Hola again!

[ericrcan]

¡Hola otra vez a todos! I was trying to learn Español over un año ago, but since then I moved away from California and have had trouble aprendiendo Español. Ahora yo soy back y yo quiero aprender Español. Any help on where to start would be great. I forgot pretty much everything I learned a few years ago. ¡Gracias!

Eric

[wrholt]

Welcome back to the forums, Eric!

What type of trouble were you having? Finding the time or resources? Or using resources that you didn't find useful?

[ericrcan]

¡Gracias wrholt!

Both el tiempo, y the resources. Living in Hawaii, not many personas sabe Español. Este semana, mi papa got married a una mujer de Tijuana. Así ahora yo quiero aprender ser able hablar a ella y la hija de ella.

[Rusty]

It's good to see that you're trying to write the words that you can in Spanish, and that now you have a reason to learn much more.

I'll comment a bit on what you've written so that you can improve upon (mejorar) it.

The names of languages, in Spanish, are not capitalized unless they begin a sentence.

You used 'soy' as a translation for 'I am'. While that is a proper translation, it wasn't the correct verb to use with 'back'.
'To be back' = 'haber vuelto' or 'estar de nuevo'.
It isn't the right verb to use with 'able'.
'To be able' = 'poder'.
'Estar' is another verb in Spanish that translates as 'to be'. There's a great thread here in the forums about when to choose 'ser' and when to choose 'estar'.

Word agreement is especially important, and more complex, in Spanish.
personas saben (plural verb ending to match the plural subject)
esta semana (feminine ending on the determiner matches the noun's gender)

Accented vowels are very important. There's a difference between papa (potato) and papá (dad). The latter has a stressed second syllable, while the former has a stressed first syllable.

'to get married to' = 'casarse con'
My dad got married to a woman from Tijuana. =
Mi papá se casó con una mujer de Tijuana.

'Así', by itself, means 'thus' or 'like so'. To render the meaning of 'for this/that reason', you need to use 'así que'.
So now I want to learn (to be able) to speak to her and to her daughter. =
Así que ahora quiero aprender a hablar a ella y a su hija.
su hija = la hija de ella

You'd do well to check out Spanish courses at your local library or find courses online. Learning Spanish will take time and effort. You should read books written entirely in Spanish. Chileno would tell you to translate such books into English. This is good advice because it gets your brain accustomed to the way Spanish is used. There is seldom a word-for-word correlation between languages.

Hope some of the mini-lesson above helped.

¡Bienvenido! (Welcome back!)

[ericrcan]

¡Gracias Rusty!

Yo tengo mucho aprender. I will start looking online at clases de español. ¡Gracias otra vez!

-Eric

[Rusty]

¡Gracias Rusty!

(Yo) Tengo mucho que aprender. I will start looking online at clases de español. ¡Gracias otra vez!

-EricDe nada.

[ericrcan]

¿Por qué yo necesito "que" before aprender?

[Rusty]

Other than the that-is-how-this-particular-phrase-is-said answer, it'll be a bit hard to explain, but I'll try.
It has to do with 'obligation'. Obligation can be expressed with 'tener que' (there are other ways, too).

tener que (hacer algo) = (to) have to (do something)
tengo que ir = I have to go
tienes que estudiar = you have to study

tener mucho que hacer = (to) have a lot to do
tener nada que hacer = (to) have nothing to do


You may also be interested to know that the English infinitive is often coupled with the preposition 'to' - to have, to see, to eat - but it's not necessary to do that. The preposition is NOT a part of the verb.

English has a bare infinitive (no leading preposition). When we look in an English dictionary for a verb, we search for the bare infinitive form.
We use bare infinitives all the time in English. For instance, a bare infinitive always follows a modal (must, can, could, should, will, shall, would, may, might, etc.). But, others, like 'need to', 'have to', 'ought to', must be followed by the preposition 'to'.

The Spanish infinitive isn't coupled with a preposition, nor is one 'built into' the infinitive, just like its English counterpart! Textbooks and some teachers would have you believe otherwise. They always include the preposition 'to' in front of the infinitive when they're introducing a new infinitive, but the preposition 'to' is NOT a part of the infinitive. There'd be a lot less confusion if the bare infinitive were pressed into service instead.

Spanish and English differ in some points.
While English doesn't allow 'I want go', Spanish does (quiero ir).
English doesn't allow 'I need eat', but Spanish does (necesito comer).
In English, 'I have to go' cannot be said without the preposition. In Spanish, it can't be said without 'que' preceding the infinitive.

Many Spanish verbs are always followed by a particular preposition (http://www.elearnspanishlanguage.com/grammar/verb/verbswithprep.html). These should be memorized as a pair.

[ericrcan]

¡Gracias otra vez Rusty! ¿Any recommendations para un sitio web that can ayúdame? I was trying Rosetta Stone, pero it doesn't work like they say on la televisión.

-Eric

[Rusty]

¿Any recommendations para un sitio web that can ayudarme?Remember, after 'can' you use a bare infinitive, in both languages.
'Ayúdame' is the familiar imperative (command) form.

No te puedo recomendar un sitio web. (Aprendí a hablar español antes de que existiera el internet.) No quiero que te desanimes, pero no he encontrado ninguno que me guste. Te recomiendo evitar los sitios que cuentan con profesores cuya lengua materna no sea el español. ;)

[ericrcan]

Gracias por las correcciones Rusty. I will look around para un libro de español en la biblioteca. Ahora es el momento de look around the rest del foro para la práctica. ¡Gracias otra vez!

-Eric

[Rusty]

No hay de qué.