Wanting to learn Spanish

[Mrs. Gooch]

I'm up to 6%.
However, there is a lot of stuff (i.e. h is silent) that I learned from my audiobook which Duolingo didn't explictly tell me even though I really need to know to get the pronunciations correct.

[sys]

For example, she struggled with much of the slang when translated Ourdano's tweets last year.

probably not so much slang as written in textpanol not actual written spanish.  and also chock full of errors/typos and whatnot.

[CNS]

I really like "textpanol"

[sys]

btw, i've gotten noticeably worse since i started living in the us full-time and my wife is mexican and we mostly converse in spanish, so i'm starting to doubt if any of you can actually get better if you continue to live in this country.

[mocat]

You can get better than not knowing any spanish

[Mrs. Gooch]

You can get better than not knowing any spanish

 

[Dr Rick Daris]

my wife is mexican and we mostly converse in spanish,

I would pay five dollars (US) a month to subscribe to a live webcam feed of the sys household.

[Mrs. Gooch]

btw, i've gotten noticeably worse since i started living in the us full-time and my wife is mexican and we mostly converse in spanish, so i'm starting to doubt if any of you can actually get better if you continue to live in this country.

In my audiobook, it says people in Mexico (or maybe all Spanish speaking countries) stand close to each other when talking. It is rude to stand far away like in the US. Is this true?

[Dr Rick Daris]

btw, i've gotten noticeably worse since i started living in the us full-time and my wife is mexican and we mostly converse in spanish, so i'm starting to doubt if any of you can actually get better if you continue to live in this country.

In my audiobook, it says people in Mexico (or maybe all Spanish speaking countries) stand close to each other when talking. It is rude to stand far away like in the US. Is this true?

ok, 6 dollars then.

[sys]

In my audiobook, it says people in Mexico (or maybe all Spanish speaking countries) stand close to each other when talking. It is rude to stand far away like in the US. Is this true?

no.  you can stand however you want.

[sys]

Actually ¡Buenos días! exactly translates to Good Day (or Good Days?) but they use it to mean "Good Morning"

Mañana mean "morning" but it also means "tomorrow" 

the day is the morning.  it makes more sense in spain, where good day lasts until 2 pm.  mexico keeps the greeting, but has converted to american time, so it's just good day until noon.

[sys]

OK, apparently la mañana means morning and el mañana means tomorrow....I think....maybe...stupid Spanish with it's masculine and feminine ever-y-thing! It must be really hard to be transgender in a Spanish speaking country.

this is interesting, because i'm pretty good at spanish and had no idea this was true until just now.  if someone had asked me how to tell them apart before right now, i'd have just said it's context.  or if i'd have thought about it more, i'd have said that the morning is almost always with an article (la) and tomorrow hardly ever is (ex.  les veo aqui manana por la manana).

don't worry too much about genders.  getting genders mixed up is part of our charming american accent.  like when a french speaking person says something like "the night, she is beautiful.".  the native speakers can figure out what you mean without any problem.

[deputy dawg]

Can tell you how NOT to learn Spanish--use one of those electronic translators.  Tried it in Cartagena, and the locals laughed their ass off while I was trying to type words into my translator.  The hooker that propositioned me in Santa Marta spoke the best English during my trip to Colombia.  I personally recommend duolingo, but have been stuck at the same proficiency level for 3 months.

Key word at bodegas:  cerveza

[mocat]

i have enough spanish knowledge to carry on a conversation with a native speaker who is willing to slow down a bit for me.
the thing that gets me the worst is any tense other than present tense.

[mocat]

like if someone asked me how long i've been there or something i'd be like

en la mas de abril, estoy primero aqui

[Emo EMAW]

I would go with "I arrived in April."  But in Spanish.  And only if I could remember the verb for arrive.  I can't.  crap. llegar?

[Emo EMAW]

llegar yes!

[mocat]

yeah but i can't remember how to conjugate verbs in past tense and future tense and all that, is what i'm saying

[Dub]

Downloaded Duolingo as well, will see how it goes (I'm semi-immersed in the culture so hopefully that will help)

[sys]

en la mas de abril, estoy primero aqui

heh, that's good.

[Mrs. Gooch]

So far, this is pretty much what I can say...

El gato es amarillo. El perro es cafe. Yo soy bueno. Ella come fruta y queso.

I don't know how to do the accent marks on my phone so Duolingo keeps telling me to pay attention to accent marks....Are they really that importante?

[Brock Landers]

I can read Spanish but trying to have a live conversation with somebody is waaay beyond my abilities.

[CNS]

I can read Spanish but trying to have a live conversation with somebody is waaay beyond my abilities.

This is me, but un piquito(SP).

[sys]

Duolingo keeps telling me to pay attention to accent marks....Are they really that importante?

if you are going to be writing formal documents, then yes.  you'll appear ignorant if you don't place appropriate accent marks.  for any other purpose, ignore them completely.  actually, if your intention is to speak, i don't think it's helpful to look much at written spanish - it just fucks up your pronunciation.

[CNS]

I only care about conversational, but I also think it useful to be able to read a sign while drunk in a foreign country.