Unos pensamientos en aprender los idiomas

[gatitoverde]

This is an area I'm becoming something of an expert in. Though I learned the basics of Spanish through an intensive college course (5-6 hrs/day for 2 mos.), I've been self-educating ever since and now I'm to the point where only rapidly spoken, highly dialectical Spanish is lost on me. Also, my French is fairly strong through pure self-education, I can pick my way through a German novel or a simple Russian article, and I'm 7 out of 30 chapters through an online course in Mandarin Chinese. So let me mind-vomit everything I can on the matter right here and now.

First off, get into Spanish music. I don't think there is a language spoken that has more to offer musically than Spanish, and this coming from a rabid collector of music in all genres in six languages for some six or seven years now (including ranchero/norteño, zydeco, chanson, Russian chanson, bossa nova, rock en español, et. al). Argentines have been rockin' since the sixties. Mexicans can rap with the best of 'em. Spaniards are fantastic at blending flamenco and rumba with rock. And Café Tacuba (Mexico) proves that true musicians know no barriers. They blend punk, norteño, salsa, synth-pop, you name it. If you like rock, talk to me. I'm a walking catalog of rock in Spanish. I'm familiar with hundreds of groups. The idea of course is not that you're going to understand every word or even a small fraction at first. But with regular listening, you'll start picking things out. You might hear the word "historia" a lot, so you'll look that up. Story or history. Okay, that's one. Put that on a flashcard but don't exhaustively pour over it. That's a waste of time, and you'll get burned out. Just look at it once when you get up, and once when you go to bed. Repeat that for a few days and, along with the occasions when you overhear it in song--and you certainly will--very soon you'll have reviewed it seven times on separate occasions, which is the key, many experts believe, to memorization. Then you'll catch "nosotros." Okay, that's we. Then "tiempo." Time. Pretty soon it's several words together . . . "La misma historia" . . . the same story . . . "No vale la pena" . . . it's not worth it . . . Then bam! Suddenly your catching whole phrases all over the place! And don't just make flashcards of infinitives in the case of verbs. It's great to know what "poner," to put, means when you hear it, but that probably won't help you catch "puso," he put, or "puesto," the past participle--two very common forms of the same verb. Make flashcards of basic phrases like "you leave" and "without you" ("te vas" and "sin ti"). Likewise, connection words are important: "antes," before; "después," after; "entonces," then; and "porque," because. Although I'm happy to now know how to say stapler and machine gun, I don't think I've ever heard them in a song. Likewise, though my Spanish course thought it vitally important that I quickly learn how to say "plumber" and "air conditioning," I don't know if I've ever said either in a conversation, nor heard either one in a song. Yet "corazón," heart, "lágrimas," tears, "sentimientos," feelings, "miedo," fear, "ojos," eyes, "ausencia," absence, "amor," love . . . and so on, these sticky types of words make up ninety percent of popular music. If you know enough of them and a few verbs like "necesitar," need, "querer," want, "perder," lose, "amar," love, etc. you can probably understand a good chunk of any bubblegum pop song in short order. And this is a method through which you'll find yourself reviewing certain important words and grammatical constructions over and over. And without even really trying. I don't mean to knock the methods textbooks would prescribe, but they don't make a language accessible very quickly. I'd like to think my method does. It's extremely rewarding to start picking out words in the music you already very much like. At least I find it so.

Second, use the greatest educational gift Man ever bestowed upon himself. Surf the net. This site is absolutely phenomenal for one. Also, Alta Vista Babblefish is a great free translator in a multitude of languages. It might not translate everything perfectly, or even understandably, but it can help you pick through a lot if you feed it small chunks and you have a novice's idea of how a language works grammatically. iTunes has gobs of free podcasts to help you learn. There's an amazing program called Babylon that you can try free for a few weeks. Just look around. Simply by putting, in quotes, five or six words in sequence from just about any popular song, you can find a link to the lyrics of that song using Yahoo's or Google's search engine. And if you're writing in your journal (something you should get in the habit of) and you want to test a phrase to see if it works in Spanish, type it in quotes in a browser and hit enter. If you get a slew of results from a heap of sites, then you've obviously hit upon the way that a native speaker would say something. If you only get a few, then your're either using too elaborate of a phrase to test (a bad idea early on) or (check the addresses) you're unsuccessfully trying to port over from English the same phrase that some other native English speaker has ported over for his online journal. Nice try, but no cigar. I'll give you an example: take the phrase "take the opportunity." Word for word, that would translate into Spanish as "tomar la oportunidad." Put that in a browser in quotes and see what pops up. I just tried it and I got two results, one from a site largely in English and the other from a German site. Obviously that's not how you say it. Now put a spin on it. How else could you say the same thing? How about "use the opportunity," "utilizar la oportunidad." Try that. Naggghhh. Absolutely no results. So that won't work either. Spin it again. How about "use the ocassion," "utilizar la ocasión." Ding ding ding ding ding ding ding! Three hundred and fifty-four results! Obviously we're onto something. And now, not only do we know the phrase works, but we can scroll through 354 examples of its usage in context and probably find something really close to what we're trying to say. I should warn you here that the peril of this method is that you'll turn a phrase that is colloquially acceptable, acceptable in the vernacular, but not textbook Spanish. That's where your own judgement and other educational tools come into play of course. And to a certain degree, one can discern the formality of a phrase from the type of site where it's used, encyclopedia vs. porn blog, if you'll pardon.

This gets to a third point I'd like to make. Make sure you're not teaching yourself junk. A real problem I've had in Spanish is that my professors let me get comfortable using junk phrases like the one I discussed in the above paragraph. As was gone over quite recently on this site, native English speakers often overuse the passive voice in Spanish, where it is used far less often. I did that. And because my teachers didn't want to tell me not to do something for fear that I would lose heart, I developed a whole mess of similar bad habits. For years I said things in a barely intelligible and blatantly incorrect manner because I'd gotten in the habit of porting over phrases word for word from English. As I clearly demonstrated above, that doesn't cut the mustard. Memorize authentic phrases from trusted sources. Don't invent your own gobbely-gook language like I did. It's very hard to correct. Every time I want to say "I don't believe so" in Spanish, I'm still tempted to this day to say "no lo creo" which is proper Spanish, but not at all the thing I'm trying to say. But I got in the habit of saying that because nobody corrected me and it was a HARD habit to break! What one should say (and I do now) is "yo creo que no," which translates most closely as "I believe not."

Cont . . .

[gatitoverde]

Fourth, listen very closely. College students learning Spanish are often guilty of several pronunciation errors. Number one, their consanants are often too close in sound to their English equivalents. Take the word "felicidad," meaning "happiness." The "d" on the end is neither like the sometimes aspirated "-d" on the end of "had," nor like the unaspirated "-d" on the end of "dad." It's much closer to the "-the" on the end of "bathe," (though that isn't completely accurate . . . but I'm shooting from the hip here, folks.) Likewise, English speakers tend to pronounce their vowels much more distinctly than do Spanish speakers. Take the words "the event." Three syllables, right?. Were the phrase Spanish however, it would be two syllables-- more or less, "thevent." Wherever two identical vowel sounds meet, they become one sound in rapidly spoken Spanish. Take the phrase "va a hablar," "he's going to talk." The way many native Spanish speakers would pronounce that would sound much closer to "vablar" than "va-a-ablar." Another example would be "me he equivocado," "I messed up/I was wrong." It sounds much closer to "mequivocado" than "me-he-equivocado." Anyway, I could go on talking about how soft the Spanish "g" is in "agua" or nearly imperceptible the Spanish "s" can be in some dialects when it falls before a consonant, but I simply mean to make the following point: if you pay attention, and don't try and port over what you know from English into another language, you'll find things a lot easier to pick up, especially when . . .

Reading, number five. Do it a lot, whether just the few phrases you know or, later on, larger texts. And do it while approximating a native speaker's accent as best as you can . . . aloud. By doing so, you'll be getting used to using your jaw, tongue, and lips to produce sounds in ways they've never had to before. One of the things French really sank in with me, and Chinese has reinforced, is that there are a million subtle variations to the posture in which one can hold their mouth and its component parts, and certain sounds are impossible to produce unless you've practiced holding your jaw, tongue, etc. in the correct position. In French, if you don't squoosh your mouth posture up, if you will, and get used to holding your mouth in a way that's very unnatural for a native English speaker, it's not only impossible to produce a true uvular "r," (something many French learners fight with) but it's also impossible to accurately emulate all the nuanced vowels in the French language. And if you're not accurately producing the sounds, your ears are going to get accustomed to hearing your own crude version of a language, and not the real thing. And that greatly diminishes the comprehension benefits of reading aloud. As far as Spanish goes, you'll find yourself becoming more intimately familiar with the slight distance between the tips of your top front teeth and the gums just behind them than has ever been necessary as an English speaker. It is there that you will produce, or partially produce, the sounds corresponding to the letters l, n, s ,t ,d, and r, letters produced over a greater surface area, and with less precision, in English.

And sixth and last. You don't have to understand everything you hear or in fact memorize. Memorizing trusted sentences that you don't grasp completely is an excellent way to push past comprehension boundaries. Once it's in your skull, then you're giving the back of your brain, the greatest problem solver on the face of the earth, a go at figuring it out. And that bad-boy ("cerebro" is masculine) works on things 24 hours a day, 365 days a year, come rain or shine or sleep or sex or whatever. Your subconsious is incredibly powerful. Likewise, with music, movies, and T.V., just because you're not catching a whole lot of phrases at the moment doesn't mean it's not worth listening. There are so many subtle processes going on in the back of your brain when you listen to a foreign language. And even after you stop trying, that gray matter keeps working at it, feeding on the vital input you've allowed it. As I've mentioned, I study several languages, and one of the most thrilling experiences for me is returning to a language after taking something of a hiatus from intensely studying it. About 3 or 4 months ago, I took ten days off from work and just worked on French. No Spanish, no English even, just French. I memorized newspaper articles and lyrics, read along silently with books on tape (Jules Verne), watched movies, etc. etc. Then, when my vacation was over, I started bouncing back and forth between German and Spanish, and put the French on the back burner again. Then, maybe a month later, while tinkering with my iTunes, I haplessly ended up playing a French song I'd never really understood very well to hear it. And oh my goodness. I was blown away with how incredibly well I could understand what was being said. Just a month before, in the middle of intense study of French, it had defied me, but there I was comprehending what Francis Cabrel was singing-- almost as well as if it were English. And that's what I'm talking about: the back of your brain is so much more powerful than you may believe. Just allow it to and it will do an immense amount of work for you.

Alright, I need to work tomorrow and I've gone on for some time, so I'm calling it quits. Chew on what I said. Take from it what you can. Dismiss what you think is rubbish. Good luck. Hasta.

[sosia]

good article. Your fingers must be tired!
saludos

[poli]

I agree with both of you. I especially agree with you in what you have to say about pop music. Listening to pop music may help you understand commonly used phrases and also help with pronuciation. I always advise
people who want to learn to listen to boleros which are usually clearly sung in well accented Spanish. Boleros make use of many common expressions. They will help you learn the rhythm of the language which will aid in your communication skills. Most bolero songs are from the 1950's, but contemporary artists still sing them. Edith Salazar is a contemporary composer and singer of boleros. Listen to her! She's on youtube. She has a wonderful disc available which also includes poetry.

Poli

[gatitoverde]

I should add that I am not a professional educator and, as they'd say in French, "I have been capable of making mistakes." For one thing, I believe the French "r" is actually classified as an uvular "r," not a guttural one. [I've since corrected the error.] Anyway, take it with a grain of salt, and good luck!

[Tomisimo]

Gatitoverde's posts were originally a response to this thread, but it's so good I've split it off and stickied it so others won't miss it

[gatitoverde]

I'm honored. I've come to appreciate this site as much as a place to help out others who share my passion for learning language as for the invaluble information I can glean from its members. Thank you. And all corrections are welcome.

Me honras. Vengo a estimar este sitio tanto como un lugar para ayudar a otros que comparten un pasión común al aprender los idiomas como para la información que puedo recoger de los integrantes. Gracias. Y todas correciones son bienvenidas.

[Jane]

Originally Posted by gatitoverde

I'm honored. I've come to appreciate this site as much as a place to help out others who share my passion for learning language as for the invaluble information I can glean from its members. Thank you. And all corrections are welcome.

Me honras. Vengo a estimar este sitio tanto como un lugar para ayudar a otros que comparten un pasión común al aprender los idiomas como para la información que puedo recoger de los integrantes. Gracias. Y todas correciones son bienvenidas.

We´re honoured to have you with us, Gatito. You´re now also a member, and here the learning process continues.

[gatitoverde]

I think I should have used "por" in place of "para" above. And I was also thinking I might want to use "pueda" in place of "puedo." I overuse the subjunctive sometimes though, because I don't completely understand it, so I went against my instinct and stuck with "puedo." Help me out here folks.

[Jane]

The subjunctive is still quite a handful for me too, but I think your use of puedo sounds better.
We´ll wait and hear what the native speakers have to say.

[Tomisimo]

Este es un lugar donde yo puedo hacer x.
Busco un lugar donde yo pueda hacer x.

In the first one, you've already found the place, so you use the indicative. In the second example, you haven't yet found the place, so you use the subjunctive.

[irmamar]

Hello gatitoverde

Maybe it's useful to know that subjunctive is not used in simple sentences, but in compound sentences. Look at the examples Tomísimo gave, the first are two independent sentences, the second is a compound sentence, where the one which uses the subjunctive is a clause which depends on the first one. Look at the things which are required:

(The following sentences can be said alone and they have their own meaning, they are not depending one from the other)

Éste es un lugar (this sentence has its own meaning, it doesn't depend on anything)
(donde) yo puedo hacer x (another independent sentence, with its own meaning)

(The following ones are interdependent, one needs the other to get the meaning)

Busco un lugar... (don't you think that something is missing here?, this is the principal clause)
(donde) yo pueda hacer x (another sentence without meaning by itself, it depends on the first one and here subjunctive is used)

It's a bit difficult for me to explain these things in English, I hope you'll understand.

Sorry, now I've realized that this thread was old. I must beg your pardon.

[CrOtALiTo]

Iramamar, I think that this thread is very as old that I don't think so that gatitoverde can see your examples, but your explain was very useful.

[EmpanadaRica]

¡Hola a todos!

I wholeheartedly agree and can attest to most of what is written here (even if I have only been learning Spanish for some 2 months). In fact I know someone else who has used a similar approach to learning Dutch (with using a similar 'manual' ) and with very impressive results withing 6 months!

Obviously a lot depends on how much time you have, but I must say I agree with all that gatitoverde wrote here.

I have a few suggestions for sites (as internet is indeed a great tool for this!!!) that might help students of Spanish achieve/ realize or facilitate some of the steps written here. I know they have been very helpful to me and perhaps they will be helpful for others also.


1. Audiomaterial/ podcasts:

- http://www.audiria.com
Many free podcasts on 5 different levels (absolute beginner to advanced) in different forms such as conversations, bits of paper/news, radio and tv, including full free transcripts and doanloadable mp3's.

- http://www.spanishnewsbites.com
Many free podcasts on 3 different levels (beginner, intermediate and advanced) including free transcripts, some bits of video as well. These are taken from what has been on the news in Spain (topical).

- http://www.learnoutloud.com/Podcast-...guages/Spanish
Many free podcasts often with free transcripts as well, ranging from beginner' s level to advanced.

Video & TV:

1. http://www.lingus.tv
Free Spanish video's inclusing full transcripts in Spanish and English
on three levels (beginner, intermediate and advianced).

2. http://my.spanishdict.com/learn/browse/1
http://my.spanishdict.com/learn/browse/2
http://my.spanishdict.com/learn/browse/3

Many free educational video' s (beginner/ beginner to intermediate level) with explanations in English. This site also includes flashcards and other exercises.

3. BBC Learning Zone: http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/
Regular updates with video' s and podcasts for beginners and intermediate to advanced students.

This interactive videocourse called 'Mi vida loca' offers over 20 free lessons for beginners and is quite good Iand fun think.


4. http://www.rollingrs.com/
Offers many free educational video's (others can be purchased, so not all is free).

5. http://www.rtve.es/alacarta/
Free online video' s from TVE (Spanish tv network).

6. http://www.cervantestv.es/
Free video' s and documentaries.

7. http://www.tusseries.com
Many Spanish versions of American tv series can be downloaded here. You need to register though and you need to have emule. (Subtitles can be easily found online on many sites, e.g. here. You just need to put that file in the same directory as the avi/ video file and give it the same name).

8. http://www.celebratelanguages.com/spanish.html
Free video' s (beginner' s level) and a lot of information on learning Spanish and some good resources.

9. http://multilingualbooks.com/online-tv-spanish.html
Spanish tv (most times live, and local), from many different countries.

10. This site also offers many free Spanish video's , some educational (not all!!).

Music, Radio and Lyics:

1. http://multilingualbooks.com/online-radio-spanish.html
Spanish radio, many stations via livestream

2. http://www.espana.fm/
Spanish radio, many stations via livestream

3. http://www.spanicity.com/musica/index.php
Many Spanish songs with sontext in Spanish and English translations.



Verbs/ grammar/vocabulary:
1. http://www.verbix.com/languages/spanish.shtml
Very good conjugator of verbs, also for many other languages.

2. http://www.helloworld.com.es/English.../spanishvm.htm
Free software to train verbs and conjugations.

3. http://www.ver-taal.com/telediario.htm
Site containing many different kinds of exercises, also some good listening exercises.

4. http://www.wartoft.nu/software/selingua/
Free software to learn about 2000 words in Spanish (you can probably add some yourself as well, haven' t done that myself yet), gives several different exercises, such as velocity, the odd one out, active recognition and filling out, cosswords.


Books (ebooks, audiobooks, literature, reading in general):

1. http://www.eldigoras.com/
A lot of information online about literature in Spanish.

2. http://www.cervantesvirtual.com/
Biblioteca Virtual Miguel Cervantes (containing many free ebooks/ documents).

3. http://www.albalearning.com
Many free audiobooks in Spanish to listen to online, also downloadable.

4. http://www.leerescuchando.net/audiobks.php
Many free audiobooks in Spanish, downloadable after registration (free).

5. Librivox
This site is run by volunteers. About 30 Spanish audiobooks can be downloaded free of charge (most are in English).

6. http://www.greylib.net/?category=spanish
Free ebooks and audiobooks, downloadable after registering.

7. http://www.wordchamp.com/lingua2/Reader.do
Very handy ' reader' (can also be used for Spanish to English!).
You can read texts of e.g. 'El Mundo' , 'El País' or in fact load any url of any Spanish text/ website. Just hover over the word and it will give you possible translations including the pronuncation in Spanish and English.


Pronunciation:
The following sites are also good resources for students of English or other languages:

1. http://www.forvo.com/languages/es/
Large database with many Spanish words pronounced. You can download it into mp3's. You can also request pronunciations (in that case you need to register).

2. http://swac-collections.org/?lang=spa
Similarly, a large database of pronunciations of Spanish words, downloadable.

3. http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-es-en
47 free lessons (topic based) of vocabulary including pronunciations. Also exercises included with every lesson.

Language exchange/community/tandems/penpals:
The first 2 also contain exercises.

1. http://www.babbel.com

2. http://www.livemocha.com

3. http://www.linguanet-europa.org/plus/welcome.htm

3. http://www.interpals.com


Hope you will find these sites as helpful as I found them!

¡ Buena suerte!

[EmpanadaRica]

¡Hola a todos!, hello everyone!

Well this site is also for Spanish people learning English.

So maybe I have some useful links as well for native Spanish speakers learning English.

Audio/Podcasts:

1. http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/subjects/english.shtml
Many podcasts and radioprograms, regularly updated. Also educational.

2. http://grammar.quickanddirtytips.com/
Many free podcasts, targetting grammar specifically. Suitable especially for intermediate to advanced students who want to patch up some of the finer points of English grammar.
The podcasts can be downloaded free of charge including the full transcript.

3. http://www.learnoutloud.com/Podcast-...guages/English
Many free podcasts many times including transcripts.


Free ebooks or audiobooks:

1. http://librivox.org/
Many free audiobooks in English can be downloaded here. The site is run by volunteers.

2. http://www.free-ebooks.net/
Another site with many free ebooks that you can download once you have registered. (I have not used this one yet so I don' t know how many they have. )


3. http://www.e-book.com.au/freebooks.htm
Links to digital libraries.

4. http://www.getfreeebooks.com/
Free ebooks on many subjects.

5. http://manybooks.net/
Over 24.000 free ebooks...

6. http://freeclassicaudiobooks.com/
Many free classical audiobooks.Downloadable.

7. http://www.audiobooksforfree.com/screen_main.asp
Many free audiobooks. Downloadable.

8. http://www.greylib.net/?category=english
Many free audiobooks and ebooks, literature in English.


Tools/software:

1. http://www.wartoft.nu/software/selingua/
Selingua is also suitable for people learning English (large vocabulary database).

2. http://www.wordchamp.com/lingua2/Reader.do
Very handy ' reader'
You can read texts of e.g. 'The Times', or in fact load any url of any Spanish text/ website. Just hover over the word and it will give you possible translations including the pronuncation in Spanish and English.

3. http://www.verbix.com/languages/english.shtml
Online tool for conjugations of verbs.


Online Radio and TV:

1. http://multilingualbooks.com/online-tv-english-us.html
Many TV stations (US).

2. http://multilingualbooks.com/online-...ish-other.html
Many English TV stations (non-US)

3. http://beelinetv.com/free_english_tv/

4. http://www.blinkx.com
Large collection of links to sites (such as Megavideo) containing lots of English/ American series. You can download them & add your own subtitles which you can find online e.g. here .
Free English TV channels.

5. http://www.england.fm
Many English radiostations

6. http://www.america.fm
Many American radiostations.



Pronunciation:

1. http://www.forvo.com/languages/en/
Large database with many English words pronounced. You can download it into mp3's. You can also request pronunciations (in that case you need to register).

2. http://swac-collections.org/?lang=eng
Large database of pronunciation of English words.

3. http://www.internetpolyglot.com/lessons-en-es
45 free lessons in vocabulary, including pronunciation and exercises.


Language exchange/community/tandems/penpals:
The first 2 also contain exercises.

1. http://www.babbel.com

2. http://www.livemocha.com

3. http://www.linguanet-europa.org/plus/welcome.htm

3. http://www.interpals.com


¡Buena suerte! Good luck!

[irmamar]

¡Qué barbaridad de enlaces! ¡Cuánto trabajo has tenido! Thanks

[EmpanadaRica]

Originally Posted by irmamar

¡Qué barbaridad de enlaces! ¡Cuánto trabajo has tenido! Thanks

¡Pues, de nada!

Sí, tienes razón..But I hope it will be worth it for everyone here, in terms of benefitting from these sites the same way I have.

Ps: Me encanta muchisimo esta expresión : 'qué barbaridad!'

[irmamar]

¡Qué barbaridad, qué exageración, qué pasada, qué burrada, cuánto curro (= trabajo),...! Aquí tenemos muchas expresiones

[CarmenCarmona]

Originally Posted by gatitoverde

I'm honored. I've come to appreciate this site as much as a place to help out others who share my passion for learning language as for the invaluble information I can glean from its members. Thank you. And all corrections are welcome.

Me honras. Vengo a estimar este sitio tanto como un lugar para ayudar a otros que comparten un pasión común al aprender los idiomas como para la información que puedo recoger de los integrantes. Gracias. Y todas correciones son bienvenidas.

Yo diría: he llegado a apreciar este sitio [...] una pasión (es femenino) común POR aprender [...] como POR la valiosísima información que puedo OBTENER ('recoger' suena raro) [...] LAS correCCiones

'Puedo' está bien, es presente simple indicativo en ese caso.

Vale, me acabo de dar cuenta de que tu post era viejo! perdona!

Ah! y también te quería decir que hay algo llamado 'concordancers' en inglés que pones una palabra y te salen todos los contextos en los que se puede utilizar, no sé si existirá alguno en español. Creo que el area de investigación se llama 'Lingüística del corpus computacional'
También puedes decir 'que se puede obtener de sus miembros'

[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 :-(