help to have a subforum totally dedicated to the dutch language; I have so many doubts and questions!

Voy a robarme a todos tus cachorritos! I love eating hamburgers every sunday!

I always say the same thing when a friend of mine or relative breaks up with someone or is having a hard time finding someone. My mom used to tell me that when I was single It worked, I must admit, I felt a bit better after hearing that. All that is in the past now, because I really think I've found the man I might spend the rest of my days with (I hope so, but you never really know!). I'm glad I'm not longer on the dating scene anymore... there are plenty of fish, but many of those fishies are not for me

Thanks a lot for sharing! I've been looking for a web site like this one for a really long time This site looks like a really well organized one, at first I thought it I would be able to find only phrases from the UK, but I was quite pleased when I found out it was possible to find American ones as well. I've already bookmarked it; thanks a lot I'm sure this will come in handy in the future (I'm trying to improve my english as much as possible).

For me is and has always been ''Teeth''. I also have a lot troubles pronouncing the word ''Pear''. For some reason I can't get that one right most of the time... not without feeling a bit awkward! I have some toruble with english words that have the ''th'' sound. That ones are really hard!

There are some words in english that I haven't heard in a long time (guess they're dead now), which is a pity because it seems people nowdays is trying to communicate using less words than before. - Snoutfair: A person with a beautiful face - Wonder-wench: A true sweetheart - Spermologer: Not what you are thinking, lol! It's basically what we know as a columnist nowadays - Tyromancy: Divining by the coagulation of cheese;

There are several english words I really like Here is a short list of them: - Myriad - Plethora - Diaphanous - Effervescent - Elixir - Ethereal - Furtive - Harbinger - Lissome

Hi there! Here are some phrases that will surely come in handy: Dónde está el baño? - Where is the bathroom? Dónde puedo tomar un taxi? - Where can I find a taxi? Qué hora es? - What time is it? Hablas inglés? - Do you speak english? Sabes donde puedo encontrar... - Do you know where I can find... Ayuda! - Help! Puedo usar su telefono? - May I use your phone? Sabes donde está x direccion? - Do you know where x address is? By the way, if you are going to mexico, you should really try to get familiar with the accent there. The course capriaca recommended is of a spanish with ''spaniard'' accent. The mexican accent is more neutral. If I were you, I'd search for a course with a more neutral accent, not necessarily a mexican one. Because I realize there aren't many courses out there that come with that accent. If possible try to find a spanish course that uses the voices of native spanish speakers from mexico.

Well, I usually use ''con permiso'' when I want to get past some people who are actually blocking my way. I never use ''permiso'' alone. So when you are in a situation like this, where you want to get past some people or just grab something you can always safely say ''con permiso''. Disculpa is also ok in some circumstances, but not all. I usually use disculpa when addressing someone I don't know and I need to ask something. Like for example when I'm eating at a restaurant... I say something like this: ''mesero! disculpe, me puede traer otro vaso con agua, por favor?''. Or: ''Disculpa, esto es tuyo?'', ''Disculpa, sabes dónde hay otra parada de camión?''.

There are some strange spanish idioms and sayings that really puzzle me, specially in my country. We have some of the most weird idioms/sayings over here, some of them are really ''colorful'' and don't make too much sense to me. Here are some popular sayings: A palabras de borracho, oídos de jicarero - This saying advices us to play deaf when we hear senseless blabbering. No hay que buscarle mangas al chaleco - This saying basically advices us not to look for trouble in an odd way. No hay que buscarle tres pies al gato - Basically the same as the saying above. Del plato a la boca se cae la sopa - There´s many a slip between the cup and the lip Do you know more?

I've some: ''Mas vale tarde que nunca'' - Better late than never. ''A caballo regalado no se le ve colmillo'' - You shouldn't look for defects in things that were given away to you or learn to be more grateful when someones give you something.

I know a really funny one, my aunt used to say this to my cousins when they were bothering her: Ve a ver si ya puso la marrana This phrase in itself doesn't make much sense, people used to say this phrase when they wanted the other person to just go away. Another interesting idiom is: ''No te metas en camisa de once varas''. Can't even think of a way to translate that, lol! You basically say this phrase to someone you want to give an advice to. It's something like ''save yourself the hassle''. That's the closest phrase I could think of in english :shy:

So far I'd say I've mastered the english language only, but I'd not quite says my english is 100% perfect. I still have some doubts, and I feel like I could expand my vocabulary even more. But on the other hand, I'm a native spanish speaker... and I know very few people with a perfect spanish. So far I've met none, lol. At least not in real life...

I bought the dutch and the hebrew audio courses, but I wasn't quite happy with the dutch one. My boyfriend is a native dutch speaker, and he told me the word they use to say ''good bye'' in this course is not used at all in the Netherlands! That made me feel very disappointed, so I stopped using it. I still like the hebrew course tho. So far I haven't found any kind of error, but I haven't completed the course. So I still got to see whether the hebrew audio course is error free or not. So far I can say this method is great, at least it is for me.

Oh, I'm really sorry!!! I hadn't seen it until now. I just opened this one because I thought there wasn't a topic talking about this. My sincere apologies! I just joined the forum a couple of days ago; I think 3 days ago to be exact.

\ Hebrew is really easy! Specially reading it But I agree with you, the fact this language uses no vowels can be really confusing for all those people who are just starting to learn this language. I'd never say this was the hardest language I've tried to learn tho. In my opinion the hardest language I've tried to learn so far is with no doubt dutch! I just don't get the dang pronunciation!!! Also the excessive amount of consonants in some words is just crazy! I also hate the fact some of the words don't even resemble their written for at all! Like the word for ''mafrau'' <---- that's how it is pronounced!!! No idea how the heck I should be writing it!

I'd love to learn to speak colloquial hebrew, I understand some hebrew already, but I really need to learn more. That's the next language I'd like to learn, right now I'm studying dutch because I might be going there on January. Right now I'm not very sure I'll be going tho (I was planning to go with my boyfriend, but things are a bit iffy right now). If I ditch dutch anytime soon, I'll definitely dedicate my time to studying hebrew I really love the way it sounds, plus my grandmother was a sephardic jew (mother side), so I'd really like to visit Israel one day.

I started learning english when I was just 16 years old. I had english when I was going to the junior high school, but my teacher didn't really seem to know what she was doing. The educational system in my country is not the best, I heard most students are still revieving the verb ''to be'' in High school, lol. So yeah, there is no way I would have been able to learn english that way! I heard they're working on that tho, now they have specialized teachers in most schools. According to them, by the time the students finally graduate from High School... they'll already be 100% bilingual.

I learnt english entirely on my own! I never took a class or a course with other people. I learnt english online, I used Yahoo! chat a lot for that when I was just starting to learn the language. I used to sit there just looking at what the people typed in the main chat. I also listened to what the people said on the microphone. After that I started contacting people from english speaking countries So yeah, I had a lot pen pals I learnt most of my english that way. The whole process way very natural! I don't know how or why I started learning english, I was just 16 years old and it just happened that way!