English Speaking people learning spanish.

JM   Tue Dec 01, 2009 8:28 pm GMT
daveyboy , do you understand this?:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Byji_ZakSc


The rap part is fast.
Harman   Wed Dec 02, 2009 6:14 am GMT
'they dont understand whats being said at 200 miles an hour'

I think spanish needs more words than english to transmite the same information, so spanish speakers must speak faster than english speakers.

Someone told me spanish speakers write long sentence, even when they write english.

Do you agree?
daveyboy   Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:20 am GMT
Harman, i have not really noticed much about them writing spanish/english sentences, but i have noticed in the books some of them are long. Also when i listen to the news on the tv or radio..lol. it sounds as though they have got 10 - 15 seconds and in this time everything they need to say comes out [ time limits for the news ] talk about fast..!! out of the 2 the women seem to talk faster than the men. Someone told me once that the more you listen to the spanish the more it seems to start slowing down because your understanding more, what do you think Harman..? Is German a fast spoken language ?
daveyboy   Wed Dec 02, 2009 9:24 am GMT
Jm i had a listen to the clip on youtube, i was distracted from listening because of Nelly .haha.. what a little beauty she is. I did not understand all of it just some parts, with the sound of the music it was harder to understand.
fraz   Wed Dec 02, 2009 10:54 am GMT
I used little tricks like trying to think in German when I was on my own, walking or driving the car for example. One of the biggest problems for novice language learners is that you can always understand far more than what you can actually say. Often you find yourself nodding along to a conversation but when it's your turn to speak, only garbled nonsense comes out. Getting your brain into the way of thinking in Spanish and automatically formulating sentences would be a big leap forward.

Also, if a situation arose that I couldn't explain in German, I would endeavour to find out the appropriate verbs and vocabulary to describe it. Or if something happened that I could cope with, I might say to myself, now what if THIS had happened instead, how would I say that? It's good to explore as many alternatives as possible.
daveyboy   Wed Dec 02, 2009 12:27 pm GMT
Its the other way round for me fraz , i can speak spanish more than i can understand spanish..!! its crazy really because most people that i have spoke too can understand spanish better than they can speak it.!! but i think most of them have learned what they know just through talking and listening, without the grammer books or anything. I worked with a guy that had no problems understanding anything that anyone said too him, but when he spoke i noticed mistakes even. My teacher said the same about thinking and using more easy ways to say things in spanish, like verbs, there mite be 2 - 3 different verbs that more or less mean the same thing, use the easy one you remember the best she said.
Harman   Thu Dec 03, 2009 9:15 pm GMT
Sorry daveyboy i have no clue about german at all.

Listening is easier than speaking in all languages because if you miss one or two words you can still understand the sentence using context. You can not lose words while you are speaking, and what about phonetics?

Don't give up, you just need time. One day your mind will turn spanish mode on and that's it, you got it. You will know when you begin to think in spanish.

Some day you will go back to UK and you will say 'perdon' instead of excuse me, patatas instead of potatoes, tomates instead of tomatoes , and so on you will see he he he.
Guest   Thu Dec 03, 2009 10:51 pm GMT
Someday you will say your girlfriend "puta" instead of slut.
daveyboy   Fri Dec 04, 2009 9:48 am GMT
Yeah i understand what your saying Harman, When i first started listening to the news/audio i used to try and translate the single words, but its no good, now i listen to the whole sentence and seem to understand it better in context. I have been back to the uk for holidays quite a few times Harman..haha.. its true, spanish phrases do come out, all i get is eh..? eh..?..lol.
cheers mate.

We have another Troll.. oh dear. Guest, Your not a very happy person are you..? You probably dont have a girlfriend to call anything.! porque estas muy feo y tonto..jeje.. You are an interent warrior hiding behind your internet connection. Cara a cara no puedes hacer nada nunca, eres un Gili poyas siempre.. estoy seguro..!!
fraz   Fri Dec 04, 2009 1:24 pm GMT
I think it's usually the case that when a British person finds a foreign partner, the person from abroad tends to be good at English while the Brit has a limited (if any) grasp of the other language. Therefore English becomes the language of the relationship as the two people get to know each other. I'm not saying this applies to every couple, but it will be a general pattern.

It can then be difficult to break out of the English comfort zone, particularly if your job is an English-speaking one and you socialise with other English speakers. Many Brits will simply just learn whatever foreign lingo is needed for survival.

Then there's the problem of people overseas wanting to use you as an English practice robot. It used to annoy me when I was in Germany and people would sometimes answer me in English after I'd just constructed a comprehensible sentence in German. I'd think to myself, hey I'm in your country speaking your language and you don't want to know, how else am I supposed to learn? Now I don't bother and just plough on with the German. If they want to speak English with me then they can come over to my island.
Guest   Fri Dec 04, 2009 1:40 pm GMT
German people are proud of their language and they can't stand German being butchered by the English speakers, so they answer in English.
daveyboy   Fri Dec 04, 2009 4:14 pm GMT
Fraz you could not be more right mate, the english comfort zone is a bad thing..lol.. in my first year here we used it most of the time, plus at work there was a romanian guy that loved to practise his english with me..!! he was fluent in spanish [ as they all are ] that was a bad thing for me to do as well. Now in the house me and my girfriend speak in spanish.

Guest, butchered by English..? The german people mite be proud of there language but i dont think all of them think the same way as you do they now..?
Marcelo   Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:26 pm GMT
"Europe is full of sudacas too"

Wow again. Ok, solo porke puedo hablar espaƱol no significa ke soy latino wey. As a matter of fact, about 1 in 5 speak Spanish here in the US (we'll see how many people speak it for sure after the 2010 census). Also so you know, people don't take offense to that here. All these Spaniards get off of the cruse ships thanking there so bad calling the Latinos "thudakathss" with their cool lisps.
Marcelo   Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:37 pm GMT
. Yeah, I learned by just always watching tv in spanish with my friends when I was young, so that's a really good method. Buena suerte man.
Franco   Fri Dec 04, 2009 10:46 pm GMT
<<Latinos "thudakathss" with their cool lisps. >>

You don't know how to fake the Spanish accent. . There is not the "th" sound in that word. Contrarily to the sudacas we distinguish S and Z. Here is a song for you . Listen to it and learn European Spanish, that is, proper Spanish:


El sudaca nos ataca.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czMCgaj_gnk