Spanish Group

An area with study groups for various languages. Group members help each other, share resources and experience. Study groups are permanent but the members rotate and change.
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Jar-Ptitsa
Brown Belt
Posts: 1000
Joined: Sun Jul 19, 2015 1:13 pm
Location: London
Languages: Belgian French (N)

I can speak: Dutch, German, English, Spanish and understand Italian, Portuguese, Wallonian, Afrikaans, but not always correctly.
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby Jar-Ptitsa » Sun Feb 19, 2017 5:07 pm

CarlyD wrote:I'm sorry, vogeltje. I didn't post there because my Spanish isn't at a level where I was comfortable saying if it was correct or not, so I was hoping someone from this group who was much closer to fluent would know.

After I posted that I remembered all the signs I've seen where they do use the infinitive--"NO FUMAR"--so I'm wondering if the infinitive is a more formal version.

I've gone round and round looking for the correct way to ask my dog "what are you barking at?"--apparently there aren't a lot of Spanish guides on how to talk to your pet, lol.

(Edit: I was saying ¿a qué ladras? but I'm also seeing dar ladrado and estar ladrado.)


I think that you can talk how you want with your dog. My dog doesn't mind which language, he is multilingual, and if my versions of the foreign langauges are wrong, my dog doesn't know or doesn't mind.

dogs love you and they don't care about mistakes or judge you like the humans.


_____________________-

but of course if you want to be accurate in the foreign langauges, then you have to learn the accurate phrases, and I'm sorry if my charts were not accurate. I deleted them.


Yes, you can command using the infinitive, but it feels more impersonal, but it's personal to command your dog, so I expect that in Spanish it would be the imperative command.

Your example is a question, not a command. I'm not sure about the preposition in Spanish if it's a, but you can say (I think!! **I'm not a native speaker and my Spanish is elementary)

¿porqué ladras? or ¿porqué estás ladrando?" = why are you barking?

yoru other examples:

estar ladrando means to be barking
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-w- I am Jar-ptitsa and my Hawaiian name is ʻā ʻaia. Please correct my mistakes in all the languages. Thank you very much.
: 1 / 50 Spanish grammar
: 5 / 50 Spanish vocabulary

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MorkTheFiddle
Black Belt - 2nd Dan
Posts: 2113
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 8:59 pm
Location: North Texas USA
Languages: English (N). Read (only) French and Spanish. Studying Ancient Greek. Studying a bit of Latin. Once studied Old Norse. Dabbled in Catalan, Provençal and Italian.
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 11#p133911
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby MorkTheFiddle » Sat Feb 25, 2017 9:58 pm

No contento de leer un libro a la vez, hay tres libros en español en mi estante de lectura: Azul de Rubén Darío, Cinco Esquinas de Mario Vargas Llosa y La Novela de Genji. Azul es un conjunto de poemas y prosa publicado por primera vez en 1887 que tuvo un efecto significativo en la poesía modernista en cualquier idioma. Cinco Esquinas es una novela bastante caliente sobre el Perú por el distinguido veterano ganador de muchos premios literarios. La Novela de Genji es una traducción del japonés que fue escrita en el siglo XI.
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Many things which are false are transmitted from book to book, and gain credit in the world. -- attributed to Samuel Johnson

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CarlyD
Blue Belt
Posts: 608
Joined: Sat Jul 18, 2015 5:44 pm
Location: California, USA
Languages: English (N), Spanish--A2, German--now studying, A2
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby CarlyD » Sun Mar 05, 2017 11:52 pm

EDIT: Books have been claimed.

I have a stack of "easy" Spanish books that I just don't like. They're based on classics and I'm more of a romance or Scooby Doo reader. I keep picking them up to read and it's just not going to happen.

I would be happy to mail some or all of them, book rate, to anyone in the U.S. for free, or to anywhere else for actual postage. If no one wants them I'm going to donate them to the spring charity book sale.

The series is Leer en Español and I have 6 books in Level 1 and 6 books in Level 2. I'm including a link on the bottom to the main page on Amazon--those are the new editions--mine are the green or red ones purchased in 2000.

For Level 1 I have: Mala Suerte; La Sombra de un fotografia; Una mano en la arena; Adios, Papa (has writing in it); Sonar un crimen; and El misterio de la llave.

For Level 2 I have: La chica de los zapatos; Asesinato en el barrio gotico; De viaje; El libro secreto de Daniel Torres; El hombre del bar; and La ciudad de los Dioses.

ETA: Mine are books only--no CD's.

https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss ... en+Espanol
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kunsttyv
Orange Belt
Posts: 103
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:24 am
Location: Trondheim
Languages: Norwegian (native)
Spanish (learning)
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby kunsttyv » Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:22 pm

Yesterday I finished Destinos. It's a relief not having to deal with this thing anymore. That is not to say I didn't learn anything from it, because I learnt a lot. But that was when I was starting out with Spanish more than a year ago. For some reason I stopped watching it around the thirtieth episode, and just recently I picked it up again, watching the remaining twenty something. There's a lot about the series to enjoy, especially the spectacle of misfits masquerading as the Castillo family: Juan in his turtleneck making himself a cup of tea with honey in the middle of the night just waiting to get henpecked once more by his wife after she comes home from late night drinks with a male colleague, Gloria's gambling side-story, Don Fernando's coughing and barfing in place of talking in a show where the purpose is to teach spoken Spanish. I also appreciate Raquel's wardrobe, especially the clown suit. The problem is the endless repetitions, and also that the show progresses too slowly throughout the second half (whereas I felt the progress was good in the beginning), and even in episode 52 the dialogue was kind of awkwardly slow and stiff. But at least I can say I finished a course, and this is the first language course I have ever finished, and that must mean something I guess.

By the way, out of curiosity I searched the web for telenovela recommendations to see if there are some canonized classics out there that should be seen in the same way one should read Madame Bovary or see the movies by Douglas Sirk, that is to say something that is rooted in the romance tradition while at the same time transgressing it. Corazón salvaje seems to be this something. According to people on the internet. Presumably the greatest thing on this side of the Brontë sisters. Let's see, I'm going to give it a try!
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kunsttyv
Orange Belt
Posts: 103
Joined: Mon Aug 03, 2015 11:24 am
Location: Trondheim
Languages: Norwegian (native)
Spanish (learning)
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby kunsttyv » Tue Mar 21, 2017 9:41 pm

Wow, I just watched the intro. This looks amazing! Look at how she glides over the floor, kisses one and then the next, and now here comes a jealous one! I can already feel my heart pumping a little faster and stronger!
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coldrainwater
Blue Belt
Posts: 686
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 4:53 am
Location: Magnolia, TX
Languages: EN(N), ES(rusty), DE(), FR(studies)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7636
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Hello World

Postby coldrainwater » Sun Mar 26, 2017 2:55 am

If I have learned but one small thing about advice, it is that everyone likes to give it. Much like Churchill, people love learning (but hate being taught). I was sent a timely invite by a certain reptile and would like to say hello to the group. As an analyst who moonlights as a developer, it is only fair to title my response ¨Hello World¨.

It has likely been mentioned on a wide variety of occasions, but I do not mind belching out the only tiny fragment of advice that comes to mind as I am writing this entry. Make sure you have your forum settings in Spanish and not English! Until fairly recently, I did not even bother to check and see whether this forum offered Spanish as a default language option and I was very happy to see that it does (it is one of only a few offered for the curious). In addition to staying familiar with your target tongue, it is nice to have spell check working for the Spanish entries that you make. Similarly, just as a fish is the last creature to learn ¨what is water?¨, never forget that you have simple options like Transover (chrome extension allowing hover insta-trans that bootstraps right off of google´s translation engine) at your call and beck. When I power wash my chromebook, transover is the first and only extension I add back due to how well it works and how much time it saves for the budding language apprentice.

Many thanks to all those who have proffered resources current and even more thanks to those yet to come.

Saludos,

-Erizo
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Xenops
Brown Belt
Posts: 1444
Joined: Mon Nov 30, 2015 10:33 pm
Location: Boston
Languages: English (N), Danish (A2), Japanese (rusty), Nansha (constructing)
On break: Japanese (approx. N4), Norwegian (A2)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... 15&t=16797
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Re: Hello World

Postby Xenops » Sun Mar 26, 2017 1:49 pm

coldrainwater wrote: Make sure you have your forum settings in Spanish and not English! Until fairly recently, I did not even bother to check and see whether this forum offered Spanish as a default language option and I was very happy to see that it does (it is one of only a few offered for the curious).


Thank you! What an interesting selection of languages.
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NoManches
Blue Belt
Posts: 654
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:21 pm
Location: Estados Unidos (near the Mexican border)
Languages: English - (N)
Spanish - B2 +
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7942
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby NoManches » Wed Apr 05, 2017 3:34 am

I'm currently reading La Última Bala by Raúl Garbantes. I find the book pretty easy to read even though it' the first time I've attempted to read anything in Spanish in over 3 months. I checked out some more books by the same author and decided to buy El Palacio de la Inocencia in paperback format because it has some really good reviews.

Figured I'd share this with the crew in case somebody was looking for a new book to read 8-)
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Spanish Movies
: 10795 / 18000

Spanish Books
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NoManches
Blue Belt
Posts: 654
Joined: Thu Feb 25, 2016 2:21 pm
Location: Estados Unidos (near the Mexican border)
Languages: English - (N)
Spanish - B2 +
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7942
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby NoManches » Mon Apr 10, 2017 11:28 pm

As many of you know, I'm a huge fan of using YouTube videos to improve my language skills. I subscribe to a ton of channels but find it hard to get "hooked" on a particular channel. However, there is one channel that I find super interesting and I think many language learners will too:

https://www.youtube.com/user/alanxelmundo/featured

Basically, this Mexican guy named Alan travels the world and puts everything on YouTube. I just watched a clip of him in Thailand (a place I have been to before and could relate to). I'm currently watching a video he made of him in Durango, Mexico. He happens to be with Fernanda Castillo for this episode, which is awesome because I'm a huge fan of hers from El Señor de Los Cielos.

I hope you find the channel enjoyable! I find that he is very easy to understand and it is great practice for my comprehension.
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DOUBLE Super Challenge
Spanish Movies
: 10795 / 18000

Spanish Books
: 4415 / 10000

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coldrainwater
Blue Belt
Posts: 686
Joined: Sun Jan 01, 2017 4:53 am
Location: Magnolia, TX
Languages: EN(N), ES(rusty), DE(), FR(studies)
Language Log: https://forum.language-learners.org/vie ... =15&t=7636
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Re: Spanish Group

Postby coldrainwater » Wed Apr 12, 2017 6:04 am

NoManches,

Thanks for the suggestion! Alan ticks quite a few boxes that I might look for in a listening role model (we are what we consume). His voice is clear, crisp and well-enunciated. I watched a video of his on Irish Castles just now and he brings a lot to the table with a strong, energetic personality. His diction is also designed to excite, which is in good form for this content type. It is also nice that when they happen to wax English, he will drop subs in Spanish, giving me a type of practice that I do not often get (and might not otherwise seek). It is likely that I will subscribe to a decent array of youtube channels as well since, at the end of the day, I plan on using my Spanish listening for knowledge acquisition in various forms and via different cultures. Not to mention, he will, by dint of his penchants, plant seeds in our minds for some awesome travel destinations.
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