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

I do not know this subject enough to ask a question.

I studied two years in high school, but that was a long time ago

I remember I went to a job-site in Puerto Rico and I went into the room of our foreman. He called down to the front desk (we were renovating a hotel) for my ID card and room key. She obviously asked him if I could speak Spanish and I replied 'hablo poco Espanol' I heard him tell her I am not sure - he said 'poco' rather than 'pocito'. I don't think he understood I was saying I know the language better than he did.

I usually say 'Hablo Pcoo, pero comprendo muy pocito' because I use only the words I know, but the people I speak with use the best word, even if I do not know them. I did once manage a 45 minute conversation totally in Spanish. I doubt we got far beyond kindergarten words - but we did communicate

I thought I would reply here to prevent getting the other thread too far

Hola!
are you in Méjico/Mexico now?

I have to correct a spelling mistake you´ve done in pocito.

the c in poco sounds k, and it keeps that sound with the suffix -ito, but in spanish, c + i or e, sounds z, like the the in thing.
To keep the z sound you have to use the letter qu-

so poco becomes poquito.

ca, co, cu : sound ka, ko, ku,
but ce, ci, sound ze, zi

it´s the same with ga, go, gu. The g- sounds like the g in gap.
but
ge, gi, sounds like h, in ham, but harder.
examples:
gato, gorila, gusano.
gente, girafa.

when you have gue, or gui, the sounds becomes soft, like the g- in gap
guerra, guitarra.

this is a good place to learn spanish:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/spanish/

In Méjico the spanish varies a lot from the lexical point of view. This also happens in the rest of latin america.

Actually my wife and I are going on a cruise and we will have about 8 hours on Cozumel Island. It is a major tourist area. Speaking Spanish might be more important while we travel through Tampa Almost all the Spanish taught around here is 'New World' as that is what we are likely to encounter.

I was doing a presentation with few friends, one of whom is very fluent. A family came by who spoke very little English so he talked with them for half an hour or so in Spanish. He later said how interested the family from Cuba were. I had listened to their introduction, so asked him how he knew they were from Cuba? He said by their accent, he then explained how almost every island or country had a very distinctive accent (of course you knew that)

I remember in Spanish class they showed us a language clip from Spain, the biggest thing I remember was double L letter, is Spain it was a 'YL' sound while on this side it is a pure 'Y'.

Thank you for your correction to my spelling, as soon as I saw it I remembered that you are correct.

Your link also looks interesting, thanks again.

Gracias



F S