Hank's Adventure in Spanish (Now with 100% more Welsh!)

[Hank]

Español

¡Fue un par de semanas horrible! Mi esposa recibío una carta por jury duty durante el semana de nuestro crucero. El internet en mi casa dejó de funcionar. Mi computadora dejó de funcionar. Mi Jeep dejó de funcionar. Pero ahora todo está bien. Ahora el internet y la computadora funcionan. Mi esposa no tiene que ir al jury duty. Compré un Jeep nuevo. Es un Jeep Patriot y es muy agradable. No quiero pagar la factura.

¡El crucero es en menos de dos semanas! Estoy emocionado.

Terminé dos libros desde el última vez que escribí en mi registro. La espía por Paulo Coehlo y Asesinato en el Orient Express por Agatha Christie. La espía no fue tan bueno. Creí que era un libro de ficción historica pero es solo ficción. Asesinato en el Orient Express fue bastante bueno. Creo que la copia que compré es un libro pirata. Que extraño. No tiene numeros de página, no página legal (quería saber cuando el libro fue escrito) y muchos errores. Empiezo de leer El alquimista por Paulo Coehlo. Hasta aquí realmente lo me gusta. Es muy, muy facíl de leer.

Mi Jeep nuevo tiene radio por satelite gratis por un año. Tiene un estación de radio en español. Parece de ser para los Cubanos viviendo en Florida. Lo escucho mucho.

Cymraeg

Wnes i orffen Anturiaethau Alys yng Ngwlad Hud. Mae hi'n anodd darllen ond dw i'n ei hoffi. Mae hi'n llyfr od iawn. Wnes i prynu Harri Potter a Maen yr Athronydd. Mae hi'n y llyfr Harri Potter cyntaf. Wnes i ei ddechrau ddarllen ond wnes i stopio. Mae hi'n anodd iawn. Dw i'n angen y llyfr yn Saesneg. Dw i eisiau cymharu'r llyfrau.

Dw i'n gallu ysgrifennu yn Gymraeg fel Tarzan ar ól dim ond chwech mis! Hwre!

I'm sure my Welsh paragraph is a train wreck, but that's ok, it feels like an accomplishment. I'm also sure that it's probably a random mix of northern and southern Welsh. It could definitely be more eloquent. I'll get there, though. I guess I take some comfort in the fact that almost nobody on the forum will know how bad my writing is!

I recently had one of the unexpected bumps in reading comprehension. I was feeling fairly frustrated, wondering if I was ever going to comprehend this language. Then suddenly one day it all kind of clicked. The grammar is straightforward enough but the vocabulary is a killer.

Literary Welsh is different than spoken Welsh. Literary Welsh uses "simple conjugation" or something like that. Simple something. The trouble is that it isn't all that simple. I don't expect this to be an issue because I'll still be able to learn vocabulary but it is kind of slowing me down. I have a couple of websites that I read that use more conversational Welsh.

I'm still working on listening comprehension even though I don't have the vocabulary to understand much.

Overall I'm still very excited and enjoying the journey. Having already learned a language has been a big help.

Hwyl!

[hectorgrey]

Shw'mae. Good luck with Harry Potter - I'll have to try to tackle that one again at some point. The Welsh translations of Roald Dahl's books are pretty good (at least, the BFG one was pretty good).

[Hank]

Shw'mae. Good luck with Harry Potter - I'll have to try to tackle that one again at some point. The Welsh translations of Roald Dahl's books are pretty good (at least, the BFG one was pretty good).

The first "real" Welsh language book I read was James a'r Eirinen Wlanog Enfawr. I had never read any Roald Dahl books before that. I'll probably read most of them while I'm learning. Harry Potter is pretty difficult for my level.

Español

He regresado del crucero. Fue muy divertido y emocionante. La comida fue muy rico. Especialmente las hamburguesas. Tuve la oportunidad de comer pato. No he comiendo pato antes. Es bueno. Utilicé el tobogán de agua en el barco. No era tan rapido pero era divertido. El agua en el tobogán tuvo el sabor de sal como agua del mar. Vi muchos peces voladores en el mar.

Quería la oportunidad de hablar en español en el barco pero no había muchos trabajadores de países hispanohablante. Solo vi dos. La mayoría de los trabajadores viven en países pacificos. Sentí miedo de hablar en español en México. No sé porque. Supongo que necesito más auto confianza.

¡Gané una medalla! Durante un trivia quiz de rock and roll, el conductor dijo que si alguien se bailan esta persona ganaría una medalla. No puedo bailar ¡pero no me importaba! ¡Quería ganar una medalla! Llevaba mi medalla todo el resto del crucero. No sé como se dice "trivia quiz" en español.

Era una problema antes de llegabamos en México. Tuvimos que esperar en el mar durante toda una noche. No pudimos ir a Yucatán pero sí visitabamos Cozumel. Cozumel es muy hermoso. Compré una camiseta de la Selección Nacional de México.

El plan era visitar Gales el año próximo, pero debido a la espera la compañia de cruceros nos dio un discuento de 20% por otro crucero. Ahora mi esposa y yo probablemente vamos a ir a otro crucero.

Cymraeg

Dw i'n credu bydd ysgrifennu a siarad yn haws na darllen. Mae darllen yn anodd. Darllenais i rhai tudalennau o Harri Potter a Maen yr Artronydd a Bywyd Blodwen Jones gan Bethan Gwanas. Mae Bywyd Blodwen Jones yn llyfr dysgwr Cymraeg. Y llyfr cael ei ysgrifennu fel dyddiadur. Mewn y llyfr mae Blodwen Jones yn dysgwr Cymraeg. Mae hi'n ysgrifennu dyddiadur. Mae'n llyfr 'ma yn braidd hawdd. Mae Harri Potter yn anodd.

Just for full disclosure, I had to look up quite a few things for my Welsh writing. I don't want anyone to think I'm better than I really am.

It took me a while to get back into the swing of language learning after the cruise. I was exhausted for a few days afterwards and didn't want to do anything more than stare at the TV. I didn't do any language study during the cruise (unless you count eavesdropping on Spanish speakers in Mexico ) because I didn't want to pay the ridiculous price for internet access that I read is lousy. I also didn't have the opportunity to buy another Spanish language book due to bad weather the weekend before we left. I guess I did watch a couple of hours of CNN in Spanish one night when my stomach was upset from eating way too much and I didn't feel like doing anything. I got some Welsh study done in the airports on the way too and from the cruise.

If you ever get the opportunity to go on a cruise DO IT! It's fun.

[Hank]

I wrote this today while I was doing a little grammar study. I figured I might as well share it. I had to look up a lot of words but most of them I recognized so hopefully this will help cement them. My intention is to write somewhat regularly, hopefully 3 or 4 times a week.

Wnes i archebu ein mordeithio ni nesaf. Y tro hwn dyn ni'n mynd i Honduras, Belize, and Cozumel. Mae'r llong yn Carnival Dream. Mae'r mordeithio yn mis Ionawr nesaf. Dwi'n cyffrous iawn! Mae fy nhad a minnau'n mynd i ymweld y ddinas San Miguel yn Cozumel. Mae fy ngwraig a'm mam ddim yn eisiau mynd i'r San Miguel. Mae'n nhw'n ofni.

I booked our next cruise. This time we're going to Honduras, Belize, and Cozumel. The ship is Carnival Dream. The cruise is next January. I'm very excited! My dad and I are going to visit the city San Miguel in Cozumel. My wife and my mom don't want to go to San Miguel. They're afraid.

I actually feel pretty confident that this is correct. My only real question is with the next to last sentence. "Mae fy ngwraig a'm mam" somehow doesn't seem correct.

Vocabulary acquisition has been terribly slow. At least it seems that way. I can't really remember how I was doing with Spanish vocabulary after 7 months. I think Anturiaethau Alys yng Ngwlad Hud and Harri Potter a Maen yr Athronydd weren't the best choices for books at my level. I can only read two or three pages of Harri Potter before my brain is fried. I have thought about putting it aside for now, but I'm really enjoying the story so I'm going to continue reading it. And it's not like I'm not making progress. Occasionally I can comprehend an entire sentence or even a paragraph on very rare occasions. I can occasionally get the gist of a sentence or a paragraph on the first read-through, but it's slow going. I do well with Bywyd Blodwen Jones but it's written in a conversational style and it's for learners. I'm also doing fairly well with news stories and the Welsh language, video game blog that I read. Unfortunately most of the news stories on BBC Cymru are terribly depressing and I generally don't want to read about death and destruction. I want to read literature. (I guess Harry Potter is considered literature. ) One of the most fun things about learning Spanish has been reading books in Spanish. I get pretty frustrated but I still have the burning desire to learn this crazy language.

At this point I have dropped the idea of learning Japanese. I read somewhere, maybe here but I don't think so, that Welsh is one of the harder languages to learn. If it's on the internet then it must be true! I can't imagine I would be able to maintain the motivation to learn Japanese since I don't have any emotional connection to the language. I can always change my mine later, though.

[Hank]

Tuve mi primera conversación en español con un compañero de trabajo. Estábamos intentando de notificar unas personas en una casa que había una fuga de gas en una casa cerca. Queríamos que las personas permanacer en su casa. Podíamos ver que la televisión estaba encendida y también las luces. No podíamos ver alguien en la casa. Nadie respondió.

Mi compañero de trabajo dijo en inglés -Es posible que necesito gritar en español.-
Yo en español -¡Departamento de bomberos! ¡Departamento de bomberos!-
Él en español -¿Habla usted español?-
Yo en español -Sí. Un poco.-



No fue una conversación real, pero fue divertido. Él aprendió el español en la universidad. Quería hablar más en español pero era más importante de concentrar en el trabajo. Normalmente no trabajamos en la misma estación pero a veces trabajamos juntos. Espero que voy a tener unas oportunidades de hablar con él en el futuro.

Wow. Writing in Spanish at 8:00 a.m. without having had sufficient coffee is brutal! My original intent was to log onto the forum to ask a question. Then I got to thinking it would be fun to tell this little story. After I started writing the post it occurred to me that it would be a good idea to write the post in Spanish. I wanted to bang my head against the desk after having to look up words that I know that I know, like aprender. I also usually read a little so I can warm up. I got it done, though. It doesn't seem too terrible. Am I rambling? Too much coffee now?

Anyway, now onto the real reason I'm here. I want to write in Welsh and Spanish more often in my log but the difficulty is coming up with something to write about other than the occasional story like the one above. I have written quite a bit about my language learning journeys and it seems like the same thing over and over. Diary-like entries would be pretty boring. Not only to write, but also to read. I was looking at rdearman's log this morning and he indicated that he's writing some kind of story. I'm a horrible writer, but this seems like a pretty good idea and also fun. I was thinking I could write a Welsh story involving a boy and a red dragon. If it's a Welsh story it has to involve a red dragon, right? It could be really simple, first person with stuff like: Owen Meirion ydw i. Dw i'n byw yng Nghaerdydd. Mae chwaer gen i. (I'm Owen Meirion. I live in Cardiff. I have a sister.) Nothing too complex but at least I would be practicing and learning vocabulary as I have to look up words. A Spanish story could be more complex. Maybe some kind of action and adventure story? A mystery set in the Mayan ruins? The stories would be horrible but that's not important. The important things being regular practice and whether or not it's understandable. This seems like a great idea and a fun idea right now but I know how I am. This may or may not happen with any regularity but I'm feeling motivated to give it a shot.

Has anyone tried anything like this? What do you think?

[rdearman]

I've tried it.

It definitely works if you can get some corrections. But even without the corrections I got in my French story, I was using dictionary, grammar and spell checkers to try and make it better. If nothing else it would certainly make you think about sentence construction. If you can find a grammar checker it will really help you. Especially one which explains why it is wrong. You might want to look at https://www.languagetool.org/ it doesn't support Welsh, but certainly does Spanish. Perhaps someone else knows one for Welsh.

[Hank]

rdearman reads my log? Who would have thought?

Thanks for the languagetool link. That's pretty nifty, even if I have a tough time believing that the only error I made in my Spanish writing this morning was one misspelling. I think I almost broke the website typing something in Welsh in there. I have been wanting to get some corrections. I used lang-8 for a while but it seemed like a lot of work for little reward.

[Finolia]

Maybe you can use this for Welsh. As I do not know it (yet ) I do not know how good it is but maybe it’s worth a try.
http://www.cysgliad.com/cysill/arlein/

[Hank]

Maybe you can use this for Welsh. As I do not know it (yet ) I do not know how good it is but maybe it’s worth a try.
http://www.cysgliad.com/cysill/arlein/

Diolch yn fawr.

I messed with this a little bit and it seems pretty good. I didn't even know stuff like this existed.

[Hank]

Harri Potter a Maen yr Athronydd is killing me. I have been working my way through the book since early January and I'm not even halfway finished. I don't know why it's so difficult. The first two books I read in Welsh were difficult but nothing like this. I know that I'm letting frustration get the better of me but something needs to change. I can see a lot of improvement while reading news stories, the Welsh language, geek blog that I read, and the novels for Welsh learners so I know it's not hurting my studies but I'm so frustrated with this book. I'm really enjoying the story and I don't want to quit. That may be the best option for right now, though. I can always pick it up later. I have considered plugging along and comparing with the English version without looking up as many words but I'm not sure that's going to help me much from a learning standpoint.

On to something more positive. I have been listening to some Welsh podcasts and BBC Radio Cymru. I can get a very broad gist of what they're talking about! Very surprising and exciting.

I'm still thinking about my Welsh language story. I think it will be fun.

Hwyl!