me agrada mucho aprender la gramatica
May. 8th, 2009 02:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bellchroniclesI'm so glad I put off learning Spanish until I could learn with other Portuguese speakers!
(Well. There was that time in Mexico, where I spent a year in remedial Spanish and another year of Spanish class with everyone else, but I literally don't remember the latter ones. Every time I pull at the memories, I draw a blank. The only thing I remember is wondering how to say "chestnut hair" on the first day; I don't remember the teacher, the students, the activities. They say that you recover what you once learned, but I don't have that with Spanish. Or maybe everything I learned got shelved with Portuguese? I've always thought Spanish is easy to understand because of its similarities to Portuguese, but it could also be my stealth memories helping me out.)
The good thing about learning with Portuguese speakers is that we're on the same page! We'll be falling into the same pitfalls, and knowing where those holes are, the teacher builds a bridge over them for us. To give you an idea, one of the first things she did was give us a list of common words that have a different gender in Spanish than in Portuguese. With that list in mind, I am very confident about the gender of nouns, since aside from the ones she warned us for, I can somewhat assume the rest is the same as in Portuguese. If I'd been learning with English-speaking students, I wouldn't have that confidence.
The other good thing is that the teacher knows what not to teach us, since it'd be redundant. She didn't bother to explain the difference between "ser" and "estar" (both basically mean "is"), since it can be transferred almost directly from Portuguese. Sou Isabel e estou bem. Soy Isabel y estoy bien.
From the very first day she's been speaking 90% Spanish, which is nice, because the sooner you emerge in a language, the better. I don't think we'd understand if she were talking fast like native speakers would one to another, but slow with us in mind, there haven't been any comprehension problems. But we spent much time on conjugation, because it's different! (sou/soy; és/eres; é/es; somos/somos; sóis/sois; são/son)
As a lovely bonus, we're taught regional differences. On the first day we received a chart showing the regional accents for the "ll" and... "y", and today we learned about the different ways to address "you" in Spain and Latin American countries (vosotros vs usted(es)) and how they don't mean the same thing in Spain and Latin American countries.) An international perspective and recognition of cultural differences! I can get behind that!
What's harder for me is that she expects us to form phrases in Spanish already. *__* I'm not comfortable with that! I don't want to take sentences in Portuguese and try to make them Spanish, that won't work! (Though I can. Yo voy a la faculdad.) But we've started to learn grammatical structure (...the ones that aren't the same as in Portuguese XD), so I feel better. ♥ This week we covered "A mi me gusta" and using indirect object pronouns ("Ella me lo da").
Another thing I want to learn soon, yet won't be covered this semester, are accents. Those trip me!
(Well. There was that time in Mexico, where I spent a year in remedial Spanish and another year of Spanish class with everyone else, but I literally don't remember the latter ones. Every time I pull at the memories, I draw a blank. The only thing I remember is wondering how to say "chestnut hair" on the first day; I don't remember the teacher, the students, the activities. They say that you recover what you once learned, but I don't have that with Spanish. Or maybe everything I learned got shelved with Portuguese? I've always thought Spanish is easy to understand because of its similarities to Portuguese, but it could also be my stealth memories helping me out.)
The good thing about learning with Portuguese speakers is that we're on the same page! We'll be falling into the same pitfalls, and knowing where those holes are, the teacher builds a bridge over them for us. To give you an idea, one of the first things she did was give us a list of common words that have a different gender in Spanish than in Portuguese. With that list in mind, I am very confident about the gender of nouns, since aside from the ones she warned us for, I can somewhat assume the rest is the same as in Portuguese. If I'd been learning with English-speaking students, I wouldn't have that confidence.
The other good thing is that the teacher knows what not to teach us, since it'd be redundant. She didn't bother to explain the difference between "ser" and "estar" (both basically mean "is"), since it can be transferred almost directly from Portuguese. Sou Isabel e estou bem. Soy Isabel y estoy bien.
From the very first day she's been speaking 90% Spanish, which is nice, because the sooner you emerge in a language, the better. I don't think we'd understand if she were talking fast like native speakers would one to another, but slow with us in mind, there haven't been any comprehension problems. But we spent much time on conjugation, because it's different! (sou/soy; és/eres; é/es; somos/somos; sóis/sois; são/son)
As a lovely bonus, we're taught regional differences. On the first day we received a chart showing the regional accents for the "ll" and... "y", and today we learned about the different ways to address "you" in Spain and Latin American countries (vosotros vs usted(es)) and how they don't mean the same thing in Spain and Latin American countries.) An international perspective and recognition of cultural differences! I can get behind that!
What's harder for me is that she expects us to form phrases in Spanish already. *__* I'm not comfortable with that! I don't want to take sentences in Portuguese and try to make them Spanish, that won't work! (Though I can. Yo voy a la faculdad.) But we've started to learn grammatical structure (...the ones that aren't the same as in Portuguese XD), so I feel better. ♥ This week we covered "A mi me gusta" and using indirect object pronouns ("Ella me lo da").
Another thing I want to learn soon, yet won't be covered this semester, are accents. Those trip me!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 06:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 06:28 pm (UTC)This phase-in-and-out of languages is pretty common; the other day I tried to speak Japanese and out came this terrible, terrible mess. So you may need to review your French, but probably not remedial; if you start reading/writing/speaking, you'll pick up steam! Spanish aside, it's always amazed me how quickly I recover what I forgot (and how quickly I forget XXD).
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 08:28 pm (UTC)(Don't mind me while I jump into the conversation with both left feet, recent posts from certain people aside...)
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 08:46 pm (UTC)[To
All that aside, I have been making a mix! French visits me often in the Spanish class. Yo me suis heureux qué?
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 08:59 pm (UTC)I still want to know how French can visit in Japanese class. They're nothing alike, yet I know you heard me go "Je hanashimasen blah blah blah" at least once.
In conclusion, Esperanto for all!
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 09:03 pm (UTC)I have this theory! That as we learn languages, we carve out brain spaces for them. The more we know, the more detailed the carvings in their room. If we learn a second (third etc) language, it will be less carved. And if we try to learn a language after that one, until we have enough carvings in *that* room to hold on to, we'll walk into the most recently constructed one and then go "Je hanashimasen DUH." This is a scientific theory and should be published in NEJM very soon.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 09:18 pm (UTC)I'll see what I can do about getting your theory rigorously tested, but as
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 09:27 pm (UTC)Good luck finding caves to test the theory in! They are of challenging access.
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 09:15 pm (UTC)Esperanto for some, miniature Eva units for others?
ETA: Also you should email or PM me your thoughts if you don't want other people commenting on them, because I wanna know. :D
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 09:17 pm (UTC)Not fair I wanna know too! D:
no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-05-08 09:13 pm (UTC)