What's your main weakness in spanish?

[Cielosur]

My biggest weakness without a doubt has to be the accents.  I speak it fluently and I have no problem expressing my thoughts but if I have to write (or type) something in Spanish I get overwhelmed.  I am constantly second guessing myself and consulting the dictionary to make sure I am getting the accents correctly.  Needless to say, it takes me quite a while to write something in Spanish. 

[tuparientemateo]

My biggest weakness is knowing when to use a fancy tense when I am actually speaking it. By fancy tenses, I don't just mean the subjunctive or preterite, I mean the imperfect subjunctive and pluscuamperfecto tenses. When I learned them they just seemed so difficult and worthless, so I never know when to use them. So when I'm talking to a native and I say something, they'll answer back with that tense and make me feel bad because I didn't use it the first time when I started the conversation.  :bored:Eh, it could be worse. =)

[justinp]

I have a lot of problems with grammar and conjugation. I'm really good at memorizing and using vocabulary, I'm good at reading, but I just have a really hard time trying to figure out what order the words should go in or how to conjugate them.

[babyleans]

Unlike you, i'm not a native Spanish speaker but I'm learning it. My main weakness has to do with differentiating words that sound similar. Sometimes i might use a really bad word while trying to say something completely unrelated.

[joeldeperu]

I also am an Spanish native speaker and I do not understand what you mean when you say you have a weakness in Spanish nad that you need to have your grammar books just in case. This is our mother tongue, so I do not see what weaknesses we could have on this language. I think you might be talking about spelling issues, that is the only thing I can think of as a weakness. But this is improved by praticing and reading a lot.

[missy]

I cannot roll my rs to save my life.  Also my high school spanish teacher used to tell me I spoke "spangish" and ever since then I've been afraid to try to pronounce anything.

Was always much better in reading and even writing than speaking/understanding spoken speech.

[SpeakSpanish]

I think that when it comes to the Spanish language, I do believe that my main weakness has been my level of consistency in practicing with others of my friends who are naturally from Spanish-speaking countries, and also with my English-speaking friends who are seeking to practice Spanish as well.

I think that because I haven't practiced as much as I should have in the past, it has caused me to lose memory of some of the vocabulary that had become indelible in my mind before.

However, I have learned to correct this fault, by constantly and consistently practicing new vocabulary words, listening to BBCMundo podcasts, and reading articles and books that are written in the Spanish language.

[Traveler]

I don't study enough. But I get frustrated trying to listen because it really does seem so rapidly spoken. I am more confident reading it, and so-so on speaking. I'm a higher-level novice I guess. Sometimes I feel lower-intermediate. I have enough of a ¨base¨ in it that I won't regress too much I think...but progressing is definitely a problem. I should probably work on increasing my vocabulary and regular verb conjugations until I am ready to move on.

[TDev]

My main weakness is the pronunciation. I can read and fully understand a text in Spanish, but speaking correctly is a totally different ball game.

Due to the similarities between Portuguese (my mother tongue) and Spanish, there are many Portuguese folks that, when in Spain, speak using Spanish words with a Portuguese accent. Or, in other words, assassinate the language 

Here in Portugal we even have a name for that hybrid language that they speak: "Portunhol" (a mix between "Português" and "Espanhol").

So, I'm currently studying Spanish because I don't want to be one of those "Portunhol" speakers. 

[Trellum]

Hehehehe, yeah, I can imagine how difficult it can be!  I've always thought it must be kinda tricky for Portuguese people to speak Spanish, specially in Spain!  I can't even imagine in Mexico! Both languages re similar, so no wonder you guys try your best to speak it, but end up pronouncing everything with a Portuguese accent, I think I'd do the same if I tried to speak Portuguese, lol.

It's good you are trying to learn Spanish, I'm sure once you do this problem will be solved

[Trellum]

I think that when it comes to the Spanish language, I do believe that my main weakness has been my level of consistency in practicing with others of my friends who are naturally from Spanish-speaking countries, and also with my English-speaking friends who are seeking to practice Spanish as well.

I think that because I haven't practiced as much as I should have in the past, it has caused me to lose memory of some of the vocabulary that had become indelible in my mind before.

However, I have learned to correct this fault, by constantly and consistently practicing new vocabulary words, listening to BBCMundo podcasts, and reading articles and books that are written in the Spanish language.

I know what you mean, I'm currently trying to learn a language as well, but I feel kinda lazy to even practice, even with my boyfriend.  I keep putting it off over and over again. Until the day comes and wonder where the time went.  I'm just a few weeks away from my deadline and here I am, stuck at lesson number 3, lol.

[Trellum]

I also am an Spanish native speaker and I do not understand what you mean when you say you have a weakness in Spanish nad that you need to have your grammar books just in case. This is our mother tongue, so I do not see what weaknesses we could have on this language. I think you might be talking about spelling issues, that is the only thing I can think of as a weakness. But this is improved by praticing and reading a lot.

I was talking about orthography and yes, grammar issues, because it'd be extremely odd to say I believe that because I'm a native Spanish speaker I have NO doubts and I make NO mistakes in Spanish. That's impossible. I know a lot people who definitely make a lot spelling mistakes, heck, even grammar ones.  Sadly, there are people with a lot doubts regarding their mother language, keeping those grammar and orthography books nearby is plain wise and a good use of common sense, IMO.

[Alphonse]

My main weakness in Spanish, even though it's my native tongue, is using "tildes" correctly. I just cannot figure out how to do it. A teacher once told me a trick to using them which works about 80% of the time, but I still have a hard time with that. I wish it was like English and it didn't have "tildes," it would make things a lot easier for me.

[writeletters]

My main issue with Spanish is the conjugation of verbs. It's hard to remember all the rules for the different modos and tenses. But I've found a very useful course on Memrise called 'Easy Spanish | Conjugation'. Its levels go through all sorts of tenses and pronouns. Very useful.

[Trellum]

I hear ya, Spanish comes with a lot tenses and conjugations it's ridiculous, fortunately we don't use all of them! I mean, some of them are just so archaic and no longer in use, so much you'd sound ridiculous if you did.  I guess they will weed out those tenses in the future, since they are rarely used nowadays.

Great to hear you found that site, I'll mention it to my so. It will come in handy if he ever get serious and decides to learn the language

[Trellum]

My main weakness in Spanish, even though it's my native tongue, is using "tildes" correctly. I just cannot figure out how to do it. A teacher once told me a trick to using them which works about 80% of the time, but I still have a hard time with that. I wish it was like English and it didn't have "tildes," it would make things a lot easier for me.

Hehehehe!  Yeah, I used to have problems with that too, amazingly enough there are a lot people who have issues with that. But the ''tildes'' are important, I mean just look at this:

It made me laugh!  But it is true, actually the tildes can change the whole sentence a lot, also where you put the commas and so on.  I actually don't have the best punctuation, my education was weak in that department, I should have paid more attention.

[Baburra]

I've tried learning Spanish and the biggest weakness I've encountered was remembering words that are too far from other languages that I'm used to. Spanish is already very near to my own native language so a lot of the words already sound familiar but there are also some that are completely different from both my native language or English which I am equally used to. I know I could get it memorized with a lot more practice though.

[TheElephantsCafe]

My weakness has always been grammar, as in the actual structure of the sentence. It's such a hard thing for me to get used to, and I always mess up the order I'm supposed to place things. When it comes to adjectives it's fine, those I can deal with, but there's lots of times where you have to say something and the order is completely different than how you'd say it in English. The more I think about it, I also am pretty bad with pairing the correct endings when I'm actually speaking Spanish, I tend to mess up and say things like "Tu camisa es negro" or something instead of "Tu camisa es negra." I get ahead of myself I guess. I'm trying to practice more so that I can get better with these things, but I still tend to make silly mistakes!  :shy:

[Trellum]

Aww, don't worry, I used to make the same mistakes with english   The word order wasn't as confusing as it is for a lot Spanish speakers english tho, because I remembered the rule for that. You can do the same, just remember that if an object ends with a, the ending of the adjective to describe it will also end in a   Of course this isn't right all the time, but most of the time it is

Don't lose hope and go on, Spanish is full of irregularities but I'm sure you can beat them!

[Trellum]

I've tried learning Spanish and the biggest weakness I've encountered was remembering words that are too far from other languages that I'm used to. Spanish is already very near to my own native language so a lot of the words already sound familiar but there are also some that are completely different from both my native language or English which I am equally used to. I know I could get it memorized with a lot more practice though.

I know hat you mean!  You speak Portuguese, but the words aren't spelled the same way in Portuguese as they are in Spanish!  And this is why I don't agree at all with people claiming that already knowing a romance language can help you learn another language, as if this was the best and safe way to do it.  When it isn't! 

Actually it can be more confusing, because you will find false friends, like I did when i was studying french. The spelling and overall language learning can be affected by it, and this is why when I learn a language like for example German or dutch, I try to forget I know english   I pretend like this is totally new for me and never assume a word means something, until I check the dictionary.

[gmckee1985]

I have a lot of different weaknesses when it comes to the Spanish language. I'm working day by day to improve them. I have problems with pronunciation, have trouble rolling my r's and just getting the language to sound right in general. I'm making improvements, though. I'm hardly a natural at picking up new languages, it appears.

[Trellum]

Don't lose hope, sadly Spanish is a language that is kinda tricky and hard to learn for people whose mother language isn't a romance language. Just keep trying!  Try using a site like Duolingo, it's free for now, but who knows for long it will continue that way, so try to check it out as soon as you can.

[Onionman]

Confidence in speaking has always been my problem. My listening has been ok but I do feel very self aware when I'm having to speak. I guess that's really down to developing confidence in it all. Learning verbs has also been a strength of mine in terms of using the right tenses.

[PotentialPolyglot]

Conjugation of verbs and actually forming sentences is my weakness. I can understand (when slowly spoken) and read decently, but when it comes to producing the language myself I struggle. I know lots of vocabulary now, but it's quite useless if I can't actually use it!

[RedRose]

I still have a lot of major weaknesses with my Spanish. It takes me awhile to process sentences in my brain, so it's difficult for me to speak with natives. I'm also self-conscious, so that doesn't help, either. When it comes to reading and writing, I'm not very good with grammar. When I write a paper in Spanish, I often create sentences that would be considered very extensive and confusing by native Spanish-speakers. Spanish is much more simpler in the sense that you don't need to use so many verbs or words to describe something, but, as an English speaker, it's difficult for me to remember that.