icharus

Ooooh, bitchy !

JLFS

The Italian forum has "talk the talk" where they ask their language questions.

It seems to work very well, but they are not as nit picky as us lot.

It is a good idea, lets see if it take off.

Cheers

bil

Call me anal, but I wish to god they would use terms more precisely.

"y aun aqui estoy yo por sus besos llorando,

that is aun with out an accent mark because llorando is the gerrund."

If you are going to refer to that using English, it's the present participle, not the gerund, and if they referred to it in Spanish, it should be the gerundio, which can be confusing.

Spanish does not have a gerund, ie they do not use the present participle as a noun.

As for the question, the accent is to indicate the meaning between two identical words.

jdr

There have been threads started before, but they ended up with too many nitpickers trying to outdo each other as usual instead of just translating for the poster.

JLFS

Tell me something I dont already know, I have been on the receiving end...

I think I will just read it, if it happens, I dont know wether I will post though, sometimes it is not worth the bother.

jdr

I know the feeling too well

jackytoo

I agree but it would be nice if someone could have commented at Veletas attempts. Especially the spaniyards

JLFS

I didnt, cos I aint got a keyboard that does accents and to be h9nest I am not that ofay with them, but you have already pointed that out before, remember........

I dont know how many more Sapniyards are on here at the moment.....

Veleta

I believe what I am trying to say is:
I went to see Avatar, even knowing that I wouldn't like it. (aun)
Fui a ver Avatar, aun sabiendo que no me gustaría.

As opposed to:
I went to see Avatar, although I knew I wouldn't like it. (aunque)
Fui a ver Avatar, aunque sabía que no me gustaría.

And therein lies the difference. Unless someone can tell me to the contrary?

lynnxa

I don't know either.

I looked in my books & that didn't help

there's a language forum I visit that might be able to help - I did a search there & it seems that the question has never been asked!

maybe it just doesn't matter?


btw - Yo no fui a ver Avatar porque sabía que no me gustaría.

lynnxa

I've dropped into there quite a bit too - & I think the main reason it works is because they just ask - how do you say? & someone answers - I say it like this

What I mean is, no-one starts getting picky about grammar & whether or not it's 'correct' - in fact grammar isn't really mentioned at all

Let's face it - few of us speak English 'correctly' & it doesn't really matter - we all understand each other & communicate - and that's what language should be about - communication - not grammatical terms (unless you need them for an exam).

How many of us have studied English grammar in any great depth. I bet most of us would be hard pushed to break a sentence down into its component parts & name them, let alone name all the tenses we use - but we still speak the language all day every day!

JLFS

I think I am going to agree with you..........

And for those who have studied this subject, a lot of it get forgotten through lack of use.

The problem is though, that a negative attitude can put people off, for fear of being ridiculed.

Others wont post because the attitude gets their back up and the say WTF should I bother. Very understandable.

The use of the language varies from region to region, but if you vary from the norm (what most folk know) then you have a hard time explaining yourself.

I hope it takes off though, because any help is better than none.

jdr

Totally agree.

agoreira

I´m no expert, but that sounds OK to me. Grammatically I think you have it about right, although purely from personal preference for "aun sabiendo" I would use "incluso sabiendo"!

jackytoo

You can ask 3 spaniards from the same street and get three different answers.