h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I am not bilingual...in fact I am very far from being so. Whereas many h2g2 Researchers are fluent in English as well as their first language. Me, I struggle hugely with Spanish, and just when I think I have made some progress I find that there is still a huge hill of language ahead of me.

The good thing though, is that I've joined up with some really cool people - half of whom want to speak Spanish better, and the other half want to improve their English. So we meet a few times each week and we mangle each others' language mercilessly. This is where I have just come back from and my brain is finding great difficulty in composing this journal.

I meant to be more coherent in this particular journal, but it's not happening.

No hace nada. La coherencia es sobrevalorado

Lanzababy

You surprise me, I thought with all your time living there you spoke like the locals.

I took 2 years of high school Spanish muy Anos passado. I decided that living where I do it might come in handy. I like to say 'Hablo poco Espanol, comprendo pocito' because I know what words I understand and you don't!

I did spend a few months living in Miami shortly after Mariel (the basis of my entry A87789983 ) and my limited Spanish proved most useful. We were living in a residential motel and I spent one night teaching my wife to say 'Papel por el cureto de bano' as I was getting tired of buying our own toilet paper.

I did have to change planes in Philadelphia once, and the only place I could grab a smoke without going through security was in the air-side bar. I waited for a stool and soon found myself sharing a table with a man who knew far less English than I did Spanish. We managed to communicate for about 45 minutes and I did learn he lived in Washington State near my Wife's sisters. I am sure we only managed to share thoughts on a preschool level, but I have always been proud I made it that far.

Please forgive my atrocious Spanish spelling, I don't even have a ~ for the 'n's

Your group sounds like fun



F S

I liked Spain when I lived there and could just about manage to hold a conversation and teach

[Amy P]

"I am not bilingual" me neitherI only spake Yorkshire

Having Spanish relatives I'm always amazed just how little I know,especially as my toddler nephews think its so funny, but its nice trying!

I'm not particularly good with languages. I was taught Latin, French, German and Irish in school but I only managed to become good at French. So I never attempted Spanish - also, with the exception of my week in Lanzarote, and a one-hour drive to Gerona airport from southern France, I've never been in any Spanish-speaking place.

I've been thinking of taking Spanish lessons at evening school. But evening school has become so expensive

Maybe I should just move down to rural Spain where no-one speaks anything but Spanish for a couple of years? That ought to do it

I find that with languages, there are ones I just take to and ones I just don't, for whatever reason. I only ever took one short course in Spanish, so I don't know very much, but it was one of the ones I found I could get my head around quite easily.

Yes, I found Spanish fairly user friendly too.

Irish, though, I found really really difficult! I think because it is so old and has evolved so much. Plus the pronunciation is tricky.

Irish has a few things that make it difficult: the Irish spelling system, while perfectly logical is not simple. There are about 50 different sounds in Irish but only 18 letters to write them with, so the system uses lots of combinations of letters. Spoken Irish, of course, shouldn't have this problem.

The word order in Irish (Verb Subject Object) takes a bit of getting used to.

The strangest thing, though is the Irish habit of circumlocution. There are many actions for which there is no verb in Irish - instead elaborate phrases convey the same information. For example, there is no verb "to have" - instead of "I have it", you say "It is at me". There's no verb "to succeed" - you say "I rose to it".

There are also such phrases even when there is a verb - you can say "I did it" or "I am after doing it" which means the same thing.

Your group sounds a great way to learn things, Lanza - but make sure you don't pick up incorrect expressions or pronunciations from the other non-native speakers, who may just translate their own idioms into Spanish and make them sound right.

Take notes, jot down the new words, check spellings in the dictinary at home. With your teaching background you shouldn't have any trouble with sorting out the grammar, too. It's worth making the effort.

I attend a similar little group where we speak French. The Germans often pronounce French in a way that not even the French members of our group can understand them, and they have difficulty getting their heads around some words and idioms which come naturally if you are approaching the French from the English-speaking viewpoint (syntax being the main thing that English shares with French - certainly in comparison with German!)

Do you take short texts, poems, or newspaper articles to read? These often serve as a basis for a conversation where you are venturing into new vocabulary and interesting ways of expressing your thoughts which you wouldn't in normal, impromptu conversation.

We have a situation here, like many places on earth where there is a cosmopolitan society - English is the lingua franca. Added to that, there are many tourists. It's a holiday island - so the local shops, restaurants and other services all employ staff who can speak English very well. Even the checkout girls in the little supermarkets let the shopper know the price, in English first.

I have to actually ask to speak Spanish.

Don't get me wrong - I get compliments on the way I speak Spanish. I try hard to learn a bit more every day. But it is harder, the more you learn the more you realise is 'out there' Fourteen different verb tenses for example. English verbs are a doddle in comparison.

There are two entirely different, and irregular verbs where we just use 'to be' (Ser and Estar) - you have to learn where and in which circumstance you use either.

Some explanation and examples follow, primarily for my benefit - you can skip it!

{When the verb "to be" is followed by a noun, the verb ser is always used.

When the verb "to be" is followed by an adjective, the verb used depends upon the meaning. When referring to an essential characteristic, use ser. When referring to a state or condition, use estar.

When the verb "to be" is followed by an adjective, the verb can actually change the meaning of the adjective.

El profesor está aburrido.
The professor is bored.

El profesor es aburrido.
The professor is boring.

To describe location, or where something is located right now, use estar. To tell where an event is taking place, use ser.}


And like French, you *are* not hot, or cold or hungry. Nor *is* the weather cold or hot. You have to remember to use hacer (to make) or tener (to have) Both are irregular stem-changing verbs. And these bits are considered simple day-to-day Spanish.

Then, of course you really do need to pronounce the words with the accent on the correct syllable. You can make yourself incomprehensible if you put the accent in the wrong place. Or just plain embarrassed, such as the difference between Mamá and mama. The first is Mum and the second is breast.

Irish also has two verbs "to be" and they seem to correspond almost exactly with the Spanish ones.

When you consider how irregular the English verb 'to be' is - I wonder if it originally was made up from two or more verbs and over centuries amalgamated into one.

Well done for continuing with your Spanish Lanzababy, a lot of people tend to drop a language within the first year if they find that instant fluency isn't a realistic goal.

I've found that typeit.org is great when it comes to being able to use specialist symbols and accented letters without changing your keyboard.

BTW there's a TED talk which is about 16 minutes long, but it's given by Sid Efromovitch who's learnt several languages, and most of his tips are useful for learning any language. Here's the gist, to save your data allowance:
1) Be open to making mistakes, because every time you learn something completely new it's probably going to feel not quite right.
2) Scrap the alphabet and find a way of writing down the language which works for you to get the intonation and sounds when learning it.
3) Have "shower conversations" - talk to yourself in the shower etc to find which bits of the language you don't know. eg you might be able to ask for directions but could you understand the answer, let alone give directions?
4) Find a stickler - somebody who is able to notice and correct your mistakes, and with whom you feel comfortable.
5) Find a buddy to practise with - this works best when the language you have most in common is the one you're trying to learn. In the clip, the speaker gives the example of having a colleague who was also a polyglot. Their first shared language was English, their second one Spanish, but they spoke to each other in German at work because nobody around them understood a word of it, so they got away with chatting about what they got up to at the weekend in far more privacy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WLHr1_EVtQ

I think the thing about scrapping the alphabet wouldn't apply to Spanish, though, because it is the most sensibly spelled language in existence.

Including the z in "cerveza?"

In islands Spanish, that's just "s".