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  • 4 weeks later...

*Only Spanish III student

The main thing to remember about Spanish is it is in a lot of ways the opposite of English. The way I think of it is in terms of the grammar and the spelling.

IN English, grammar is relatively straight forward, and easy to pick up. Hell, there are only like four conjugations per verb, and tenses are creating from stringing together the verb, "haves" and "have beens" together. The problem is the atroscious spelling involved. The input of four diferent languages really cuts into spelling rules.

Spanish, on the other hand, has elegantly simple spelling. The way you say the word is how you spell it (except for a few very minor exceptions when "que"s follow "n"s and other "asthetic" pronounciation rules). The grammar, on the other hand, gets complatcated.

So, basically you trade spelling ease for grammar nightmares. Well, they aren't that bad when you get to them, but it seems overwhleming sometimes.

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UHHH, I hate those books! Tell me, how can the noun "palo de esquiar" POSSIBLY be more important than "cucillo" (knife), "tenador" (fork), and "cucada" (spoon)? My sister went all the way into colledge without knowing those words! Think about it: how many Spanish-speaking countries that you are going to be in that will feel the sudden urge to go sking? There's like, Chile, and that's it.

Horrible, horibble stuff. And does anyone find it weird how most people learn their English grammar in their language class? How many many people go into Spanish class not knowing what a demonstrative adjective is, let alone the general SOV structure of English?

Enough ranting.

ok...thanks...i guess...but now i'm super confused...

Well, Spanish has three different types of verbs: -ar (the ones you learn first), -er, and -ir. These are called first, second, and thrid conjugations, respectively. -er and -ir have roughly the same conjugations, and the only difference in present tense is the nosotros and vosotros forms (which is imos instead of emos and ís instead of eís). So:

Vivir

viv-o _| viv-imos

viv-es | viv-ís

viv-e _| viv-en

versus:

Comer

com-o _| com-emos

com-es | com-eís

com-e _| com-en

Edited by Lord Zorinthrox
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Heh.

We learn grammar from some other book, and our teacher uses our Paso Books for vocab.

We get vocab tidbits from her too.

I'm in year 3, and I must agree that there are pretty archaic terms in Paso a Paso.

Like anteojos. It's gafas!

Can't wait to take 4th year, we don't use Paso in AP spanish.

A friend of mine knows english grammar solely from her French Grammar lessons. Honestly, she doesn't do too poorly on grammar either. Being obsessive, I do correct her on occasion, and that earns a slap now and then. (But that's off topic)

Edited by Bakayaro
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Someone might give me some tips on this very, very hard language?

Ok, ill try make a sentence for everyone:

Mi madre tengo en Norway

My mother lives in Norway - I think ...

No, it's 'Mi madre vive en Norway'. Except I can't remember the Spanish for norway. 'Tengo' is 'I have', ZeZar.

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If native English speakers don't learn grammar in their English class, what do they learn at all?

I mean, my Spanish class (called simply "Language") was mostly grammar and syntax.

In our English class we analyze lit. Our teacher has the most craptastic grammar anyway.

I find it more fun to analyze lit than to learn grammar anyway.

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English is SVO, not SOV

Opps! It was only supposed to be a standin for the actualy order, like a general statement of using SVO. No confustion intended.

And the grammar thing is jsut an obsevation, really. It could be different somewhere else, but grammar in English class is never approached in the same way as in Spanish class. Like, you learn how to use grammar, but not the specific names of things, nor how the tenses work, etc. But I suppose that is due to Spanish being more gramatically intensive.

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In our English class we analyze lit. Our teacher has the most craptastic grammar anyway.

I find it more fun to analyze lit than to learn grammar anyway.

Ah, I see.

In Spain, these are two different classes; what you described would be Literature class, while we're taught grammar & syntax in Language class.

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  • 4 months later...
yo estoy estudiando español cautro en mi escuela.  mi clase está tratando aprender la idioma y algunos de las personas pueden hablar muy bien.

¡me gusta español!

      :rock:

Translation:

"I am studying spanish four at my school. My class is mostly learning the language and sometimes the people can speak it very well."

That is what i got from it and i did that with my head, not a translater.

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That is what i got from it and i did that with my head, not a translater.

Yes, written spanish is quite easy to understand. There are a few matters of translation that are difficult though - for instance

estoy estudiando means "I am studying", as if at this exact moment, this person is in a state of studying. This is opposed to simply saying "Estudio" español, which is more correct for what I imagine he was trying to write, which means both "I study spanish" and "I am studying spanish", in the general present tense. Someone correct me if I am wrong here.

Also, understanding the spanish of a english-native writer is going to be easier obviously because an english speaker would construct spanish sentences in a way that makes sense to what he or she knows about constructing english sentences. My girlfriend is a native spanish speaker, and when she speaks english to me, I understand why she makes mistakes in her english, because directly translated into spanish, they make sense. She sometimes translates in her head instead of thinking in english.

Now understanding spoken spanish is another story completely :rock: - mi novia es de puerto rico y habla muy rápidamente :)

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With any foreign language you know, you'll always construct the phrases in the grammer of your native language. Learning words in a different language isn't the hard part, but learning another language's grammer and rules of literature is much harder.

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