Having picked up a few other languages, in some ways it’s easier to START communicating in Spanish than some other ones, especially for English speakers.
But the Vos/Ud/Tu is probably more of a dialect thing rather than a snake of complexity waiting to strike at those who wander in thinking Spanish is easy… and should be explained as such: It’s not unique - try to explain “y’all” to a non-(American) English speaker.
On the subject of HARD languages: I’d love to see someone really succeed with a web 2.0 German program. so far all I’ve seen are phrasebook-based.
PS - Ken: I appreciate your efforts to get the big brain working over here at Spanishsense..
Well said. It is indeed easier to START speaking Spanish, but reaching native-like proficiency may be no easideer than any other language - including Chinese.
As a German speaker I’m definitely considering the possibility of a GermanSense in the not too distant future. Right now we’ve got losts of other fish to fry but it’s a possibility.
Seems to be a matter of elision…
I´ve read comments from different Spanishsense users, particularly in the section ´tell us your pain points´ who find it really difficult to tackle authentic spoken Spanish.
Omission of sounds or elision seems to be more noticeable in Spanish than in English, specially if a word ends in vowel and the next word starts with the same vowel, for example in the case of Hola Ana, it becomes Holana. What is more, the ‘h’ in Spanish is ´mute´ thus, it does not change the elision in words that start with this letter. The phrase ‘éstoy aqui en la hacienda’ is pronounced ‘estoyaqui en lahacienda’. But don’t get panic, languages seem to be unattainable at the very beginning, that is what is happening to me with my Chinese, right now I think I am in the absolute silent period, and I still believe that with effort I’ll be able to grasp some language from the ‘newbie’ lessons in the next months.
To read a bit more about elision there is a short expansion of what it refers to and the ‘mute h’ in the following link http://learn-spanish-program.com/blog/?p=16
Hello, I’m native spanish, and I think the most dificult issue to learn for a foreigner is to conjugate verbs properly, to give the various inflectional forms of a verb. This is very hard to learn I think and also to be used to distinguish between male, female and neutral nouns.
Antonio, welcome back to Spanishsense, long time you didn’t visit us. I do believe conjugation should be quite difficult for many foreigners, perhaps for those who have English-speaking background, as English’s conjugation is quite simple compared to Spanish’s. Nevertheless, people who have commented in the blog say they find it difficult to catch real life conversations, because they perceive Spanish speakers talk very fast. What do you think about this issue?
Nevertheless, people who have commented in the blog say they find it difficult to catch real life conversations, because they perceive Spanish speakers talk very fast. What do you think about this issue?
Everyone perceives that speakers of languages they don’t know speak fast. The problem is that your ear/brain are not atuned to the phonology/sounds and does not know the structure.
These days while Jenny sounds like she is speaking quite quickly on the intermediate level lessons I am listening to, if I concentrate I can follow it and understand things and I suspect that there is little difference in utterance speed between her Mandarin and her English.
Welcome to Spanishsense Richard.
That is also true, our ears are not accustomed to the rhythms, stresses, tones, intonation and speed of the language when we are starting to learn. Would you like to try learning Spanish? If you already master intermediate Chinese, I don’t think you find Spanish that difficult, do you?
I must disagree about the speed issue mentioned for both Spanish and Chinese. I am long time learner of both languages and have lived in countries where both languages are spoken for long periods of time (China and Argentina, I currently live in Shanghai), My Chinese is advanced and my Spanish probably Upper Intermediate.
One thing I have learned that still seems peculiar to me is that in both of these languages when you really talk with people and more so when you see them talk to each other.. on the news or in real life; the tendency is to speak MUCH faster than we do in English, at least American English.
I don’t know if this has cultural roots or it is some result of the language itself… but it is unmistakable that people operate at a different pace than I perceive in America.. especially in Spanish. As to Chinese the educated seem to speak slower but most everyone else seems to spit it out as fast as they can like doing so will impress people.
Not sure if I am the only one with this observation about the pace of languages especially Spanish and Chinese. If one thing is certain it makes learning the languages all the more difficult, And perhaps more interesting/frustrating is the fact once you overcome this hurdle and have mastered listening comprehension, when you speak their language in return, at what from your point of view is the straightforward, measured, and sensible pace, people are impatient with you or perhaps even just think your spoken is lacking… I just think Slow down! I think if people learned to do this (Especially in China but not so much in South America) all of the misunderstandings and arguments common to the culture and region would drop significantly.
Reasoned arguments come out at a reasoned pace, but I guess that’s just my background and own culture speaking this perspective. As Herodotus said best “custom is king.” From my point of view being about such custom though being more than fairly fluent in both languages, the on average pace of language in Chinese and Spanish is far faster.
hello my name is oscar and i think spanish is harder that english because there are more diferents ways to say a word ;my home laguage is spanish and i learn very fast the english language and to someone hwo speak english it will be hard to learn espanish ;here is something to someone hwo speak english to see if he/she understand (el barco pirata se undio) that’s what i thought
Having picked up a few other languages, in some ways it’s easier to START communicating in Spanish than some other ones, especially for English speakers.
But the Vos/Ud/Tu is probably more of a dialect thing rather than a snake of complexity waiting to strike at those who wander in thinking Spanish is easy… and should be explained as such: It’s not unique - try to explain “y’all” to a non-(American) English speaker.
On the subject of HARD languages: I’d love to see someone really succeed with a web 2.0 German program. so far all I’ve seen are phrasebook-based.
PS - Ken: I appreciate your efforts to get the big brain working over here at Spanishsense..
JimmyB,
Well said. It is indeed easier to START speaking Spanish, but reaching native-like proficiency may be no easideer than any other language - including Chinese.
As a German speaker I’m definitely considering the possibility of a GermanSense in the not too distant future. Right now we’ve got losts of other fish to fry but it’s a possibility.
Ken
Seems to be a matter of elision…
I´ve read comments from different Spanishsense users, particularly in the section ´tell us your pain points´ who find it really difficult to tackle authentic spoken Spanish.
Omission of sounds or elision seems to be more noticeable in Spanish than in English, specially if a word ends in vowel and the next word starts with the same vowel, for example in the case of Hola Ana, it becomes Holana. What is more, the ‘h’ in Spanish is ´mute´ thus, it does not change the elision in words that start with this letter. The phrase ‘éstoy aqui en la hacienda’ is pronounced ‘estoyaqui en lahacienda’. But don’t get panic, languages seem to be unattainable at the very beginning, that is what is happening to me with my Chinese, right now I think I am in the absolute silent period, and I still believe that with effort I’ll be able to grasp some language from the ‘newbie’ lessons in the next months.
To read a bit more about elision there is a short expansion of what it refers to and the ‘mute h’ in the following link http://learn-spanish-program.com/blog/?p=16
Hello, I’m native spanish, and I think the most dificult issue to learn for a foreigner is to conjugate verbs properly, to give the various inflectional forms of a verb. This is very hard to learn I think and also to be used to distinguish between male, female and neutral nouns.
Antonio, welcome back to Spanishsense, long time you didn’t visit us. I do believe conjugation should be quite difficult for many foreigners, perhaps for those who have English-speaking background, as English’s conjugation is quite simple compared to Spanish’s. Nevertheless, people who have commented in the blog say they find it difficult to catch real life conversations, because they perceive Spanish speakers talk very fast. What do you think about this issue?
Nevertheless, people who have commented in the blog say they find it difficult to catch real life conversations, because they perceive Spanish speakers talk very fast. What do you think about this issue?
Everyone perceives that speakers of languages they don’t know speak fast. The problem is that your ear/brain are not atuned to the phonology/sounds and does not know the structure.
These days while Jenny sounds like she is speaking quite quickly on the intermediate level lessons I am listening to, if I concentrate I can follow it and understand things and I suspect that there is little difference in utterance speed between her Mandarin and her English.
Welcome to Spanishsense Richard.
That is also true, our ears are not accustomed to the rhythms, stresses, tones, intonation and speed of the language when we are starting to learn. Would you like to try learning Spanish? If you already master intermediate Chinese, I don’t think you find Spanish that difficult, do you?
I must disagree about the speed issue mentioned for both Spanish and Chinese. I am long time learner of both languages and have lived in countries where both languages are spoken for long periods of time (China and Argentina, I currently live in Shanghai), My Chinese is advanced and my Spanish probably Upper Intermediate.
One thing I have learned that still seems peculiar to me is that in both of these languages when you really talk with people and more so when you see them talk to each other.. on the news or in real life; the tendency is to speak MUCH faster than we do in English, at least American English.
I don’t know if this has cultural roots or it is some result of the language itself… but it is unmistakable that people operate at a different pace than I perceive in America.. especially in Spanish. As to Chinese the educated seem to speak slower but most everyone else seems to spit it out as fast as they can like doing so will impress people.
Not sure if I am the only one with this observation about the pace of languages especially Spanish and Chinese. If one thing is certain it makes learning the languages all the more difficult, And perhaps more interesting/frustrating is the fact once you overcome this hurdle and have mastered listening comprehension, when you speak their language in return, at what from your point of view is the straightforward, measured, and sensible pace, people are impatient with you or perhaps even just think your spoken is lacking… I just think Slow down! I think if people learned to do this (Especially in China but not so much in South America) all of the misunderstandings and arguments common to the culture and region would drop significantly.
Reasoned arguments come out at a reasoned pace, but I guess that’s just my background and own culture speaking this perspective. As Herodotus said best “custom is king.” From my point of view being about such custom though being more than fairly fluent in both languages, the on average pace of language in Chinese and Spanish is far faster.
hello my name is oscar and i think spanish is harder that english because there are more diferents ways to say a word ;my home laguage is spanish and i learn very fast the english language and to someone hwo speak english it will be hard to learn espanish ;here is something to someone hwo speak english to see if he/she understand (el barco pirata se undio) that’s what i thought