Learning Spanish

[Autumn Dusk]

what is wierd is that alot of these people aren't immagrants. Some of them are even "more american" than I am by how long their ancestors have been in the country. They have such big and close knit-communities that are raised spanish-speaking with little exposure to Engilsh until age 6 or so when they are forced to go to school.

[CatherineM]

There are some farming communities in Oklahoma like that. Some are Polish or Czech or German, and the kids don't learn English until they go to school. I'd forgotten about them. They throw great parties.

[Totus Tuus]

[quote name='puellapaschalis' post='1600241' date='Jul 15 2008, 12:42 AM']In this country there are jobs which demand competency in Dutch and a foreign language. If not two.[/quote]

Your country is not America Our country does not demand competency, it coddles an unnecessary language barrier. We don't demand that people learn the language of all our other immigrants, such as Vietnamese. But for some reason we frown on people not learning Spanish.

And I am still wondering about the comment you made earlier...

[Guest rogerwillson]

I am currently taking a Conversational Spanish course at the local community college and the teacher said that Rocket Spanish is an excellent program for learning the language. If the raise is that huge, it would be worth the investment.

If I were you, I wouldn't hire the Colombian right away unless she is a teacher. Think about it - if you had to teach someone to speak English, would you know where to start or how to go about it? It's difficult without a plan. For example, I have taken Spanish classes before but they were not conversational, like the one I'm taking now. I'm finally learning how to put together sentences and learning the most useful vocabulary words to know. It's very different because of the focus.

Another tip the teacher gave which seemed to help several classmates: watch the soap operas on the Spanish channels. You can get used to hearing the words spoken and turn on the subtitles to see the words.


Resources--
[url="http://spanish.about.com/od/tipsforlearningspanish/u/start.htm"]Learn Spanish[/url]
[url="http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=3C0dMYbg0Yk"]Video Lessons[/url]
[url="http://www.rocketspanishreviews.com/rocketspanishreviewscam.html"]Learn Spanish Online[/url]

I hope this has helped you

Cheers
Roger.

[Maximilianus]

[quote name='USAirwaysIHS' post='1600488' date='Jul 15 2008, 03:32 PM']Pienso que es mas facile para aprender espanol cuando se sabe frances que aprender frances cuando se sabe espanol. Espanol es muy fonetico; frances no lo es. Pero, si se sabe latin, pienso que sería mas facile aprender espanol, porque los dos son muy similar (Y sinceramente, pienso que frances es muy dificile para comprender cuando es hablando que espanol, tambien).[/quote]

Tienes razon, tal vez todos debemos apredender el Latin, asi se hace mas facil a entender otras idiomas como el itlaliano, espanol o portogues y a la misma vez podemos cominicar entre nosotros cuando hablamos differentes lenguas nativas. Puede ser que el frances es mas deficil por la influencia de los idiomas galo y alemanes.

[Maximilianus]

Autumn Dusk it wouldn't hurt to learn some spanish, see it as learning a new skill you can use to your advantage.

Edited October 18, 2008 by Maximilianus

[puellapaschalis]

[quote name='Totus Tuus' post='1600141' date='Jul 15 2008, 04:36 AM']Please, explain what you mean by the term "Anglo-centric snobbery".[/quote]

The attitude that many people from the USA and the UK, and to a lesser extent other Anglophone countries, have that they speak English and everyone else should speak English, whether it be when they encounter people of other languages on home soil or whether travelling abroad.


[quote name='Totus Tuus' post='1600869' date='Jul 16 2008, 07:31 AM']Your country is not America Our country does not demand competency, it coddles an unnecessary language barrier. We don't demand that people learn the language of all our other immigrants, such as Vietnamese. But for some reason we frown on people not learning Spanish.

And I am still wondering about the comment you made earlier...[/quote]

In UK schools until a few years ago - ten, twenty? - it was unheard of that schoolchildren should learn anything other than French at school in terms of (modern) foreign languages. When I was at secondary school we had a choice between French, German and Italian. Now it's a language college and whilst I can't dig up which languages are offered as part of the school's curriculum, evening "community" classes offer French, Spanish, German, Polish, Arabic and Italian. I believe Chinese is offered in the school itself. Once they start offering Dutch I might go back and teach, muahahahahahahahahahaha

Whilst this school is maybe an exception, it is I believe indicative of a trend towards multilingualism. Just how multilingual people might become will differ greatly, of course, depending on the part of the country and the individual.

However, the difference is stark: French is still offered, along with almost everything else (I'd love to learn Vietnamese, a former pupil of mine might teach me). But getting this far did [i]not[/i] happen by virtue of people whining forty years ago about how French should not be required on the school curriculum because other languages were not given the same attention.

There is plenty of discussion about whether things like council documents should be printed in other languages (the ones that spring to mind are things like Urdu) as well as English, and I can understand the point of view that says that people in the UK should learn English to such a standard that such measures are unnecessary.

The situation in the Netherlands is slightly different: there has always been a long "tradition" of Dutch people being almost polyglots. It hasn't stopped the Dutch being Dutch. It hasn't turned the Netherlands into an English-, Turkish- or Arabic-speaking country (in the better part of the place at least). Dare I say that a very deep-rooted Anglo-centric snobbery has encouraged multilingual attitudes in countries like the Netherlands?

The fact remains that in many lines of work, multilingualism is anything from a definite plus to a necessity, not because of some exterior precept but because people (on the whole) are much more likely to meet those of other languages in their daily lives. Multilingualism is not a bad thing. Learning and becoming proficient in Spanish is not a bad thing.

[MilesJesu]

This reminds me of a joke that goes...

"What do you call a person who can speak two languages? ... Bilingual."
"What do you call a person who can only speak one language? .....


"American!"

************************

Nonetheless, I am reminded also of Paul admonition that he would become all things to all people in order to more effectively evangelize and spread the Good News. To the Jew he became Jew. To the Roman he became a Roman. This principle applies to learning languages as well as customs. If we can learn 5 languages, than that is 5 different groups of people we can be a better witness and possibly help spread the Good News. That should be our motivation and our duty. As for "having" to learn a language to get a job or something else, I think it is rather secondary to our call as Christians. We should always be ready to give a defense of the hope we have in us. In season, out of season, and to some extent, any language we can master.

Just my two centavos,

MilesJesu

[melporcristo]

I'm reading ur post about being in a predominately Spanish-speaking area and I want that sooo baaaad right now.

I'm loosing my language.

The only way your gonna learn it at this point is to practice with a native speaker and study the grammar. Thats the only way.

Suerte!

Edited October 19, 2008 by melporcristo

[Autumn Dusk]

I know kay-pasa!!!!!!!!! I think que pasa spellled I dunno

thats it

LOL

actually I've tried to learn a few more words here and there.

[Fidei Defensor]

[quote name='melporcristo' post='1681084' date='Oct 19 2008, 12:54 AM']I'm reading ur post about being in a predominately Spanish-speaking area and I want that sooo baaaad right now.

I'm loosing my language.

The only way your gonna learn it at this point is to practice with a native speaker and study the grammar. Thats the only way.

Suerte![/quote]

[melporcristo]

[quote name='fidei defensor' post='1681216' date='Oct 19 2008, 12:42 PM'][/quote]

JMJ

is that a sad face because of the loosing my language part?

Because if so, its very sad. I talk to my mom on the phone now in Spanish whenever I can because I never practice Spanish where I live now.

[Era Might]

[quote name='melporcristo' post='1681668' date='Oct 20 2008, 12:00 AM']JMJ

is that a sad face because of the loosing my language part?

Because if so, its very sad. I talk to my mom on the phone now in Spanish whenever I can because I never practice Spanish where I live now. [/quote]
You should find ways to use Spanish daily. Maybe read a Spanish newspaper? It might keep the language on your mind.

[morostheos]

A cool website I found that looks like it will be good for practicing foreign language is [url="http://www.busuu.com"]http://www.busuu.com[/url]

It's an online, international language learning community.

Mel, are there no Spanish masses near where you are? I know there are some not terribly far from you...

[uppercut55]

me+spanish=