Gringo Alert!

[BoatPeople]

Hola amigos!!

Estoy aquí solamente para aprender español y encontrar amigos de correspondencia. Tengo 36 años de edad. He estudiado español de vez en cuando desde el edad de 16. Quiero llegar a ser graves en el aprendizaje de español. Trato de no hacer trampa, pero uso Google Translate como herramienta de aprendizaje, mientras escritura. No puedo esperar a mirar el sito.

Gracias,

Richard

[pjt33]

Originally Posted by BoatPeople

Quiero llegar a ser graves en el aprendizaje de español.

Hi, Richard, and welcome.

I assume that you wanted to say that your intention is to study Spanish seriously. Grave means serious in the sense of a serious illness, but it doesn't really fit here. I think estudiar en serio is probably the best way of saying to study seriously.

And since I expect that you want all of your errors corrected to learn from them, edad is feminine, and escritura is the noun for the thing written. Many English uses of a participle correspond to Spanish active verbs or infinitives. I would use al escribir instead of mientras escribo, which doesn't sound idiomatic to me.

[Guerrero]

In my expirience with Irish, Google translate is great for getting the gist of something in another langauge, but far from being a good aid in writing. It usualy translates word for word instead of using idiomatic word order.

[aleCcowaN]

Hi, Richard!

Google translate is a catastrophe when learning a language. Certainly, using Google translate you'll never understand when "writing" is escribiendo, escribir or escritura nor learn how to use them.

Originally Posted by pjt33

I would use al escribir instead of mientras escribo, which doesn't sound idiomatic to me.

I suppose you meant mientras escribo or al escribir instead of mientras escritura (which really do not sound idiomatic at all to any Spanish speaker)

[pjt33]

Originally Posted by aleCcowaN

I suppose you meant mientras escribo or al escribir instead of mientras escritura (which really do not sound idiomatic at all to any Spanish speaker)

No, what I meant to say is that the "obvious" correction of mientras escritura to mientras escribo sounds like a literal translation from English and that I think al escribir is far preferable.

The way Google translate works is to find text which it thinks has already been translated and then to look for patterns across a large corpus. It's not quite the same as word-for-word, but it does sometimes look rather like it. At other times it produces completely incomprehensible results. See e.g. http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=1999

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by pjt33

... I meant to say is that the "obvious" correction of mientras escritura to mientras escribo sounds like a literal translation from English and that I think al escribir is far preferable.

What makes you think that? I expected "mientras escribo" placed there***, though "al escribir" could be OK -but it sounds more in the lines of English to me -.

About Google translate, it has no place in learning languages and it can be extremely counterproductive if used to write in the foreign language and look if the translation matches what we are thinking in our native language. The last produces 'brainsores'.

*** As there's an opposition between "tratar de no hacer trampa" and "usar Google translate", so this "como herramienta de aprendizaje" tells that Richard uses Google translate 'intermitently', so to speak, while writing: "...uso Google translate ... mientras escribo" both using indicative (Spanish indicative, not English indicative) means two full actions, overlapped, and one of them subordinated and called by the other on a continuous or discontinuous basis (the opposition turns the dial to "discontinuous")

With "al escribir" everything is possible -it could be using it as an aid consulted now and then, or using it constantly as the main tool-.

[CrOtALiTo]

Hello I bid you welcome to these forums, I hope your stay in the forums, it will be enjoyable.

Nowadays I'm learning English for on my own.

If you are interested to learn more or be more skillful with your learning, I can give you a little support meanwhile you are getting knowledge of other places and inclusive if you are learning in some school that can help you much.


Sincerely yours.

[BoatPeople]

Puedo ver que yo voy a recibir mucho ayuda aquí. Soy consciente (o conocimiento?) de los problemas de traducción de Google. No quiero continuar en este foro. Hay foro donde puedo escribir libremente? También aprecio todas de sus criticas.

[aleCcowaN]

Originally Posted by BoatPeople

Puedo ver que yo voy a recibir mucho ayuda aquí. Soy consciente (o conocimiento?) de los problemas de traducción de Google. No quiero continuar en este foro. Hay foro donde puedo escribir libremente? También aprecio todas de sus criticas.

There is a forum here named "General Chat /Charla libre" where you can choose your topic, use either language and you won't be corrected unless you ask so.

As a general rule, Internet forums that deal with language -and many other subjects- are not so thread opener oriented nor similar to a moderated chat. The questions are generally answered in the belief that those answers will be useful to dozens or even hundreds of users in the future (as a rule of thumb, for each new thread there are a hundred people that reach it using search engines and find their answers there). Many questions, if not most, are thoroughly answered in the belief many people will benefit of it, not only the thread openers, so sometimes they don't get the intended answer in the expected way. Even sometimes there seem to be personality conflicts where just purpose -or lack thereof- conflicts exist.

I'm telling this because you might think your ways and objectives were questioned from a personal point of view being it that in fact one man's meat is another man's poison. It is as a general tool for learning languages that Google translate is nightmarish, and systematically feeding forums with the product of that technique could lead to endless discussions where finally the product will be the right translation that Google didn't provide and a couple of notes about languages tangentially emerging from the whirlpool.

You may find extremely useful these and other forums to ask about every kind of language topic and your expectations plenty satisfied. But the general and greater good is the final goal and methods that feed the language arena with software failure instead of human troubles should be avoided most of the time.

[Elaina]

Hey Richard,

Welcome aboard!

Aqui vas aprender mucho y si no te molesta, tambien se corrige mucho y esto te ayudará a mejorar tu escritura.

¿Te gusta navegar en barco? Yo le tengo miedo al agua....pero solo para navegar!

Welcome again!