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tuparientemateo

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Everything posted by tuparientemateo

  1. This is cool, I'm going to try it. They have the episodes on iTunes as well, I just looked. There's hundreds... :amazed:
  2. I saw this video a week ago and think it might help you out. It's not completely known how many families or origins there are, and there are thousands of languages.
  3. Hola, sí, yo hablo Español también. That's a great place to live, I'm very jealous. Welcome to the forums.
  4. Hi and welcome. You're pretty talented with languages, it'll be cool to get your views on things. See you on the boards.
  5. I think the biggest thing with listening to any second language is just being very present and listening as carefully as you can. When you listen very carefully, you should only need two plays if you have decent experience with the language, and three or four if you are intermediate to beginner. Everyone is obviously different, but this is what I do. I think podcasts are great, there's lots of content to be found, and you're still listening to English. Try getting some conversational English into your study as well though.
  6. While it's not perfect, there's a pretty cool little extension for google chrome (and probably for other browsers if you look for it) called "language emersion." It replaces words at the rate you set, like 3/4 of the page etc., and puts them in the language you are learning. If you don't know the word, you can hover over it and see the google translate definition. Google Translate is not the best, so this has some translating issues, but it's overall a very cool way to learn. Also, radio is a great way to learn new Spanish as well.
  7. Lol, I've said I was pregnant lots of times before learning that. Another really good one to know is actualmente . This doesn't mean "actually," it means at this moment, or right now. Instead, use de verdad or something with verdad in it. This bit me so many times in Spanish classes.
  8. Usually, the good old dirty trick to know if you don't want to memorize the list of rules that go with ser and estar is this: estar means temporary status, and ser is more of a permanent status. So if the knife "está" limpio, it is temporarily clean but can get dirty later. If ser/es was used, it would be a permanent characteristic that it would always be clean. Sucio makes a lot more sense. If you use estar to say it is dirty/sucio, it means it's dirty but can be cleaned and fixed. If you use ser, it means it is permanently dirty and irreplaceable, kind of like if you got motor oil on a t-shirt. Hope this makes sense!
  9. It really works well. When I was in high school, I took four years of the hardest classes they had. The first year, we learned the grammar/vocabulary as much as possible, and the teacher was a native so he gradually got us used to talking in Spanish only by the end of the year, and with the common commands. The rest of the three years we had to speak in Spanish. You get so used to it it's scary, and it really helps you to get a bunch of phrases down pat. I'd heavily recommend learning/teaching this way.
  10. English is definitely harder to learn. The sounds that native English speakers have to learn in Spanish aren't really that difficult, the hardest being the rolling R. Spanish speakers have to learn to say the D sound, and the TH sound, and a bunch of other awkward ones for them to say. Also, it is very difficult to memorize and use different meanings of a word, which English is full of. Spanish has a lot of specific words that minimize confusion in their uses. Lastly, I'm not too sure because I've always known English, I've heard Spanish grammar is one of the easiest in language learning.
  11. I'll go ahead and beat the dead horse again real quick. Use tú when you know someone well, or they are some kind of friend/family member of yours. (Could be a co-worker as well that you have been around for a while, etc.) However, it is best to default to using usted. If anything, the person can always tell you to call them tú. Usted is more of a formal way of saying you. I worked with a woman from México, and she got angry/annoyed that I didn't address her as Señora or use usted when talking to her. So just use it when you're not sure.
  12. Just going by sound alone, I really like the way French sounds. Going by culture, and the places you can visit/live, I really like Germanic languages like German and Dutch. However, my favorite language overall is Spanish. It's a really sexy language, and it's ordered really well. My least favorite language is probably Russian for no reason. It just seems really complex to me.
  13. Yes, I used to have Spanish teacher in grade school who had a rack in the front of the room. He had us read them while we were waiting for other people to be done with tests and stuff. I really enjoy reading fiction and short stories in Spanish. It helps your reading and vocabulary a lot. The only real book I can remember is Don Quixote because I've read it so many times. I've read a bunch more though.
  14. Thanks for the insight. That's pretty cool to hear the views from English speakers as a second language. I think Pesto is right. Americans tend to just lump everybody that sounds like a British person all into one accent and kind of forgets about paying attention to how many accents there are in the world. I've got respect for you guys. As a Spanish learner, I basically only have 3 kinds of accents to worry about, you all have atleast 5 from what I heard. :grin:
  15. I think a private tutor would be the best, especially if that person is either a native speaker or has experience living in a native place speaking the language. You can have concepts explained to you a lot better, and also have your pronunciation and grammar be a lot better while you learn your language and practice. However, videos, software, and books are also nice supplementary sources and never hurt to read/watch.
  16. In grade school it is not mandatory in Kentucky. However, I went to a Catholic school and had Spanish for all 8 years of grade school. It wasn't the best, but I still had the classes. In high school it is mandatory for 2 years in all schools, but I took all four to take advantage of it. I didn't really get serious learning/classes until this point. I think it helped immensely to have classes as soon as possible. It only spreads out the workload, and younger kids learn better. I wish the classes I had in grade school were as hard as my math classes were, it would have made my life easier later.
  17. I have a friend from Honduras who only spoke English like an American. The rest of his family spoke both Spanish and English. He hated it and really tried as hard as he could to learn Spanish so he could talk to his family and live his culture. I think it's just lazy/unthoughtful parenting to not expose your kid to the languages you know. It could be an easy way to support yourself later in life, and is also an invaluable skill.
  18. As a native speaker, I also love the Scottish accent. It sounds so cool and different. It's interesting to hear from a non-native speaker's view how hard it is to hear and understand the different accents. So are the English (British) the easiest to understand and the Scottish the hardest?
  19. Me encanta levantar las pesas y mantenerme en forma. Me gusta volar los aviones (soy piloto), escuchar la música, los podcasts, y la radio. También hago muchas cosas con mis amigos y mi novia, y los fines de semanas normalmente salgo a la casa de mi abuela para cenar y disfrutar mi familia.
  20. Normalmente, no veo los programas en español, pero voy a ver algunos episodios de tu lista en el futuro. :grin: Ahora, veo el programa de AMC que se llama Halt and Catch Fire. Es fantástico. Los personajes son muy buenos, y después de cada episodio, quiero más. Ellos casi están terminados con la primera serie.
  21. Me gusta la música rap en español, pero nunca puedo recordar los nombres de los artistas. Mis canciones favoritas típicamente son de Cuba, pero también me gusta calle trece.
  22. No he probado las tapas, pero me gustaría mucho. Hay tantas de ellas, y son fantásticas. Me encanta toda la comida de Latinoamérica, pero mi favorita es las chimichangas. Específicamente, me encantan con la carne de res y pollo.
  23. I have never been a fan of any of Shakespeare's plays to be honest. I tried so hard to understand why everyone considered them to be so wonderful, but then I realized anything that I have to try that hard to like is probably just not for me. If I had to pick one that I didn't mind as much as the others, it would be Macbeth, but I still wasn't too big of a fan of this one either.
  24. Stow it in my pocket and use it when I'm in a Spanish-speaking country. I have plans to be a professional pilot in the future, and I've met plenty of people who cross the pond nearly every week and go to countries like Spain. So it should be pretty useful just to have in case I go into a country where everyone speaks it, and not have to worry about being totally lost about what's going on around me. There are also plenty of Spanish-speakers to talk to in the US.
  25. No I have never tried it. I have tried watching movies without success because they were too hard to follow. Thanks everyone for the suggestions, I might start trying to watch a few to get my comprehension better. Hopefully they aren't like the American ones, because I have never been a huge fan of any of the ones that run on the local channels around dinner time. They seem like a great way to practice though.
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