My self study
 

I suppose like everyone else I should write a little each day in Spanish. Each time I try to write something I feel like I don't know enough to communicate with someone yet. When you begin, how do you start to express the idea? Do you write it in English then look up the words you don't know and change? Anyway I hope my first few sentences do not butcher the Spanish language too bad.


Yo soy fútbol aficionado nuevo. La taza del mundo es muy interesante. Yo sorprendido ganaron de España.

I am a new soccer fan. The World Cup is very interesting. I was surprised that Spain won.

Not bad at all!

First of all, the world cup in Spanish has its own term, that being "La copa mundial"
Also, for being surprised, it sounds much better the way I wrote it, I believe it would be correct to say "Yo estaba sorprendido" meaning 'I was surprised' but the way I wrote it sounds much better.
At the end, I changed it from the plural past tense you had (which was conjugated correctly) to the singular past because when you refer to a country, you generally use the singular form. I also wrote it in the present perfect form which is how you'd probably hear it said in Spain (meaning "has won")

If you need further clarification on anything, let me know :)

Ah okay. I didn't think of cup as in trophy only cup. Now I see. La copa mundial. The world cup/trophy.

I gave you +rep. It doesn't look like many people use the rep system here. I think it's wonderful because you can quickly tell if a person is trustworthy when you're new. Thanks.

I'd like to add a few corrections to those already given.


I'm a fan (of soccer) = soy (un) aficionado (al fútbol)
The use of the indefinite article (un) is not a requirement.
The preposition a is used in Spanish instead of de, with this noun, and the definite article el is required. When a + el occur together, they are contracted to al.
In your sentence, 'fan' is the subject, not soccer.
The adjective 'nuevo' can go before the subject, or it can go after the object.

me sorprendió = it surprised me
You can't use the subject pronoun 'yo' with this structure because the subject is 'it', not 'I'.

When something surprises you, this is an emotion that invokes the use of the subjunctive mood in the dependent clause (after the word que). So, starting with the corrected sentence given above, it should be:
Me sorprendió que España la ganara. -o-
Me sorprendió que España la hubiera ganado.

I threw in the direct object pronoun la to refer back to la Copa Mundial.

I agree with Rusty in his corrections, language-wise. :)

In terms of the reality of things, Spain has only won (so far) the semi-final match against Germany... (Todavía no ha ganado la Copa = It hasn't won the Cup yet)

El domingo [que viene] se juega la final de la Copa... y veremos quien [la]gana. = [Next] Sunday takes place the draw for the Cup final... and we will see who wins [it].

(By the way, I hope Spain wins it... but the funny thing of this World Cup is that to me, Johan Cruijff, the old Dutch/Barcelona star from the 70s, is the real winner, as his philosophy of playing he imbued in Barcelona and Holland, represented by Spain and Holland in the finals, is what is definitely triumphing here.)
(Germany could have won, but I was not surprised by Spain. They have been, with Brazil, the best guys in the field during the last few years...)
Bueno, me dejo llevar por el tema, y me olvido de la lengua...
(Well, I let myself be carried by the subject, and forget the language...)

But if you like a subject, you can practice with it, playing with its intrinsic interest and then saying (or trying to say) things about it, in the language you want to learn... :)

Hello.

Good afternoon. I have read all your post and it make me feel curiosity.
I've been here in the forums for more of 3 years all the days writing post daily, I stared studying with my brother, already he's studying the degree in the university and his specialty is English, then I decided to learn the language trough to him, I stared with the most basic the personal pronoun, he taught me the more basic and some words, then I learnt the pronoun and I stared to form short phrases with the a few words what I learned in that moment.

Then a old friend from messenger told me about this website, as fast as I knew it, I decided to enter to the website, after the website like me, and I'm here even.

My first post was in English although I had a lot of mistakes, than soon the people start correct me the phrases, so I could to learn the language a few- a few with the pass of the time, I have learnt much, and well I'm not a smart in the language, but I can give great hit with a native speaker English.

Still I make great mistakes, perhaps this post has mistakes, but always I procure to write in English, the cause is because I haven't sufficient time for write in both language Spanish and English.

Second. I like to write in English always, because of this way my brain has gone taking the ability to think faster than before, I know what perhaps I'm wrong yet, but it doesn't matter me.

Because of this way I can learn the new words and I don't forget the words what I learn daily, I dare say what I have learnt more of this way than in a school all the days besides the schools here on my country are expensive and they aren't cheap.

This is like to a ship, you can surf in your own world inside of the language.
I have took the more deep of the mistakes when a simple word became hard for me.

For example I have learn something trough of the people is what if you don't asleep well, you won't can think clearly in the next morning.

If you are with the mind in your work and you have a lot of stress, also you will tend to do mistakes even you know completely the language.

More or less I can give you an idea of as you can start in the forums, the point is what you learn of the way more comfortable what you can.

You try all the days to do the forbidden for you, I mean, you try to force your brain with the language although you can't do it.

Here the word what shouldn't exist is I CAN'T DO IT.

I hope you can learn the language as you can do it and I hope you have successful in your new learning.

Take care.
I know what I wrote a long text and It contain a lot of mistakes.

Sincerely yours.

I like the ship analogy. It's similar to one you would hear in the states about testing the waters with your toes to see if it's cold when you should just jump in head first and get it over with.

I can see where people would get confused with my sentences as far as who has won la copa mundial as it hasn't been played yet. I should have realized what I was saying was two different thoughts. Unfortunately I'm guilty of expressing my thoughts in that way. I say way more stuff in my head than comes out on the keyboard. I lose my train of thought while I'm typing. Anyway on to jumping into the pool. :)

I was late for work this morning. Checking these forums was the reason.

Yo estaba tarde porque laboral esta mañana. Revisé los foros estaba la razón.

This took me so long to type that I'm thinking I may need to just go through the lessons before I attempt this again.

I signed up for LiveMocha. So far I like it. I was afraid I couldn't do it because I don't have high speed internet. The images load slow and so far I haven't had to do any videos.

I also started trying to learn the days of the week and the months. I figure they will take care of themselves in time if I practice repeating one each day. Can you listen to this recording and tell me if I'm saying viernes correctly?

Hoy es viernes, el nueve de julio de dos mil diez.

I'm also taking the advice of someone on here and trying to name things when I see them. Like el coche, aqua, tierra and more. Just things that describe what I'm looking at.

I give you my suggestion in blue above.

You say 'viernes' correctly. The 'r' in Spanish tends to be 'less liquid' than English, i.e., normally stronger, but your pronunciation here is clear and understandable. :)

Tip: If you upload the file as an MP3 then people can listen to it directly in your post instead of downloading it and extracting it. :)