Did I get it right?

[verde niña]

Hello everyone!

Comentazado aprendizaje español porque penso lo es interesante. I just got started 2 weeks ago, though. I did some homework yesterday with basic English to Spanish translations and I'd really like to know if I got it right. So here it goes, feel free to correct me endlessly.

El león vino a me.
(The lion came at me.)

Él vino a me para auxilio.
(He came to me for help.)

La película comenzado ante usted vino.
(The film started before you came.)

El gato es bajo el cama.
(The cat is under the bed.)

Quiero a bailar contigo.
(I want to dance with you.)

Martin vino desde la fiesta.
(Martin came after the party.)

[Rusty]

Originally Posted by verde niña

Comentazado aprendizaje español porque penso lo es interesante.
I started learning Spanish because I think it is interesting.
(See my notes after the quoted material.)

El león vino a me.
(The lion came at me.)
('Came at' seems too strong a verb choice if it is the lion described in the next sentence. 'Come at' means to rush toward or attack.
If you want to say 'rush toward', the verb is 'lanzar'; 'attack', 'atacar'.

Spanish has object pronouns. I would choose to use the pronoun instead of the object you chose which, by the way, is not correct. It should be 'a mí' instead of 'a me'.
'Lanzar' takes a direct object, and the first person direct object pronoun is 'me'. It precedes the conjugated verb.

If you want to indicate that the lion approached you (not attacked you), use the verb 'acercarse'. It's conjugation, when you have a look at it, involves removing the reflexive pronoun 'se' and placing it prior to the verb. The chart that appears shows that the reflexive pronoun 'se' is used for the third person. Remember to look at the preterit tense forms.)

Él vino a me para auxilio.
(He came to me for help.)
(Use 'me', prior to the conjugated verb, instead of 'a me'. If you'd rather not use the object pronoun, change 'a me' to 'a mí'. You need to use the prepositional pronoun 'mí' instead of the object pronoun 'me'.)

La película comenzado ante usted vino.
(The film started before you came.)
(Instead of 'comenzado', which is a past participle, use the past tense verb. Instead of the first person, this time the subject is a third person. So, when you check the preterit tense form of the verb, select the third-person form.

In Spanish, the adverbial phrase that begins with 'before' is translated as 'antes de que'. This is followed by the subject and verb that you chose.)

El gato es bajo el cama.
(The cat is under the bed.)
(Location is expressed with the verb 'estar', not 'ser'.

'El' is the wrong article to use with 'cama'.)

Quiero a bailar contigo.
(I want to dance with you.)
('Querer' is never followed by a preposition when using an infinitive.)

Martin vino desde la fiesta.
(Martin came after the party.)
(after = después de)

Welcome to the forums!

Notes for the first sentence you wrote

Identify the verb. You correctly chose 'comenzar'. This is the infinitive, so it must be conjugated.
Identify its tense. You correctly identified the action as being in the past, but you didn't use a past tense conjugation. Instead, you used a misspelled past participle.
There is a conjugation page here in the forums to help you choose the correct conjugation, but first you need to know which person to select. In this sentence you are talking about yourself, so the person is the first person.
Conjugate the verb. Look in the upper left-hand corner of the screen, under the Tomísimo logo. Where the drop-down menu says 'Dictionary', select 'Conjugation'. Enter 'comenzar' where 'Search...' appears and press ENTER.

The first conjugation block is the Present Tense. The first person conjugation of 'comenzar' is 'comienzo'. You don't need to specify the subject pronoun 'yo' because the ending of the verb (the -o) conveys the person.
You began learning in the past, so you need to find the conjugation block that deals with the past tense.
Spanish has two past tenses-the imperfect and the preterit.
In this case, you're talking about a specific event that began and ended in the past, so you'll need to use the preterit tense.
As you can see, the first person form is 'comencé'. That means "I began."

'Comenzar' takes a direct object, which is a noun.
You have to choices.
You chose 'el aprendizaje', but didn't include the mandatory article. That is a good choice, but there is another, more common, noun-the infinitive.
When the infinitive is used after 'comenzar', you must first insert the preposition 'a'. The infinitive is 'aprender'. That is the source of the noun you chose.

'Comencé el aprendizaje de español' means 'I started the learning of Spanish'. (Note that 'de' must follow the noun 'aprendizaje'.)
'Comencé a aprender español' means 'I started to learn Spanish' or 'I started learning Spanish'. (Both sentences in English mean the same thing but use different forms of 'learn'. The first is the full infinitive. The second is the gerund. Both act as nouns. The Spanish equivalent is the infinitive.)

Next, after 'porque', you'll need to correct the verb. You chose 'pensar', but 'creer' is a better choice. The verb you wrote was a misspelling of the first person present indicative tense. You can look up the conjugation for 'pensar', as described above, to see how it should have been spelled. However, I recommend using 'creer' instead.

After the verb 'creer', Spanish requires a relative conjunction to introduce the subordinate clause (which provides what you believe). That conjunction is 'que'.

The subject pronoun 'it' is omitted in Spanish. The word you used is the direct object pronoun, so it doesn't work at all. The verb 'es', by itself, means 'it is'.


I hope that wasn't too overwhelming.

As you can see, word-for-word translation rarely works. You need to understand the role a word plays in English before you can successfully translate it into Spanish.
(If you don't know the difference between the container 'can' and the auxiliary verb 'can', for example, you'll create an unintelligible sentence with 'lata' where 'puedo' belongs. )

[verde niña]

I really appreciate that. Gracias!
I still haven't figured my way around conjugations, so I'll try to get it right next time. And no, the first sentence has no connection to the second and I did really mean that the lion 'came at' me as in aggressively.

If you don't mind, I have a little doubt about me and mi. I was under the impression that 'mi' is possessive and means 'my'. And 'me' is just the English 'me'. So, now, when I say "Él vino a mi para auxilio", doesn't that mean "he came to my for help"?

And thanks for the heads up, I"ll try not to directly translate word to word

[Rusty]

Notice that the pronoun I used has an accent mark and that yours doesn't. That makes a difference. The way I used the pronoun makes a difference.
The possessive pronoun has no accent mark and it never follows a preposition.
The prepositional pronoun I used has an accent mark and will always follow a preposition.

(Even if you write the prepositional object pronoun without the accent mark, the translation will still be 'to me', never 'my', because that word can never be a prepositional object.)

The object pronoun 'me' means 'me', if it is a direct object pronoun, and 'to me', if it is an indirect object pronoun.

Pronouns are a concept that takes everyone a little while to learn. Again, you have to know the role in English. You need to recognize the difference between an indirect, direct and prepositional object before you can choose the right Spanish equivalent.

[Julvenzor]

Hi Verde niña (you should have written "Niña verde"),

You need to go little by little. First, you must recognize which structures work in a similar or different way. In order to that, you require to deepen in your own language. Once you will understand what a noun, an adjective, or an adverb, etc., are, you'll be able to "think" in another language. Read, read and read from reliable sources.

I don't know whether these examples were invented by yourself. In the sentence:

The film started before you came.

We would use "...antes de que viniera/viniese". The subjunctive is essential.

A pleasure.

[verde niña]

Sí, I did watch few videos after realizing the mistake I made with the accents in that word. I think, I understand about it now. Gracias, señor

Julvenzor, so I messed up my username, huh? Brilliant start

The thing is English is my second language but I've learned it along with my native language. So, I've been speaking it all my life. But I learned it by just listening around and then speaking it bit by bit. I never gave much importance to learning grammar as such because, I don't know, never thought I was using the language in the wrong way or something. And now with Spanish, I can feel like I might be messing things up because of that. In short, to learn Spanish grammar, I'll have to thoroughly learn the one of English.

Thank you for your reply, though! A pretty friendly forum this is, glad I chose it