Lola

I plan on using my knowledge in Spanish to help customers in my pharmacy. I will probably go to my favorite Mexican restaurant, and surprise them by ordering in Spanish. There are just too many uses for this language, when you live somewhere that has a lot of Spanish speaking people.

I have a question, is Mandarin and Chinese the same language? A while back, I thought it would be nice to speak Chinese. When I go out to my favorite Chinese restaurant, I love hearing the lady talk to the cook. I picked up My Chinese Coach, a learning game for my 3DS. I played it for a while, but got stuck on the writing part. However, I am confused, because I am not sure if Chinese and Mandarin are the same. I ask because there is this cartoon show called Ni Hao Kai Lan. On the show she used a lot of words I picked up from the game, but she said she speaks Mandarin.

Yea, I was thinking a lot of the quotes I know are not suitable to post on here. The South seems to be full of funny and colorful people. I really am not sure if there are any other people out there like us!

I live in America and we have a good bit of Hispanics here. I always see the older ones fumbling with English or have their kids translate. I figure with me working in a pharmacy it might come in handy to just speak to someone directly in their language. Any language is confusing and I just want to make things easier for everyone. It never hurts to be bilingual on an application, too.

I am from the South, so I know a few. Here is one I have heard since I was little. "Drunker than Cooter Brown." I always wondered who this Cooter Brown was. He must have had a heck of a time, for this saying to get passed around! I can not wait to see what else gets shared! I have always had an interest in funny sayings.

I thought I would help all of the people who are trying to learn English. There are quite a few words that can get confusing, "lose" and "loose" being some of them. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. Lose: You have misplaced or lost something. Lose is a verb. Ex. I often lose my keys. Loose: An item is not secure. Wiggly and not tight. Loose can be a verb and an adjective. Ex. I lost a lot of weight, and now my pants are loose.

To all those who have downloaded the speed course, how is it going so far. I want to download it, but I would love some feedback on how it is going first. Does it just give you a general grasp of the language or are you really picking Spanish up?

When I go to visit my mom, her town often has a variety of newspapers and such in Spanish. I was thinking about grabbing some, to get a feel for reading Spanish. Maybe even cut out sections to practice translating. Has anyone tried this? I just think I am a visual person and I like to mix up my learning techniques. Do you think there would be a lot of errors grammar wise? I would hate to learn one way and find out I had something terribly wrong!

I have read that if you listen to something while you fall asleep, your brain retains the info. That is why I thought buying the recorder might be a good idea. Recording television shows might help me, too. I just feel like I pick up more, with various teaching tools. Just studying gets boring, sometimes.

Has anyone had any luck with picking up Spanish by listening to voice recordings? I saw a recorder on sale this week and thought it might come in handy. When I was in school I memorized history lessons like this, but I am not sure about language. I figure if I can find some stuff online and record it, I can listen at bedtime and soak in some information.

I am the worst, when it comes to pronunciation! I have always had a problem with rolling "r's". For some reason, my mouth likes to flub it up. When I was little, I even had to take a speech class because my mouth did not seem to want to work with me! Thanks for the hints, maybe with practice I can get pronunciation down pat.

Quizlet is this online study site I found. You use it to study anything, not just language. You sign up for the site and create a set of terms and the site translates it into games and study guides for you. So say you do not want to create a set, you can just search and see if someone has something you would like to study. There is just so much there, I am not sure what to start studying. So, I thought if someone here had a nice set they could direct me to, it would help me out.

I figure that a lot of what language you pick up, would be slang and such. You might pick up a lot of the language, but whether or not it is correct grammar might not be known. I am not sure if I could be an English teacher. I find myself Googling correct grammar all the time!

I had a couple of friends who moved to Korea to be English teachers. They taught the English language to kids/teens and others, thus picking up the native language themselves. So, has anyone here moved to a Spanish speaking country to pick up the language better or even considered it? I was thinking it would be a great idea, especially if you went there to teach English or whatever your native tongue is. I figure it is like trading one language for another.

I am still new to Spanish, so I like to use "¿Que Pasa?" and "Hola". I enjoyed seeing some of these other ways to say hello. So, "¿Que onda?" means "what's up indeed"? Forgive me if i misunderstood. I'm thinking about adding it to my mix, I think it sounds kind of funny and I like it.

I was not sure if this should go in Apps or here, so excuse me if this is in the wrong place. I came across the website Quizlet when I was looking for a study site. I am a complete beginner when it comes to Spanish, so I know basically nothing. So, does anyone have any experience with learning a language or even supplementing learning Spanish through Quizlet? Can you direct me to helpful sets? I just do not have time to be using stuff that might be detrimental to learning the language. Thanks for any thoughts and suggestions!

It really never occurred to me that other languages have their own sentence structure rules. I guess when you have known your native tongue all your life, you just figure that all other languages are the same as yours, just translated. Thanks for the advice! I think this bit of info, along with your other tips, is going to really help my learning process. Thanks!

I think the wrong way to learn Spanish is the way I learned in school. My twelve grade Spanish class was horrible. My teacher handed out worksheets. Most of those sheets were like the kind you get in preschool except in place of English words saying one pig or yellow crayon, there were Spanish words. We then were told where the English/Spanish dictionaries were on the bookshelf. We received a few grammar worksheets, but no training in hearing the words. It was a complete disgrace! So, in saying all that, I think the best way to learn would be to go through all the ways there are. Tailor the learning to you and pick the best ways that help you with what you need from the language.

I tend to be a fast reader, but I am learning to slow it down. Sometimes I just get so excited, I want to hurry up and see what happens next! I think reading fast is both bad and good. Sometimes I miss little details and have to go back and reread.

I am not that far in my language studies, but I always think in English. I can not be a hundred percent on my answer, but it seems my brain would get jumbled. I might pop up one or two foreign words, but I think mainly my thoughts will stay in my native tongue. I wonder if there is a link between how you learn things and if you will speak the foreign language in your head?

My name is Lola and I am here to learn and maybe have a little fun. I'm here for Spanish, but I am interested in Mandarin. I hope I can pick up a new language, especially since jobs like to look out for candidates who can talk to many people. I guess this is the part where I tell you that I love my cats, reading, and I am a big nerd. I love to crochet and do most of any crafty thing. I am also really fond of baking. Breads and sweets are my specialty, but I like to try anything. I guess I will leave it at that, can't give away everything in one go!