personal introduction agencies??

[InnocentVixen]

thank you RJS, I'm sure it will be worth the effort
and about my english, it was actually from tv lol, I would watch cartoons when I was little (in english) until one day I could understand everything they said, maybe movies helped too, since all there was available back then was english movies with spanish subtitles.

[utopiacowboy]

thank you RJS, I'm sure it will be worth the effort
and about my english, it was actually from tv lol, I would watch cartoons when I was little (in english) until one day I could understand everything they said, maybe movies helped too, since all there was available back then was english movies with spanish subtitles.

Are you serious? All from watching English TV? That's amazing.

[Dan]

I am curious about those personal introduction agencies,
I don't think we have those here, could someone explain me how they work?

IV,

Sorry for the late response.

International marriage agencies (sometimes called 'brokers' among the political circles) have a pretty spotty reputation. Some are honest and ethical - a few - and many are ethically-challenged. To address this, we created an "Agency Code of Ethics" that we encourage everyone to review and to use. You can find it published here -- http://www.certifiedmarriageagencies.org/index.php?pid=19, and you can select English or Spanish, whichever you are more comfortable.

In your case, you would represent a different type of 'customer' to the agency than most of our members - although the fundamental treatment of customers should be the same - as pointed out in the ACoE.

My suggestion is that you ask a lot of questions before deciding to become involved with ANY agency - and in particular, point them to the ACoE and ask them if they conform. If not, ask them why not - and if you are unsatisfied with their answers, you might be best to just pass on them.

Keep asking questions. There are a lot of folks here who are interested in helping out wherever possible.

- Dan

[InnocentVixen]

@Dan:
I should have found that link myself, thank you for sharing.

@utopiacowboy:
I wouldn't use the word amazing, kids tend to learn things very fast, but I must admit that I get plenty of funny faces when they find out, I did meet a russian lady that learned spanish that way though, except she started older and needed the help of a dictionary, she married a mexican so I bet he must be thankful she likes novelas

There is a catch when you learn this way, she had the same problem as me, having nobody to practice with, in her head she knew how to pronounce, but her tongue was not "trained" enough to be able to do it... this is easily fixed with a patient boyfriend who speaks the language

[Chris F]

Innocent Vixen........Being a formal ESL teacher...I have to say I find it a little hard to believe that you learned English perfectly simply by watching English TV.

Do you mind sharing with us how you learned to spell and write almost perfectly as well?

[InnocentVixen]

@Chris F:
I understand how curious you must feel, in fact I was once in a relationship with a professor (let's call him Dr.X...), we met online by chance and this little detail was probably what got him interested in me at first, he was the one that teached me to speak english.

I spell and write "almost perfectly" in spanish too, I barely use slang at all (but know the meanings, most of the time anyways), I've always thought english was so easy to write because almost anything is spelled like it sounds, just like our accent and personality can be reflected on the way we type if you pay enough attention, this might be the reason I don't have big grammatical mistakes.

My favorite movies are historical ones, I love reading novels, specially vampire ones, this kind of things were not popular while I was growing up, so the only way to get them was to go to San Diego and buy them, in english.

But yes, it all started with cartoons 

[Maria]

You mean Spanish it's spelled as it sounds??  ....English Grammar is a lot easier to learn than Spanish.  But for a Latin person English can be hard to speak.

FL

[InnocentVixen]

@FindaLatina: Actually i did mean english, the first example that comes to mind being the letter "H", in english is easy to know when to use it because of the sound, in spanish there is no sound.

And you are right, for someone that has spanish as native language english is hard to speak and vice versa

[bcc_1_2]

Welcome IV,

I saw the profile you posted and it looks like with all the guy's help you should have the best/most detailed profile out there. Interesting that I posted that PL should have profiles and then look who shows up .

To my knowledge there is no agency in Ensenada or anywhere close. The guys listed a lot of options to post your profile online which I suspect will net you a ton of responses. I hope everyone treats you well here because Ensenada is a beautiful oceanside college town around 90 minutes from San Diego.

My one suggestion (since you are fluent in english) is to look at Craigslist. pick cities you are interested in (San Diego, Los Angeles, Seattle, a farm in Iowa lol etc) and post a free profile. I would bet that loads your inbox with email.

Hopefully this is a great experience for you and you invite dozens of your friends to post here on PL.

btw very cute pictures.

[InnocentVixen]

thanks bcc_1_2, I've tried most of the options, but I want to try to stick with one or maybe 2 sites only, the main reason for this would be that I'll be too busy to keep track of them next year! so I thought now would be a good time to use my free time to find a place I like.

I am not looking for a place in particular, but I was trying to be realistic thinking a guy will not travel across the world just to meet me, so being seen by people that are not that far was on top of my list.

I found a site that is starting to look interesting plentyoffish.com as expected the first ones to contact me were guys in San Diego, but now I'm getting mails from pretty much anywhere and from all ages.

Even if the profile itself is not that informative, I like it that you can select email filters so certain people cannot email you based on some info in their profile, for now I have only filtered out people who smoke, use drugs or are looking for sexual encounters (well, it will only work if they admit it on their profile!)

I already closed accounts in other sites I was trying out, except for EHarmony, I have some interesting gentlemen trying to contact me over there (can't even see their picture though)... so I don't know

[Maria]

@FindaLatina: Actually i did mean english, the first example that comes to mind being the letter "H", in english is easy to know when to use it because of the sound, in spanish there is no sound.

And you are right, for someone that has spanish as native language english is hard to speak and vice versa

So Spanish is not your first language? Sorry did I miss that somewhere? Beacause that does not make since either. Every Latin person I know no matter what age he or she is, will think ¨H¨ sounds mute and has a hard time with it when learning it,  Since ¨H¨sounds more like a ¨J¨. ..Interesting.
This is the first time in my life I hear that English can be spelled as it sounds specially coming form a Latin person.  I speak English since I was 5 years old was educated in the USA and I still confuse some of the words..

FL

[Jeff S]

Confusing - how about this: I'll sometimes be speaking Spanish and all will be fine for a while when suddenly I can tell that the people I'm speaking with are lost, and I realize I'm speaking Japanese. Likewise a few times in Japan, I've caught myself speaking Spanish. Talk about the proverbial deer in the headlights looks. 

[zack]

I've always thought english was so easy to write because almost anything is spelled like it sounds, ...the first example that comes to mind being the letter "H", in english is easy to know when to use it because of the sound, in spanish there is no sound.

You have got to be kidding me. Regarding the letter "H", what about English words like "sleigh" or "through" or "cheetah" or "she" or even "the"? The "h" may be silent in Spanish but at least it is consistantly silent, unlike English.

And what about English words that sound exactly the same but are spelled differently like "through" and "threw"? There are hundreds of such words in English. I believe that they are called homonyms.

Also keep in mind that the letter "i" in Spanish almost always sounds like "ee" as in "Latina". In English, it has several different sounds, such as "hike", "hit", "sleigh", "rain", and so on. The same is true of other English vowels.

While it may be true that English was easy for you to learn, you can't say that almost anything in English is spelled as it sounds. That is far from the truth. In fact, that is one reason why English has a reputation for being one of the more difficult languages to learn.

[Maria]

You have got to be kidding me. Regarding the letter "H", what about English words like "sleigh" or "through" or "cheetah" or "she" or even "the"? The "h" may be silent in Spanish but at least it is consistantly silent, unlike English.

And what about English words that sound exactly the same but are spelled differently like "through" and "threw"? There are hundreds of such words in English. I believe that they are called homonyms.

Also keep in mind that the letter "i" in Spanish almost always sounds like "ee" as in "Latina". In English, it has several different sounds, such as "hike", "hit", "sleigh", "rain", and so on. The same is true of other English vowels.

While it may be true that English was easy for you to learn, you can't say that almost anything in English is spelled as it sounds. That is far from the truth. In fact, that is one reason why English has a reputation for being one of the more difficult languages to learn.

You are 100% right ....I was too tired last night to go into detail but yes the fact is Latin people have  hard time with lack of consistency that the English phonetics has. While every vowel and consonant in Spanish is pronounced the same way 100% of the time.

In my life I have only heard of  those who picked it up and speak it a bit, meaning they did not study English so their reading and written skills are terrible and their spelling sucks. Or those who don't speak a word of English but have good writting and reading but even then their spelling sucks.  Hey , Why do you think there is contest for kids in grade school to participate in the Spelling Bee Because it is a challenge.

FL

[InnocentVixen]

Confusing - how about this: I'll sometimes be speaking Spanish and all will be fine for a while when suddenly I can tell that the people I'm speaking with are lost, and I realize I'm speaking Japanese. Likewise a few times in Japan, I've caught myself speaking Spanish. Talk about the proverbial deer in the headlights looks. 

@Jeff S: ahh my dear friend! lol, you are the only one that seems to understand me... that happens to you because you mix the languages in your brain and are so into the conversation the words just flow out the way you think them, it happens to me as well, in fact that is why I took a break from japanese, just imagine me mixing 3 languages too much, 2 which I understand to native level and one that I just have the basics of! (needless to say I get stuck often while thinking in japanese... not enough vocabulary *blush*)

For me, english is typed the way it sounds because when I am using english I actually think in english, just like a native person would, I am pretty sure you don't really think about the differences until someone points them up do you? you sort of take them for granted. And about the letter H most of them are combinations that are easy to identify no? anyways, It's always been hard for me to explain, it just makes sense in my brain!

Just like in spanish I can usually spell something right without being sure, I take a guess and get lucky

You are 100% right ....I was too tired last night to go into detail but yes the fact is Latin people have  hard time with lack of consistency that the English phonetics has. While every vowel and consonant in Spanish is pronounced the same way 100% of the time.

In my life I have only heard of  those who picked it up and speak it a bit, meaning they did not study English so their reading and written skills are terrible and their spelling sucks. Or those who don't speak a word of English but have good writting and reading but even then their spelling sucks.  Hey , Why do you think there is contest for kids in grade school to participate in the Spelling Bee Because it is a challenge.

FL

Actually I was not able to speak it until a year ago or so, in fact I have quite a bit of trouble with pronunciation again because I have not practiced in months... and my spelling might be good because I often read in english? I dunno, it seems it's not common, but it happens I guess

[Maria]

IV,
What Jeff is saying has nothing to do with the way you learned English. And too me is a very commun thing to happen to a bilingual person.

What you just said confuses me a lot more because you mentioned before that your spelling was good because It can be spelled as it sounds but you don't have a good pronunciation? But you only learned how to speak it a year ago yet your writing is immaculate almost native ? You don't practice it but you think in English?
Impressive!!

FL

[william3rd]

Shakespeare comes to mind as well as things that happen in Denmark. . .

[InnocentVixen]

  good one william3rd, after reading my post again I can't blame you... my mind works in mysterious ways.... and besides, I have a cold so maybe I can use it as an excuse , it certainly feels like my brain is working at sluggish speeds!... can someone get drunk on chicken soup 

I started speaking english a year ago, I already knew how to pronounce; I don't have the need to use english here, in fact not even when I go to San Diego, but as I type right now, I guess I am practicing in a way, I am thinking in english, but again, no need to actually speak english (unless I was reading outloud which I'm not).

I guess my tongue is simply not used to the movements needed to speak english, it takes so much effort for me to pronounce a soft "R" instead of the strong sound we have in spanish for it.

[utopiacowboy]

I can see where she is coming from. My Spanish is far from perfect but when I am speaking, reading, or writing Spanish, I am thinking in that language as opposed to translating everything. Until I had an opportunity to do a lot of speaking, my Spanish was almost all reading and writing and I was quite adept at it even though my oral skills were pretty low. They're almost like two different worlds really.

[Kiltboy1]

My wife and I were having dinner last night at a couple's house. He is from Venezuela and she is from Ecuador. He speaks fluent English and she speaks none. I would talk to him in English and then turn to her and speak in Spanish. To me, is normal to think in Spanish when I speak because speaking Spanish to me is like a part of my body. I could live in a Spanish country and not speak English for a year  if I had to but this comes with feeling the language in your soul, not learning it. Spanish for me was very easy to learn because I had a feel for it. People that do immersion programs feel the same. I never got caught up in comparisons of pronunciation, but I also learned my Spanish in Colombia and is one of the most grammatically correct forms there are along with Venezuela and Ecuador and Peru who form the basis of the castellano Spanish that cannot be learned from a CD or class, only from immersion.

[Bob_S]

@Jeff S: ahh my dear friend! lol, you are the only one that seems to understand me... that happens to you because you mix the languages in your brain and are so into the conversation the words just flow out the way you think them, it happens to me as well, in fact that is why I took a break from japanese, just imagine me mixing 3 languages too much, 2 which I understand to native level and one that I just have the basics of! (needless to say I get stuck often while thinking in japanese... not enough vocabulary *blush*)

I'm right there with you.  It feels like I have one file in my brain where all foreign language study is stored, and it gets all jumbled together sometimes.  I studied a couple years of Spanish in high school, then a smattering of self-taught Russian, and then a year of Japanese.  Not enough to actually do anything with them, just enough to get into trouble.  And when I'm trying to say something in one language and I come up to a word I don't know in that language, but I do know it in one of the other languages, my brain snaps to that other word.  And I don't realize it till it already came out.    "どこ es la biblioteca ですか?  no, wait a minute... "

[InnocentVixen]

lol ! Bob_S & Jeff S  if we keep this up people will need to at least know the basics of whatever language we throw in the mix!! either that or they will think we are delirious