Learning spanish.. (1 Viewer)

[elisabeth]

I was thinking of taking a community college course on Spanish. I would be a complete beginner, not counting the few words I picked up from my sister's Shakira CDs and my little bro's Dora the Explorer tapes

Anyone care to reminisce about when they first started Spanish, what they found confusing, how long it took to understand verbs/prepositions/other grammar?

Muchas gracias

 

[mishka]

i did spanish from year 8-12 and loved it!!

verbs are probably the hardest because there is a verb (say, "to go"). then there is a different word to say "i go", "you go", "she/he goes", "we go", "they go". then there is another word again for past and future tenses. so yes, it does get tricky. and then there are "exceptions" to the rule. they suck.

over time, you build a wordbank, and a bilingual dictionary is a must for people learning the language. go for a mid-size one - the pocket ones are handy, but the bigger ones usually provide more of an explanation to the verbs and so on.

spanish is a really nice language to learn, it helps if you have a good memory, but i found i could somehow relate most words in spanish to one in english or latin (not that i speak latin, but common latin prefixes and thingys).

community college is a great way to learn about all sorts of different things. last year i did an office skills course and i found it excellent. i think this way is the best, because you work to your own abilities and pace, so it's like self-directed learning. :uhhuh:

good luck, and if you have any further questions, feel free to PM me!!

 

[soha]

i was watching a spanish movie today
and i was thinking about how id like to learn the language

 

[elisabeth]

i did spanish from year 8-12 and loved it!!

verbs are probably the hardest because there is a verb (say, "to go"). then there is a different word to say "i go", "you go", "she/he goes", "we go", "they go". then there is another word again for past and future tenses. so yes, it does get tricky. and then there are "exceptions" to the rule. they suck.

over time, you build a wordbank, and a bilingual dictionary is a must for people learning the language. go for a mid-size one - the pocket ones are handy, but the bigger ones usually provide more of an explanation to the verbs and so on.

spanish is a really nice language to learn, it helps if you have a good memory, but i found i could somehow relate most words in spanish to one in english or latin (not that i speak latin, but common latin prefixes and thingys).

community college is a great way to learn about all sorts of different things. last year i did an office skills course and i found it excellent. i think this way is the best, because you work to your own abilities and pace, so it's like self-directed learning. :uhhuh:

good luck, and if you have any further questions, feel free to PM me!!

Cheers for all your help!

Yeah, I know what you mean about verbs- German is like that too, although they're fairly regular. In fact, there are pretty strict rules for everything in German and not too many exceptions So that helps some. Is Spanish like that?

Spanish also has 2 genders, German has 3 - so hopefully they'll use the same ones for each word and I won't get too confused, lol.

Is the sentance order, pronounciation, or idioms especially difficult? Or is it more like, memorise some basic grammar rules and then the hardest part is learning vocab?

Oh, and does Spanish have a lot of cases? That's what I found hard for ages in German. :/

I hope I like the adults in my class. I'm just a bit worried I'll be really out of place... I would enjoy the social aspect, because I do German by correspondance and I'm not all that great at the 'self motivated learning'

 

[mishka]

i came across quite a few verbs when i learnt spanish that didn't follow the rule!! once you're familiar with these verbs, though it becomes easier.

sentence structure is pretty simple, however nouns are followed by their adjectives. for example, in english where we say "blue table" in spanish it translates to "table blue" because that's the order it's written in.

as for the genders, yes, there are exceptions to that rule too!! a simple way of telling if a word is "feminine" is if it ends in "a", but there are words that DON'T end in "a" that are also feminine!! "masculine" words generally end in "o" but there are more masculine words that don't end in "o" (hope you understand what i'm going on about!! )

after learning spanish for 5 years, i found that i could usually "tell" if a word was masculine/feminine just by putting "el" or "la" in front of it. i could tell because it "sounded" right.

btw - el is "the" for masculine words, la is "the" for feminine ones.

pronunciation was, i admit, pretty difficult for me. i can't roll my tongue to make that wicked double "r" sound spaniards/latinos can!! and there are accents you have to watch out for. accents tell you which syllable in the word to stress.

omg - i didn't realise there was so much to know about the spanish language. in year 12, i just took it for granted that i had at least SOME background to the language. there was a guy in my class who did beginners, he didn't do too badly - i think it had something to do with him being greek! - but it must have been so hard to try to pick up enough of the language to get by in the exams!! only continuers got to use dictionaries!!

i'm not sure what you mean about the "cases" but explain and i'll tell you!!

you should be fine in community college - remember, it's adult education, so people are there to further their skills and are more likely to be there because they want to not because they have to. i ended up chatting to mums in my office skills class about all sorts of things - it's good to be outgoing in those sorts of places.

community college only usually gives out a little task to do each week - for example, one week i had to read sample time sheets and calculate the pay for 3 people. they know that most adults are busy during the week, so they don't expect you to have your head buried in a book!!

anyway, enough of my rambling on!! any more questions, just fire away!!

 

[elisabeth]

i came across quite a few verbs when i learnt spanish that didn't follow the rule!! once you're familiar with these verbs, though it becomes easier.

sentence structure is pretty simple, however nouns are followed by their adjectives. for example, in english where we say "blue table" in spanish it translates to "table blue" because that's the order it's written in.

as for the genders, yes, there are exceptions to that rule too!! a simple way of telling if a word is "feminine" is if it ends in "a", but there are words that DON'T end in "a" that are also feminine!! "masculine" words generally end in "o" but there are more masculine words that don't end in "o" (hope you understand what i'm going on about!! )

Yeah, German is like that too... but there's a third gender

after learning spanish for 5 years, i found that i could usually "tell" if a word was masculine/feminine just by putting "el" or "la" in front of it. i could tell because it "sounded" right.

btw - el is "the" for masculine words, la is "the" for feminine ones.

pronunciation was, i admit, pretty difficult for me. i can't roll my tongue to make that wicked double "r" sound spaniards/latinos can!! and there are accents you have to watch out for. accents tell you which syllable in the word to stress.

omg - i didn't realise there was so much to know about the spanish language. in year 12, i just took it for granted that i had at least SOME background to the language. there was a guy in my class who did beginners, he didn't do too badly - i think it had something to do with him being greek! - but it must have been so hard to try to pick up enough of the language to get by in the exams!! only continuers got to use dictionaries!!

i'm not sure what you mean about the "cases" but explain and i'll tell you!!

Well, German has nominative (for the sentance's subject), genitive, dative (to give a location), accusative (for the sentance's object).

So if I had a sentance with the table as the subject, I would say DER Tisch ist braun (the table is brown) But if the table was the object, I would say: Ich habe DEN Tisch (I have the table)

The word for 'the' has changed from DER to DEN because the table is the subject, which uses the nominitive case. In the second example, the word for 'the' is DEN, because the table is the object and the object takes accusative case.

Gah... don't think I explained it that well! Actually, this site might explain better... enough of me hijacking a Spanish thread with German!

you should be fine in community college - remember, it's adult education, so people are there to further their skills and are more likely to be there because they want to not because they have to. i ended up chatting to mums in my office skills class about all sorts of things - it's good to be outgoing in those sorts of places.

community college only usually gives out a little task to do each week - for example, one week i had to read sample time sheets and calculate the pay for 3 people. they know that most adults are busy during the week, so they don't expect you to have your head buried in a book!!

anyway, enough of my rambling on!! any more questions, just fire away!!

Yeah, I have a feeling I will totally suck at the rolling rrrrs thing! (It sounds so nice though) Hopefully all the adults will be the same, or at least not mock me

I'm hoping I get on with some people, because if you have to pair up for partner activities, I'd feel awkward. Also, I'm not that outgoing... so hopefully they'll say 'hola' first!

My first class is on the 9th Feb, so this thread will probably be revived then I have to buy a textbook before then... it's gonna be $50, damnation :burn:

 

[mishka]

well good luck with your first class - can't wait to hear how it goes!!

 

[elisabeth]

Thanks! So I'm guessing there aren't really any cases in Spanish? YESSS!!

 

[em_516]

i enrolled in spanish for beginners at tafe today ..am so excited!!

and i've already met someone i can chat too lol..she's about 50ish haha..but she told me she can't come to the first lesson so i have to take notes for her ahhahhaha..even though it's weird that she's my mum's age..at least i have someone to talk to..i'm so gonna be the youngest there though hehe

 

[VonDavis]

Hey i'm doing Spanish as a HSCer this year ... Totally enrol in Spanish it is such a beautiful language

 

[em_516]

hehe..tonight was my first night of spanish..it was fun

 

[mishka]

cool!! i'm so happy you enjoyed it! what sort of things did you learn?? and elisabeth, how did your first class go??

 

[em_516]

pretty general stuff so far..

what is your name? my name is..
what is your surname? my surname is..
what suburb do you live in? i live in..
what is your nationality? my nationality is..
what is your marital status? my marital status is..
what is your date of birth? my date of birth is..
what is your phone number? my phone number is..

lol..and we also learnt a tiny bit of verbs and how to pronounce common spanish names and occupations..so we could say things like 'i am a student'..'cecilia is a teacher'..lol

next week we're learning the alphabet and more numbers and all that sort of stuff..i would have thought we'd do that first lol..but anyway..

 

[elisabeth]

It was good! The people seem alright, but nobody who I can really get on well with. Oh well. Maybe a hot young German/Frenchman/Aussie/... will join the class and make it more interesting

We seem to be going a LOT slower than you em. I've mastered the basics of having a mudane convo:

hello!
g'day, how are you?
good thank you. and yourself?
alright. thank you.
what is your name?
my name is... what is your name?
i'm called...

Lol, so basically, if you're not good, alright or very bad, I won't understand how you are

Plus numbers and the alphabet.

I'm loving how we all speak with gay twangy Australian accents though. Um, not. There was this older woman and a young woman who I was doing speaking practise with, and instead of the 'y tu' thing, we slipped into French. Whoops.

Looking forward to next Wed

 

[em_516]

ahhaha..yeh..we've got our aussie accents going too hahahaa..funny..i found 'ocho' and 'cuatro' the funniest hehe..but even 'cual es tu' (excuse lack of accents lol) sounded sort of drawly hehe

i am the youngest in my class..but because everyone else is by themselves as well, everyone is sort of clingy..so it's not hard to talk to people at all! very awesome! i was so worried i wouldn't be able to talk to anyone lol..

and we may seem like we've progressed far..but at least you can say 'how are you?' and respond lol..i have no idea at the moment..i'm sure that will come soon..

 

[elisabeth]

Hmm... so we spent the whole lesson conjugating 'estar', learning about when it's used instead of 'ser'. And only the present tense!! I hope things move a little faster next week... maybe a tafe course would be better?

 

[mishka]

hehehe you don't want to be moving too fast through those verbs!!

i'm sure the teacher is doing this to prepare you for something useful and important (well we hope so, anyway!!)

 

[em_516]

we only learnt that there WAS an 'estar' on wednesday..so far..i REALLY don't get it lol..and i'm not a huge fan of 'ser' either lol

we learnt heaps more AGAIN this week..the alphabet..numbers to 100..days of the week..months of the year..seasons of the year..a crapload of random words..and then we were told what how/what/why/which/where are..and were told to make up some random questions..eep..

i DEFINITELY have to practice this week for the next lesson lol..

 

[elisabeth]

we only learnt that there WAS an 'estar' on wednesday..so far..i REALLY don't get it lol..and i'm not a huge fan of 'ser' either lol

we learnt heaps more AGAIN this week..the alphabet..numbers to 100..days of the week..months of the year..seasons of the year..a crapload of random words..and then we were told what how/what/why/which/where are..and were told to make up some random questions..eep..

i DEFINITELY have to practice this week for the next lesson lol..

That's more what I want to be doing!

Gah. Anyone know more about Tafe courses + fees?

 

[em_516]

this is costing me $179 a semester..and the course goes for a year..

i dunno whether that cost is the same for other tafe's though..nor do i know where there is a tafe on the central coast (but i guess you do)..

i'm also not sure whether you could join a class two weeks after it's started..you only had to enrol in spanish..not apply..so i guess you could if there was room..but if not..you'd have to wait till semester two i guess..but then i don't even know if they'd do it like that..sorry i don't think i'm much help lol..ring up?