Unos pensamientos en aprender los idiomas

[CrOtALiTo]

Originally Posted by Eerie

I agree with you OP, especially on your last advice.
Whenever I've tried memorizing ANYTHING, and put an effort on memorizing it, it usually works on reverse. But when I understand something and move on it's most likely I'm gonna remember it.

Also, can you recommend a few bands to listen?
I'm interested in Rock/Metal/Jazz/Funk/Fusion but also in Latin/Salsa/Flamenco etc.
edit:Seems like OP hasn't been online in 2 years :-(

Casually that can be understanding for everyone, really when you can't memorize all the wrote before, it's for the method used in the writing, so I can see a long text and it tend to be hard to memorize for the long phrase.

Now when I'm mentalist myself in learn something else, I try to find the word and write it in some kind personal list, I have said that before and I have took note of all the leant the same day, and when I need to remember the same word, I'm going to my personal notebook, when I have wrote all my translations before, so I can remind the phrase again, you can't find against your own brain because sometimes that tend to be a lot of information, inclusive in my work when I'm learning some new for me, something unknown for me, I mean, I'm computer engineer and my work is very technical, and the books about informatics and server likely coming up wrote in English, then as I don't know technical English, I can't read very well all the book and sometimes I have doubts about my information gotten in the books.

Then I believe the amount isn't important, the important here in the this moment is the quality with you are learning the language.

You don't need to write a long text for lean new words or practice more your skills not I don't think so, I think that you can achieve more with your reading and your practice speaking with someone who speak the language that you are leaning.

Sincerely yours.

[Caballero]

I mean, I'm computer engineer and my work is something unknown for me, I mean, I'm computer engineer and my work is very technical, and the books about informatics and server likely coming up wrote in English, then as I don't know technical English, I can't read very well all the book and sometimes I have doubts about my information gotten n the books.

Really?? You find technical English difficult to read? That's very interesting. It's the opposite for English speakers. Technical Spanish is a cinch to read. In fact people that don't speak Spanish at all, if forced, could translate written technical Spanish into English. Almost every word besides the the, and, or, of, etc. look almost identical to English. This is because English receive a huge amount of loanwords from Norman French (derived from Latin) after the Norman conquest, and borrowed many words after that directly from Latin and Greek. In fact I could read technical Romanian, Wallon, Catalan, or any other Romance language if it's talking about computers, science, etc., without having studied them previously. The words in any Romance language in technical registers are the same as the words in English for discussing the same topic. Not to mention the fact that most languages then even borrow words from English--no need to translate words like Microsoft, Windows 7, Linux, etc. Check this out:

Una computadora o un computador, (del latín computare -calcular-), también denominada ordenador (del francés ordinateur, y éste del latín ordinator), es una máquina electrónica que recibe y procesa datos para convertirlos en información útil. Una computadora es una colección de circuitos integrados y otros componentes relacionados que puede ejecutar con exactitud, rapidez y de acuerdo a lo indicado por un usuario o automáticamente por otro programa, una gran variedad de secuencias o rutinas de instrucciones que son ordenadas, organizadas y sistematizadas en función a una amplia gama de aplicaciones prácticas y precisamente determinadas, proceso al cual se le ha denominado con el nombre de programación y al que lo realiza se le llama programador.

From the beginning of the Wikipedia article "Computador": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computador

It seems like about 50% of the words are the same as in English, just spelled differently. The rest of the words are what you would learn in the first two weeks of a Spanish class: "Uno, o, un, también, y, éste, del, es, que, y, para, en, de, otros, con, a, lo, por, al, cual, se, le, a, el, nombre, llama" Those are all very easy words. The only ones that you would't learn in the first two weeks are "ordinador, amplia, gama". You'd have to look these up... Unless you could guess by context, or if you knew High School French, you'd see that "ordinador" looks just like "ordinateur" (as well as being able to figure out what "le, se, de, y", etc. mean.

Even if you didn't take Spanish or any other Romance language at all, and just spoke English, you would be able to get the gist of the article, esp. if you circled all the words that were the same as in English and filled in the missing of's the's, and's, etc.

Also the shear number of cognates* means that translating the text in your head to English without writing it down would be very easy, whatever ones level of Spanish. Unlike reading a text in Croatian, where even if you knew every word, almost none of them look the same as English, and you'd go cross-eyed trying to translate it in your head, unless you were quite advanced in the language.

The shear number of cognates* in English and technical Spanish means that while reading, you can go for long periods of time without having to look up every word--which would seriously disrupt the flow of reading, and would no longer be called "reading" but rather an exercise in making flash cards/vocabulary list, which while valuable would so seriously disrupt the flow of your conscious understanding of the text, that you would end up understanding nothing that you had read.

So basically I'm surprised that you find reading technical English so difficult, as English speakers find technical Spanish so easy to comprehend. The only exception would be if it is so technical that it was beyond ones comprehension, like certain types of quantum physics books, for instance. But the fault would not be the fact that they were written in Spanish, because one would be unable to understand them even if they were written in English!

In fact, technical Spanish is even easier than even content written for young children, when you are first learning Spanish. I'm finally getting better at reading books, understanding cartoons and such for young children in Spanish, as my basic vocabulary is increasing. But before, whereas technical Spanish was all English to me, whereas children's books were all Greek to me.

Poetry in Spanish is still very difficult, but is getting slightly better. Before, Spanish poetry was as intelligible as this:

Sjeti se da svetkuješ dan subotni. Šest dana radi i obavljaj sav svoj posao. A sedmoga je dana subota, počinak posvećen Jahvi, Bogu tvojemu. Tada nikakva posla nemoj raditi: ni ti, ni sin tvoj, ni kći tvoja, ni sluga tvoj, ni sluškinja tvoja, ni živina tvoja, niti došljak koji se nađe unutar tvojih vrata. Ta i Jahve je šest dana stvarao nebo, zemlju i more i sve što je u njima, a sedmoga je dana počinuo. Stoga je Jahve blagoslovio i posvetio dan subotni. što je u njima, a sedmoga je dana počinuo. Stoga je Jahve blagoslovio i posvetio dan subotni. subotni

That was from http://hr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deset_B...jih_zapovijedi

Which is in Croatian! I think that part comes from the Bible, but I can't be certain. That's about how intelligible Spanish poetry was to me initially. There isn't a single word I can understand. I'd have to look up every single word in that text. That's not *reading*, that's preparing flash cards, and getting ones hands tired flipping through the dictionary, or reading the footnotes for each word! I've gotten (very) slightly better, so far, so now I can pick out a few words in Spanish poetry, so it's starting to look less like Croatian to me.

Notice what a difference that is compared to technical Spanish! In that article about Computers in Spanish, there were only 3 words in about 80 that I wouldn't be able to understand after a few weeks of taking Spanish (2 words if I knew even the most rudimentary French.)

Sent from my Smartphone. Oy, my hands hurt now My internet connection at home is down today.

[Villa]

No van a creer lo que vi, oí y experimenté hoy. Fui a la oficina de correos aquí en California/U.S. para enviar un paquete y fuera de la oficina de correos era una joven de unos treinta años. Tenía un bebé con ella en un cochecito de bebé y un letrero que decía: Sin trabajo, sin dinero, con niños, por favor ayuda. Pensé que tal vez era una hispana de modo que hablé con ella en español. Ella me contestó en español pero con una evidente acento extranjero que me mostró que no era una parlante nativa de español. Le pregunté de dónde era y me dijo Bosnia. Luego le pregunté si ella había aprendido a hablar español en Bosnia o en Europa. Dijo que no, que había aprendido a hablar español en los EE.UU./California mirando telenovelas en español. Traté entonces de hablar con ella en inglés. No me entiendía nada. Yo no podía creer! Ella ha aprendido español en los EE.UU., pero no inglés. Eso es muy divertido y interesante para mi pero al mismo tiempo muestra hasta que punto una persona puede aprender el español mirando novelas en español en el televisor.

[poli]

Es una lástima que ella era afanática de telenovelas hispanas en lugar de telenovelas anglos. En California, si mirara a programas en inglés seguro que tendría más facilidad encontrar empleo y alojamiento. Aunque en partes de EEUU tiene aspectos bilingües, la mayoría del poder está en las manos de los que hablan inglés
When in Rome....

[chileno]

Originally Posted by Villa

Eso es muy divertido y interesante para mi pero al mismo tiempo muestra hasta que punto una persona puede aprender el español mirando novelas en español en el televisor.

Para mí solo demuestra el interés real que tiene una persona y el nivel de compromiso que toma con ese nivel de interés, para así aprender lo necesario o esencial para entender lo que le interesa. En este caso la telenovela.

Originally Posted by poli

Es una lástima que ella era afanática de telenovelas hispanas en lugar de telenovelas anglos. En California, si mirara a programas en inglés seguro que tendría más facilidad encontrar empleo y alojamiento. Aunque en partes de EEUU tiene aspectos bilingües, la mayoría del poder está en las manos de los que hablan inglés
When in Rome....

Siendo de Bosnia, lo más seguro es que era una refugiada. Y en esa condición parte de la ayuda que se le ofrece al refugiado es servicio de empleo. Lo cual significa que la agencia de ayuda para el refugiado le va a buscar empleo en alguna parte, y como no sabe inglés se le busca trabajo donde pueda desempeñarse sin mayor necesidad de saber inglés, algunas veces solo con señas para reconocer cierto peligros que pueda encontrar mientras desempeña su trabajo. Un trabajo así, generalmente se encuentra dentro de los lugares donde no tiene que hablar con clientes directamente (en lo posible) y en esas condiciones, lo más seguro son, la cocina y el aseo. Ya demás sabido que los Hispanos hacen esas tareas nimias, justamente porque no saben o saben muy poco inglés.

Bajo esas condiciones los compañeros de trabajo le hablarán en castellano a esa refugiada, por lo tanto es de esperar que sepa más castellano que inglés.

Y así se sigue escribiendo la historia.

Yo por lo menos trataba de enseñarles inglés laboral así como guías de comportamiento tanto en el ámbito laboral como en el cotidiano.

[Villa]

Mi punto era mostrar cuanto español se puede aprender
mirando las telenovelas en español.

[DavidNavarro]

Bueno pues por mi parte creo que es mejor la inmersión en un país anglosajón, sin embargo para iniciar si es mejor tener buenas bases en el idioma en mi caso hice 2 trimestres en Madrid y me ayudo mucho para mi posterior viaje a Escocia, lo agradecí mogollón, igual tienes muchos recursos en internet; podcasts en BBC, videos, música, Netflix puedes ver series y ayuda mucho. Por supuesto ya hablando ingles sí que se abren muchas puertas. Buen día!

[richardenelmundo]

As someone who has lived in Uruguay and Colombia for the last 10 years, I have become fluent in Spanish and have helped a lot of Spanish speakers become fluent in English.

I have narrowed down language learning methodologies to five specific things which are as follows:

1. Choose a great starter program like Duolingo -- this will test your passion.
2. Buy a Spanish book and the corresponding audiobook so you can read and listen at the same time -- this makes learning more fun because you're learning in the context of a story.
3. Practice pronunciation with Google Translate or another similar tool.
4. Seek and participate in Spanish-speaking groups in your area.
5. Immerse yourself in a Spanish speaking country.

By far the best way of the five above is the fifth one -- immersing yourself in a foreign country. I have seen dedicated people learn more in one month in a foreign speaking country than those who arrive with eight years of studying Spanish in the US.

I hope this helps someone out there and if you have any questions just hit me up. Have a great day!

Cheers, Richard