raddickle

Well, when I'm in the lucky position to spend a bit more time out there I'll come to you for lessons in both!

lynnxa

I wouldn't dream of attempting to teach Valenciano!!!


I could teach you maths from a Valenciano text book though

bil

I think it was Steven Fry who said of someone that he could speak 5 languages and read another 4.

Understanding the written word is ten times easier than the spoken, speaking isn't too bad when you have a bit of vocabulary, but as said here the bu**er is when people use words and constructions that you don't know.

I think it's because the brain is struggling to process all the words coming in, and so it makes intelligent guesses as to what is coming next. Of course, in a foreign language it ha sless to make guess with.

It does the same with thrown objects, as it doesn't have the time to plot the curve frame by frame, so it makes a best guess at where the ball will end up, and then backfills the details.

cricketman

The good news is that Spanish has an incredibly logical system of grammar and very simple pronunciation rules making it easy to speak and understand.

It is complicated yes, there are over 50 versions of each verb, but it can be learnt somewhat like a mathematical algorithm and there are not that many exceptions (compared to English) of how the verbs are conjugated.

In terms of understanding, it just takes time. A big thing is to watch Spanish TV at home, that helps me no end. You have to pay attention to understand otherwise you have one boring evening!

jackytoo

You will have an even more boring evening if you understand.

jimenato

Agreed - unless you live in Andalucia.

JLFS

What are you lot on about??????

I thought the thread was about the actor in Starsky and Hutch.

angiescarr

I agree. 'El Jueves' Which calls itself 'the mag which comes out on wednesdays' is great fun, and informative in an anarchstic way. I can see why bil reads it!;-)

You have really to want to learn language. You have to listen actively and you have to be prepared to be wrong, but have a go anyway. My husband never got that. Maybe it's his fault or
maybe it's Michael Thomas' fault that he's unemployed;-) They say (in our village) that when he does speak, his Spanish is better than mine, But that's hardly any comfort when we're scrabbling for pennies just because my husband doesn't have the confidence to 'put himself out there'. There's loads of work in his area...after all most Spanish websites are S***t.
We laughed at other people who moved to Spain without learning the language. Now we're suffering from the same thing.

Back to the point.
I started to learn with the Linkword method which makes you feel that you're learning right from the beginning. Then I did classes, But by far the best method is to discipline yourself to breakfast daily in front of CNN+ (or any other repetitive news channel). Like OP says. It "just sort of creeps up on you" that you're understanding more than you ever realised. But you have to have the confidence to try it out. Don't duck back into pointing and using English just when it gets uncomfortable.
That's what my husband does and it's now habitual. It really holds you back.

angiescarr

Ahh yes. 'dichos'. The people round here are so friendly and excitable they just babble back at you. I felt a real fool until I realised that most of them speak almost entirely in 'dichos', Local sayings. Compounded by the fact that they chew up their consonants and spit out a stream of 'vocales'.
You just nead to practise telling them (nicely) that although you speak a little Spanish you don't understand the local 'dichos'. (El sentido de las palabras...si que entiendo. Pero los dichos me cuestan) Or summat like that:-) My experience with this is that they laugh, agree with you and carry on in the same way. But at least they understand when you look at them blankly, and some of them will try again.

bil

Thank you. I'll take that as a compliment. What I loved was after the judges had tried to have all the copies siezed and destroyed after the front cover that took the p*ss out of the crown prince and his wife, the mag altered the cover from 'Thursday. The magazine that comes out on Wednesday.' to 'Thursday. The magazine they confiscate on Friday!'


As for the learning process, I know I am kind of anal about grammar, but learning it really, really helps you to clear up some of the apparant confusion.

Also, it's a good idea to understand very clearly what the verb tenses actually mean, so you know what you are trying to say.

For example, the three common past tenses, the perfect, imperfect and preterit all mean very different things. The preterit is mostly for a single event in the past. The imperfect for repeated events in the past and the perfect for events in the past that may be repeated in the future.

ie Preterit. I ate at Joe's.
imperfect I used to eat at Joe's
perfect I have eaten at joe's

agoreira

Even guiris!
http://www.eljueves.es/2010/08/27/ve...es_guiris.html

bil

Ah, that rare avis, the guiri with its distinctive plumage.....

St. John

Oh, thank goodness others feel the same way about Mr Thomas. I was beginning to think that it was a combination of my advanced years and sheer laziness. I do watch the news in Spanish all the time but wondered if it was the words and the pictures together that made sense. There is one newsreader, whose name I forget, who is extraordinarily understandable. I think that he was 'newsreader of the year' - his pronunciation is excellent and he does not read the news as if he was a machine gun in full spate. There is hope then.

steviedeluxe

Watching the news is fine, but the problem is the vocabulary tends to be on certain subjects eg politics, employment, international affairs, sport etc, and you don't pick up the language used in normal conversations. There are certain newsreaders (nearly always female) who still lose me within seconds as they speak so rapidly.

jimenato

http://www.newsinslowspanish.com/

is quite useful