That Language Thing Again

[FanMan]

Ok fellas, I am about to do the picking of the language course now. I did one semester of Conversational Spanish, just to get my feet wet, at the local JC, and got quite familiar with the language. But since I have other classes to worry about, I would rather learn the rest of my spanish, at my own pace instead of the slow down, and interruped classroom learning. Here at crossroads, I have come upon something called Bilingual America. Has anyone heard of this one? I know the pricing seems kind of "orbital" to say the least. I have heard of the Pimsleur, and just wanted to know, where is the "Holy Grail", in terms of a proper spanish course :?: http://www.bilingualamerica.com/main/index.htm

[EbonyPrince]

IMO I don't feel that there is one way that is better than another to learn Spanish.  I think different methods work differently for different people.  I am not fluent in Spanish by any stretch of the imagination.  I do however know a little of it.  I just need to practice more than I do.  I think that this is important.

I have taken a year in high school, a year in college, an intro continuing ed course, and I have books and tapes.  I plan to take the advanced continuing ed course and continue to study on my own.  

I feel that you need to learn the alphabet and pronunciation.  Learn the nouns and verbs and conjugations.  If you speak broken Spanish or use the wrong tense or gender, people will know what you are trying to say.  I would suggest practice, practice, practice.  Watch the Spanish channel.  Montrealer suggested watching DVDs with the Spanish subtitles.  Use all the free resources available to you.  Listening to CDs in your car will help also.  The more you expose all your senses to it the better.  Save some money and go to bestbuy or a bookstore and buy a software package with CDs for your car.  Also pick up a cheatsheat.  You can also find these in your college bookstore probably cheaper.

Here are some resources that I like and use:

http://www.studyspanish.com/verbs/index.htm

http://www.barcharts.com/default.asp?page=chart_details&gid=2&pid=544-0

http://www.10minutesaday.com/

http://www.freetranslation.com

[conocerme]

I did one semester of Conversational Spanish, just to get my feet wet, at the local JC, and got quite familiar with the language.

FanMan -
You may not like my opinion and recommendations, but hang in there and I hope you do not take offense.  You advised that you have taken a semester of Conversational Spanish.  I believe the way to try start to learn the language is to start with the grammar and not with conversational.  Start from the ground up and build from there.  You seem to want a "holy grail" and I am not sure there is one outside of starting with the basic grammar and going from there.  If you want to be on an accelerated curve, then maybe take more than one class.  Like perhaps, a few grammar and conversational classes.  You are going to have to learn to build a sentence by yourself and you cannot do that without mastering grammar first.

I have people at work tell me they want to learn a little Spanish because they are going down to Mexico.  I tell them to learn about a dozen basic verbs and learn to conjugate them in the present tense.  Learn estar, ser, tener, hacer, ir, comer, querer, tomar, hablar, entender, conocer, ver, aprender, etc.  Then also learn some of the basic nouns.  Mesa, puerto, casa, dinero, cerveza, bano, aqua, ropa.  You can now put together simple sentences. Now you can then start and be in conversational Spanish and understand what the sentence means and how it was put together.

Then progress from there with other tenses like perfecto de indicativo, preterito, futuro (y ir a infinitivo of the verb), imperfecto de indicativo, etc.

I like that you started in the local community college, although I believe that you got a little frustrated that it was slow going.  I spent about two years going to night school.

Buy a book called 501 Spanish Verbs (this is the bible for verbs).  Buy a good electronic translator that can conjugate verbs like the Franklin at Radio Shack.  Carry that translator with you and when you hear a word in Spanish that you do not know, stop right there and plug in the word and learn the meaning. I also had tapes that I listened to in the car, etc.  Follow the other recommendations the EB has recommended.  Immerse yourself in learning and it will pay off.

I guess my opinion is you cannot skip over the basic building block of any language - grammar.

Suerte.

[RonnieReagan]

In adition to community college courses a great way to study Spanish is take a two to four week immersion course through a company like http://www.amerispan.com/ They offer immersion courses in: Uraguay, Venezuela, Ecuador, Chile, Argentina, Peru, Bolivia, Mexico, Dominican Republic, Panama, Costa Rica, Guatamala and Honduras. None offered in Colombia of course. I took one in Panama. You stay at the house of a local volonteer family, attend classes for half the day and spend the afternoons on local tours. Once you pick the school and the country get on amigos com and start writing furiously to girls in that area. You can stay with a nice family, learn Spanish and meet girls all for the price of a TLC tour! Prices depend on the country. At the time I went the cheapest option was Guatemala. Check it out.

[Maestoso]

have any of you guys tried rosetta stone?

[Montrealer]

I like Reagans idea of studying abroad.  Practicing your Spanish at the same time as learning it is extremely practical.  My Spanish increased 10 fold in a short time that I lived in Mexico.  Not having the option to speak English forces your brain to pick things up faster.

[conocerme]

Montrealer -

I also like the idea that Ronnie advised, if you can, of going to an offshore language school.  I had a friend who went to Nicaragua.  This immersion in Spanish speaking helped him progress fast.  An escuela is also a good place to meet mujeres.

I imagine that you can speak French Montrealer?  Since I believe this is also a Latin based language, did you find it was maybe easier to pick up Spanish?

[conocerme]

have any of you guys tried rosetta stone?

Maestoso - all I have heard about rosetta stone is that it is a good program.  Can you tell us more about it?

[Maestoso]

I don't know if its a good program, but I heard it advertizing on the classical radio station here in NYC. But its pretty expensive. $200 per. the only thing I know of it, is the testimonials on the website.

[Montrealer]

I imagine that you can speak French Montrealer? Since I believe this is also a Latin based language, did you find it was maybe easier to pick up Spanish?

I thought my french education would have helped more, but it didn't do much.  Maybe helped me undertsand the concepts of cunjugating verbs as it's a simular learning process.

But now my Spanish is by far better than my french.  I guess that's why I stay away from the french girls.

[EbonyPrince]

All very good suggestions, which peeked my interest.

I liked the idea of the Spanish immersion.  I have also heard that being immersed and forced to speak the language is a great way to learn the language.  I think the biggest problem with learning it without having someone to speak it with is that you get lazy like me.

I am going to get me a copy of the 501 Spanish Verbs.  I want to get me a nice electronic translator also.  My friend mentioned BestBuy, but I wasn't able to find it.  I will check at Radio Shack.  What about a translator software package on a pocketpc?  Has anyone had any experience with this?

I also agree on picking up the grammer.  I think a lot of people get frustrated when they try to learn Spanish other ways.  My high school and college courses began this way.  You basically learn the same way that you begin learning English.  This has helped me foundationally.  I of course can read it better than speaking it.  Hearing others use it in speech is so important IMO.

Thanks guys!

[RonnieReagan]

For elctronic translators check out the talking Ectaco ES600T. It has a very large vocabulary, 475,000 and you can add words to it like the slang terms you hear.

[conocerme]

Ronnie & EP - Good suggestions.
The Ectaco ES600T might be a good one.  It has some good features.

I also kind of like this translator: http://www.franklin.com/estore/dictionary/BES-1850/

I looked for a translator that I could easily carry around and could handle beginner to advanced espanol.  They do not give the size on this one though.  I remember I first purchased one that was bigger and I ended up not liking it.  What you might do is also check on Amazon.com where users also give reviews.

EP quote - "I think the biggest problem with learning it without having someone to speak it with."  This just made me think of a story that my wife was telling me.  She goes to the local Community College and primarily is in English classes.  She had an algebra class and met a gringa at this class who wanted to practice her Spanish with my wife.  I guess it was pretty funny.  She would wave her arms around while saying things like: "yo no tomar classes espanol since high school".  "Me espanol is poor". "Yo querer aprender espanol".  "Yo solo remember poquito when I was in High School" She was mixing up the Spanish and English in the sentence and not conjugating the verb.  I guess several people were smiling and chuckling around them (especially some Latins).  The gringa did not take offense though.  I sometimes try to make up a Spanglish verb if I do not know the correct one.  I add an "er" or "ar" or "ir" to the American verb if I am too lazy to look up the right one.

My wife also reminded me of how often gringos butcher Spanish while they are learning and how patient Latin people can be with us.  She said that many people who are learning English here are afraid to practice English because they are afraid of making a mistake and people not being patient with them.  

Buenos - pues,
Chao

"Who could have possibly envisioned an erection — an election in Iraq at this point in history?" —George W. Bush, at the white House, Washington, D.C., Jan. 10, 2005

[utopiacowboy]

I grew up in Montreal and at one time I was fluent in French. French and Spanish are both Latin languages but I did not find French to be much help. Strangely enough I find French to be more similar to English than Spanish. Nearly half of the words in the English language are borrowed from French. When I was first learning Spanish I would frequently attempt to use the French word which I knew when I did not know the Spanish word. It rarely helped and many times the words are like night and day. "Mot" and "palabra", "boîte" and "caja", "gazon" and "césped"....I could go on and on. My wife can understand Italian and Portugese fairly well but she is totally lost in French.

[RexB]

Vale, aqui es mi dos centavos valer. I had one quarter of Spanish in High School (all that was required). I still to this day remember the first few sentences. That was many years ago. When i took up this quest i knew that i needed to speak the language. Even if a feable attempt i knew it would help. I bought Pimsleur Traveler Edition and started to learn in the car. It helped for basic language skills. This was not enough. At that time i was receiving about 10 emails a day in Spanish. YIKES!!! I then bought Systran Software to translate. It works but is not very accurate. I remember one time i wrote to this woman and of course translated my email before i sent it. Much to my surprise, the translation was something like, "I am the general of the jungle etc etc". It was hilarious and that is just what the first part said! I also had one of those electronic translaters. As far as i am concerned, they are junk. Here again it will not translate correctly. I like using the dictionary if i have to use something. Besides, when your chica is leaning over you and also reading and laughing it is wonderful for those close encounters. I do not recommend the Systran
software nor the hand helds because they can make you dependant on them. If you do not make mistakes you are not learning! I go to Adult Ed classes for Spanish. The classes are for grammar which i do not understand in English. Let me tell you, i am learning both Spanish and English grammar NOW! Without the basics you cannot conjugate the verbs correctly. That is probably 75% of the language, as well as knowing sentence structure which is different than ours. I have been through the three basic levels and if there is a break in class continuance, i repeat whatever is being taught. Believe me, i have quit class 100 times but i have also restarted class 101. Just remember that not everyone learns a new language in one qtr. My last trip to Peru, i could talk to anyone. Granted it was not pretty and filled with mistakes but what a glorious feeling to be able to communicate. I call an amiga in Colombia once a week that cannot speak any English. I can now speak with her for an hour or better. So my suggestion is to continue your grammar classes until you have a good understanding of the basics. Then try to find a coversational class to practice with other like minded people. Even where i am in Montana there are opportunities to learn from a variety of places. Do not become dependant on the electronics. Do not be afraid to make mistakes. That is how you learn. Another suggestion is to find a penpal in SA and trade language skills. You write in Spanish, she corrects and vice versa. I do this also with an educator in Peru. I know that i suck at the language but i will not give up on this. It has now become a passion. It is a ROMANCE language...Ha Ha. The look on the chicas faces when you start whispering little love things is "PRICELESS".
Buena Suerte

[FanMan]

Thanks
Everyone for the suggestions. I think I will take a little bit from everyone, and try to make it work. My plan is to make my first trip to Colombia and Brazil, sometime next year, and I plan to be prepared. And hopefully I will strike gold  :lol:

[Montrealer]

Just don't over think the issue, otherwise you might out think yourself.

[conocerme]

Thanks
Everyone for the suggestions. I think I will take a little bit from everyone, and try to make it work. My plan is to make my first trip to Colombia and Brazil, sometime next year, and I plan to be prepared. And hopefully I will strike gold  :lol:

FanMan -

Good luck on your trip.  Sounds like you will have plenty of time to work on your Spanish.  I have always liked the Raiders also.  Let's hope that Art Shell can turns things around for the Raiders :!:

Keep the following in mind when planning for Brazil:

"Wow!  Brazil is big. - George W. Bush, after being shown a map of Brazil by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Brasilia, Brazil, Nov. 6, 2005.

[conocerme]

My dear wife has progressed well in learning English.  People compliment her on how well she is progressing.  BUT, remembering to include the subject in a sentence still frequently trips her up.  See item 2 below.

10 Mistakes To Avoid While Learning Spanish
 
Part 1: Cognates, Word Order, Pronouns
If you're like most people who are speaking a foreign language, you don't want to sound like an idiot. Making mistakes is a natural part of learning any language (even the one you grew up with), but chances are you don't want to make some of the easily avoidable mistakes that might make you sound less intelligent than you are.
Here, then, are 10 common mistakes that English speakers commonly make when they are learning Spanish. They aren't necessarily the most common errors, but they are ones that should studiously be avoided if you hope to get beyond a beginner's level.

1. Assuming that Spanish words that look like English words mean the same thing: Words that have the same or similar form in both languages are known as cognates. Since Spanish and English share a large vocabulary derived from Latin, more often than not words thBut there are plenty of exceptions, and it wouldn't be a bad idea to study these lists of false cognates and partial cognates.  Por ejemplo, violador usually is a rapist, not someone who merely committed a traffic infraction.


2. Using pronouns unnecessarily: With very few exceptions, English sentences require a subject. But in Spanish, that frequently isn't true. Where it would be understood by the context, the subject of a sentence (which in English is often would be a pronoun) can and usually should be omitted. It usually wouldn't be grammatically incorrect to include the pronoun, but use of the pronoun can sound clunky or give it unnecessary attention.

3. Not learning how to use prepositions properly: Prepositions can be notoriously challenging. It can be helpful to think about the purpose of the prepositions as you learn them, rather than their translations. This will help you avoid mistakes such as en la tarde for "in the afternoon" instead of por la tadre or de la tarde.

4. Always following English sentence order: You can usually follow English sentence order (except for putting most adjectives after the nouns they modify) and be understood. But as you're learning the language, pay attention to the many times where the subject is placed after the verb. Changing the word order can sometimes subtly change the meaning of a sentence, and your use of the language can be enriched as you learn to different word orders. Also, some English constructions, such as placing a preposition at the end of the sentences, definitively should not be imitated in Spanish.

 

Part 2: Translation, Subjunctive Verbs, Articles, Pronunciation
5. Translating idioms word for word: Both languages have their share of idioms, phrases whose meanings cannot readily be determined from the meanings of the individual words. Some idioms translate exactly (for example, bajo control means "under control"), but many don't. For example, en el acto is an idiom meaning "on the spot." Translate them word for word and you'll end up with en el sitio and "in the act," both of which are incorrect.

6. Not learning when to use articles (un, una, el, la, los, las): Foreigners learning English often have a hard time knowing when to use or not use "a," "an" and "the," and it's the same for English speakers trying to learn Spanish.

Using them incorrectly usually won't keep you from being understood, but it will mark you as someone who's awkward with the language.

7. Not learning the subjunctive mood: In English, we seldom make a distinction when verbs are in the subjunctive mood. But the subjunctive can't be avoided in Spanish if you wish to do more than state simple facts and ask simple questions.

8. Ignoring proper pronunciation: Spanish pronunciation isn't all that difficult to learn, and you should make an effort to imitate native speakers whenever possible. The most common mistakes of beginners include making the l of fútbol sound like the "ll" in "football," making the b and v sound different from each other (the sounds are identical in Spanish), and failing to trill the r.

9. Assuming that the textbook (or this site) is always correct: Even educated people don't always talk according to the rules. Although Spanish according to the rules will almost always be understood, it can lack the texture and sincerity of Spanish as it really is spoken. Once you feel comfortable using the language, feel free to imitate the Spanish you hear in real life.

10. Being afraid to make mistakes: Mistakes are inevitable with learning, and the worst mistake you could make would be to be fearful of using what you know. Remember that no matter how many mistakes you make, wherever you go in the Spanish-speaking world your sincere attempts to learn the language will almost always be appreciated.

[RonnieReagan]

R con r cigarro
R con r barril
Rapido corre los trenes
En nuestro ferro carril

[conocerme]

I knew it would not be long before George W. chimed in with his opinion on the value of Community Colleges and learning Spanish there.  I am passing it along for the benefit of others.

"So community colleges are accessible, they're available, they're affordable, and their curriculums don't get stuck. In other words, if there's a need for a certain kind of worker, I presume your curriculums evolved over time." —George W. Bush, Niceville, Fla., Aug. 10, 2004

[RonnieReagan]

Pretty funny. Do you have the link, I'd like to read the whole thing.

[zapata]

I think guys who google search GW Bush's quotes all day long need to get a life...or maybe pay a little more attention to their wives, or girlfriends, or maybe spend that time finding one...

GW may be an imbecile, however I would hate to be the guys he has defeated (Kerry & Gore)...how does it feel to lose to an imbecile???  And how do you do it??

Hell GW could probably win a third term if it was allowed with the REAL imbeciles that the Democrates have put up against him...

[conocerme]

Pretty funny. Do you have the link, I'd like to read the whole thing.

Ola Ronnie -

This was just a quote I grabbed off a website.  As Zapata has advised, you can type in political+humor on any search engine.  The quotes are affectionately known as "bushisms".  Hell, type in "bushisms" and you'll have them crawling out your ears.  There is enough material there to last for years (hyperbole).

I appreciate Zapata's opinion and he does have a good point about how someone must feel when Bush defeats them.

I look at them as entertainment.

[Ray]

I think guys who google search GW Bush's quotes all day long need to get a life...or maybe pay a little more attention to their wives, or girlfriends, or maybe spend that time finding one...

Good point! It's called an obsession. A lot of far-left liberals, like our Troll Boy conoqueer, will never be able to accept their defeat by what they see as a bumbling bozo in GWB.

I think it's hilarious that this guy lies awake at night trying to figure out why the voters didn't see things his way. I guess he'll never learn...