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Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 1:16 pm
by kunsttyv
Just wanted to chime in and say that Roberto Bolaño's amazing multifaceted novel Los detectives salvajes was released as an audiobook a couple of months ago. It's more than 27 hours long, and features several narrators (that is, the audiobook does. The novel itself is a super fragmented mosaic of more than 50 distinctive voices that combined tell a compound story about two protagonists who themselves are never given an opportunity to speak up and tell their own story).

I've listened to the first four hours, and it is just as great as I remembered from reading the Norwegian translation. It starts out in Mexico City in the mid seventies, with explosive youthful energy mixed with the often accompanying youthful naivety (and lots of Mexican slang). But the storylines soon diverge towards other places on earth, and things get more sober and melancholic. It's one of my favorite books in any language, and I'm so happy finally being able to listen to it in the original.

You can get it over at audible, but with all the drm and hassle, I got it at audioteka instead. There's a free sample of the first two hours.

Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 6:59 pm
by Hank
kunsttyv wrote:Right now I'm three episodes short of finishing the first season of Aqui no hay quien viva. I have not tried to quantify my listening comprehension, and it's hard to say how much more of the dialogue I get now compared to when I started. However, I don't worry too much about it, it's a delightful sitcom with ridiculous characters and some hilarious storylines, and with plenty of visual cues to keep me onboard whenever some of the rapid muffled dialogue escape me.

Still I'm curious: after finishing all five seasons (approximately 100 hours in total), will I be able to understand nearly everything that is being said in a given episode? I assume many of you have been through a similar regime earlier and can comment on this. My suspicion is that I got a significant chunk of the vocabulary down already, but my parsing/sequencing abilities are still far from sufficiently developed, and some of the more colloquial expressions used rather frequently in the series are still unfamiliar to me.

The one character I'm struggling with the most, by far, is Emilio, el portero. I guess he speaks with a southern dialect (cordobés?), he speaks very fast and drops word endings and whole syllables more often than not it seems. Any tips on how to make this guy more intelligible?


Hopefully someone with a lot more experience and knowledge will comment, but I can relate my recent experience in this area.

Last summer I decided to watch the telenovela Despertar Contigo which was brand new. The series ended late in January or early in February. So let's say the show lasted six months or 24 weeks. Usually five nights a week, 40 minutes per episode not counting commercials. That's roughly 80 hours. Because of my work schedule I watched about 2/3 of the episodes. So roughly 54 hours? At my listening comprehension level when I started watching, I could understand the news and commercials fairly well and could usually get the gist, albeit very imperfectly, with staged TV shows.

At the beginning I was mostly getting the gist, but there were a few characters that were incomprehensible. Two were Colombian. One had a bad case of "mush mouth". One was an actor that I couldn't understand from a previous telenovela that I watched a chunk of. One was an actor with a really deep voice. By the end of the series, I could understand the Colombians and I had shown great improvement understanding the guy from the previous telenovela. I was getting the gist of what the guy with the deep voice was saying. "Mush mouth" was still mostly incomprehensible. Not only that, I was actually following the story and when I got confused it was usually because I had missed the previous episode. Once again, I didn't comprehend perfectly, but I was very rarely lost because I couldn't understand what was being said. I am now usually able to follow along, getting more than just the gist, when I watch a random telenovela. Extremely cool stuff!

At some point I got to wondering about how I listen to my native language English. Can I comprehend every single word that is said? Yes. Do I really do that when I watch a show in English? Hmm...not sure. I don't even know how I could test that. I can follow along with a TV program in English and in Spanish. Is that the same thing or isn't it?

I hope this is what you are looking for and helpful.

Edit: Really bad math on how many hours I watched. Somebody may need to check the numbers. I'm so confused! :lol:

Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:07 pm
by MorkTheFiddle
kunsttyv wrote:Just wanted to chime in and say that Roberto Bolaño's amazing multifaceted novel Los detectives salvajes was released as an audiobook a couple of months ago. It's more than 27 hours long, and features several narrators (that is, the audiobook does. The novel itself is a super fragmented mosaic of more than 50 distinctive voices that combined tell a compound story about two protagonists who themselves are never given an opportunity to speak up and tell their own story).

I've listened to the first four hours, and it is just as great as I remembered from reading the Norwegian translation. It starts out in Mexico City in the mid seventies, with explosive youthful energy mixed with the often accompanying youthful naivety (and lots of Mexican slang). But the storylines soon diverge towards other places on earth, and things get more sober and melancholic. It's one of my favorite books in any language, and I'm so happy finally being able to listen to it in the original.

You can get it over at audible, but with all the drm and hassle, I got it at audioteka instead. There's a free sample of the first two hours.

Thanks for the heads-up about this audiobook. I read the book several years ago, but I am sorry to say I was glad when I was done with it. But sometimes I read a book that does not grab my interest but then I find that an audio version of it will.
It is also good to know that there is an alternative to Audible, which produces fine products but it is often more hassle than it is worth.

Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 8:14 pm
by MorkTheFiddle
Hank wrote:
Edit: Really bad math on how many hours I watched. Somebody may need to check the numbers. I'm so confused! :lol:


Your math calculations check out okay.

Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2017 3:38 pm
by DaveBee
Just came across this, and thought it might be of interest.

Librarian job in Cambridge, UK.

To be considered for this role, you will have relevant library experience as well as a sound knowledge of Spanish, and you should enjoy working in a small, friendly team.

The closing date for applications is Tuesday 28th February 2017. Interviews for this position are expected to take place on Friday 10th March 2017.

Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2017 6:58 am
by CarlyD
Can someone at a higher level than me (probably everyone) take a look at the thread Multilingual Dog Commands?

There's a list for Spanish and on a lot of them they're giving the infinitive. I'd think the Command form would make more sense. For "come here (plural)" I've seen ven aca--they're saying venir.

Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2017 2:53 pm
by iguanamon
You are right CarlyD, you use the command form when ordering a dog to do something. I was taught to always "tutear" (use tú) when addressing animals. I almost never have the necessity to speak to animals in Spanish. None of my Spanish-speaking friends have pets. When I travel in the Spanish-speaking world, I almost never have the need to do that either. Even at advanced stages, there are whole areas of life that have vocabulary that go unknown until you need to know them. I don't have any pets and have never really been interested in having one, but dog command vocabulary is an area that I know in English because of exposure to family and friends with dogs and media, but since I don't and didn't have anywhere near the same exposure in Spanish- I looked it up.

Órdenes, comandos o señales en el adiestramiento de perros
Talking to animals in Spanish

Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2017 3:06 pm
by Jar-Ptitsa
Yes, the imperative (command) seems more logical, I agree as well.

I made a dog commands thread some days ago, and someone asked for the romance language ones, so I posted what I could find with Spanish, Italian etc. What I hoped was that people would say what they say to their animals, but these days all my threads go wrong, I mean the people write different things.

You didn't write there to ask or correct it. :roll: You never know if something is accurate online, so it's great that iguanamon has a list which he knows is correct.

That post which I put there was after a request by someone, but that person didn't return after I had searched it for them, so I think if it's not correct, then I will delete it. I tried. I can't know everythign.

Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Sat Feb 18, 2017 10:50 pm
by CarlyD
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.)

Re: Spanish Group

Posted: Sun Feb 19, 2017 9:48 am
by Brun Ugle
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.)


If you are interested in dog-Spanish, there are lots of videos on YouTube. I searched for "enseñar a perro" and found all kinds of things for teaching dogs various "tricks".

My great-niece uses Spanish to talk to her dog too. As I recall, she uses the 2nd person familiar commands, but she isn't a native speaker either.