Rob aprende español

 So we have completed the first month, and the course is going well.

Duolingo story: ¡Quiero un perro! Language Transfer 39 con. con el, con ella, con ellos, con ellas, con nosotros, con usted, con ustedes. para el, ...  mi, ti.de de el, ... Le hace un favor. Decir. Quiero decir. With comprar, le  can be either for him or from him. Spanish uses prepositions much less than English does. 40 Me enamoro de ti. Estoy enamorandome de el. Pensamos en ella. Sueño con el. Soñamos con ella. Voy contigo. Depende de si quiere ir Poro. I listened to fin de semana   and to Chile and Italy.

Duolingo story: La decisión de Junior. Language Transfer 37. Me lo darán? Me doy cuenta. Te das cuenta? lo la los les; le les.  38  me te se nos se. Quiero quedarme. No se dan cuenta. Dreaming Spanish. 5 tipos de chicas; matrimonio en España.

Duolingo story: La persona perfecta Language Transfer 35 Soy sincero. Estoy siendo sincero. Estamos siendo honestos. Salgo pronto. Estoy saliendo. Los compro la semana que viene. 36 Desayuno con ellos mañana. Voy a desayunar. Haber, he has ha, hemos, han. Comer-e, -as -a -emos -an. Ire, iremos, ira, iran, iras. Lo encontrare.  Which Latin American country? 20 + Puerto Rico (USA). Sur. Este. Norte. Oeste.    

Duolingo story: El Jardin. Language Transfer 33: Estamos  listos ready . Soy listo smart. Tan. Estoy tan cansado. Soy bueno good . Estoy bueno attractive, in form . Feliz happy. 34 Hablar, dormir, comer, desayunar, esperar. Lo venden. Lo estan vendendo. App Poro. Listen and read  conversations. Too many ads.

Duolingo story: Junior hace ejercicio. Language Transfer 32. S er aburrido Estar aburrido. Estoy ocupado; soy una person ocupada. Lyrics Training: La Vaca Lola, Cielito Lindo.  

Duolingo story: Necesita ayuda? Language Transfer 30 No vamos a quedar nos por que estamos muy cansados. 31 Estar Ser .  Only 4 verbs have 1S - oy: soy, estoy, voy, doy. Ser Soy eres es Somos son. Ustedes is not formal, because vosotros  is not used except in parts of Spain. Spanish soap opera: Extra 5. next:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qh7-_sXVHlc&list=PLwJLdir6v7fFVLQ4jqjvw9yv8NB41QdFy&index=6

So we have completed three weeks out of thirteen, and this afternoon we will have our fourth group session. Duolingo story: Una cena con la familia. Fourth group session, and first improvised story.

Duolingo story: Tu no eres Maria Language Transfer 28 Money dinero, plata, moneda. Los carros son caros. La maquina es cara. Profesor. Spanish has single consonants where English has doubles, except rr and nn. 29 Un ser humano. Ser vs Estar:   character vs state. Most adjectives go with only one. Estar, estoy   other persons are regular, stress is on last, and estar is the only verb that does this. Estoy muerto.  Extensive Reading. The book should be interesting,  enjoyable to read, and you should understand 95-98% so that your flow is not interrupted by the need to look up words. You can use graded readers, or authentic material such as books written for children and young readers.

Duolingo story: ¿Gracias? Language Transfer 26. Quieres quedarte? Debemos quedarnos. Me tengo que quedar. Tienes que quedarti asi. Quiero saber por que tienes que quedar te asi. Me he quedado. Nos hemos quedado. Tu no te has quedado? Llamar. Como te llamas?   27. Los carros grandes. Puedes ver el coche grande? No puedo encontrar lo; no lo encuentro. Me quedo en el auto rojo. Me he quedado en el auto rojo.  Bookbox Spanish El rio y la montaña  "Tienes toda la razón, mi hermana. La verdadera razón de ser de mi vida es dar vida a los demás."

Duolingo story: Uno boleto para Barcelona Language Transfer 24. Dar, doy das da, damos dan. Me lo dan. ¿Ustedes nos lo dan mañana? Quiero dar te lo mañana. 25 me lo hablan. Hemos cocinado a las ochos. Quedarse. Me quiedo aqui hasta las diez. Dreaming Spanish: the Giant Carrot. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCouyFdE9-Lrjo3M_2idKq1A la zanahoria gigante

Duolingo story: El  jugador de baloncesto. Language transfer 22, 23. he terminado, hemos terminado. Lo he terminado.   Object pronoun goes after infinitive, before conjugated verb. Difference between ir/er imos/emos   only.   Nosotros hemos perdido. El ha perdido. yo tu el ella usted, nosotros vosotros ellos ellas ustedes;  me te lo la nos los las. Immersion and listening Well, I am trying a few things.  I have followed some more of Dreaming Spanish, and I am half way through Pablo's mini soap opera, which is really funny.  I have contacted two 'community tutors' on italki, and I am asking them to try to give me 'comprehensible input'. That is going fairly well. I have been looking for an exchange partner on tandem.net. So far I have only had brief exchanges of text messages. I have tried to interest people in the Crosstalk method, but I haven't got very far. I intend to keep trying, quite gently and suppressing my usual tendency to push...

 Duolingo: ¿Dónde está tu novia? Me gusta mucho esa historia. Lo recuerdo, porque lo leí en alemán hace algún tiempo. Language transfer 21. Haber + ...a/e/i do. He comido = I have eaten. he, has, ha, hemos, han. (saber: se is the only other verb with 1S in  -e). No he hablado. This form is used more in Spanish than in English, so for now it will do for both 'I have done' and 'I did'. When my children were little there was no such thing as Youtube or Spotify. I bought a computer CD for them, "Children's Songs of the World". There was one song each from France, Italy, Spain, Japan and so on, with some animation and little games. From Mexico, there was "Cielito Lindo", and I fell in love with it. I just found some versions of it on Youtube, and it brought tears to my eyes. I'll record a verse on Telegram. I'm not sure about singing though; that might bring tears to my classmates' eyes, and not in a good way. https://www.youtube.com/watch...

Language Transfer 19, 20. In Spanish we often have ie for stressed e , ue for stressed u . Esta noche.   Ir, voy, vas, ... Pronto. Ver, veo, ves, ve. Nos vemos la semana que viene https://www.thespanishexperiment.com/stories/chicken-little. I find that I am familiar with most of the points explained in Language Transfer, from my knowledge of Italian. So I don't really notice much when they occur in stories or other input. That's OK.

 8.24 Duolingo: El examen de inglés 8.28

Hoy me levé temprano, aunque me acosté tarde ayer. El email de Ismar aun no llega. Hace frio ahora, pero hará calor mas tarde. Hace silenzio, o casi. Me gusta la mañana temprana. AD14. Duolingo istoria: Mis vacaziones in Canadá. Language Transfer 17. The changes e - ie and o - ue do not occur in the nosotros -amos form, because the stem vowel does not carry stress. Language Transfer 18 1st plural is -imos for -ir, -emos for -er. This is the only difference between -ir and -er conjugations! Youtube channel Dreaming Spanish. Best TV series for beginner s: Pocoyó (España) Peppa Pig (YT versiones en español de España y tambien español latinoamericano) Extra en Español (YT for learners)  Mundo Zamba (YT de Argentina) AD14: What do you think of the YouTube channel "Dreaming Spanish"? It's good. Another on the theme of 'learn by practice and immersion, not with grammar like at school.' I find Pablo quite easy to understand, even without subtitles. I suppose it's beca...

 9.11 Duolingo historia: la novia perfecta. 9.15 Language Transfer 15. Qué pasa?  e  in the verb stem becomes  ie  where it is stressed, mostly. 9.25 Language Transfer 16. Comenzar. o  can become ue . Me duermo.  9.36 https://www.thespanishexperiment.com/stories/redridinghood 10.02 Blog.

 9.23 Duolingo 9.27 Language Transfer  13. Hacer. Don't memorize, remember. Puedo (poder).  9.37 Language Transfer  14. Saber, se, sabes, sabe. él. ella. ver. Salir, salgo, sales, ... . Tenir, tengo, tienes. Tengo que. Poner, pongo. Tengo que ver la. La debo ver. 9.55 Blog. 

 9.15 Duolingo story 9.20 Language Transfer 11. Tolerar.  9.30 Language Transfer 12. Vender. -ion, -idad words are feminine. ¿Por qué no nos lo venden? 9.45 Overcome the fear of speaking a foreign language. Abundance mindset. Other is there to help you, not mock you. Speak before fear gets you. 9.50 Luca Lampariello: How to Smash Your Fear of Speaking a Foreign Language (Forever). Think about the rational and irrational fears you have about speaking a language for the first time, and write them down. Get ready before you speak. Understand the language. Then speak; even just to yourself. Imagine saying what interests you to an imaginary friend. Face your top fear, release your power. Perfectionism syndrome gets in the way. Don't let mistakes hold you back. Understand your fears Prepare and practice Face your fears head on Choose a quiet environment and a person you like. Talk about what you want. 10.05 Blog. I tried a B1 test at https://www.tiatula.com/tests_nivel/res...

08.50 Duolingo story: un café, por favor 08.55 Language Transfer track 10: Ventilare, verb forms. Tenir, venir. 09.10 https://lyricstraining.com/es 09.20 Lo intenté. Fue dificil. Lo intentaré otra vez.

 A couple of technical points. Accents. Accents are used on (all?) question words, and on some (one-syllable?) words to distinguish them: sí = yes; si = if té = tea;  te = you qué; que quién = who? (interrorgative); quien = that, who (relative) cuándo  = when? (interrorgative); cuando = when  (conjunction) The full rules are pretty complicated:  www.fluentu.com/blog/spanish/spanish-accent-marks Using the polite (usted) form, the pronoun will be lo for a male or la for a female. I listened to the three stories on Bookbox. After the first, I realised that I had captions turned on and was reading the English translation as well as the Spanish text. I turned them off, and then was able to concentrate more on the Spanish. I missed a few words, but I got 80% or more of the story. I tried to repeat the phrases, but there wasn't always enough time. It would be nice to find some similar material that was less clearly aimed at children. I found this one moving: ...

Hoy de nuevo pronunciación. ¿Qué sonidos son difíciles? I struggle with G as in Giorgio, and also with rolling my R's. Watching the video, I realise that there are subtleties with T, D and L that I barely notice, and probably therefore do not articulate. Also B and V, I think, although the video didn't talk about those. Ayer fuimos al mar. Hacía calor, pero mucho vento. Nadé tres veces. Comemos pescado. Volvimos cansados pero feliz.

Nada = nothing. Nada = nothing at all (literally, nothing of nothing). That is just to explain the title that I chose for this post. The content is rather different. In English, when someone says "thanks", you can reply "you're welcome". In Spanish, to "Gracias", you can reply "de nada". Literally, "of nothing", with the sense "what I gave you is so little as to be nothing; you don't need to thank me." Some other languages also do this: French "merci - de rien", Italian "grazie - di niente".  These expressions are correct and polite, but there is something about them that bothers me a little. I don't like the way they diminish the value of the interaction, even though I understand that they do so in the name of politeness. So if I want to be really nice, I look for alternatives.  In French you can say "Je vous en prie" or "Je t'en prie". This is literally "I beg you ...

I created a   Links page I installed  read aloud  and pinned it. I read  un-dolor-de-dientes-real It is annoying that the reader reads all the text on the page, including page numbers and so on; but useful to have correct pronunciation available so easily.

The Comparison Villain   I very much agree with the message of this video. Comparison can destroy the learning environment.  It doesn't apply only to language learning. I have been trying to learn how to dance. Partner dances like waltz and foxtrot. One of the things that makes it hard for me is that I never learnt to dance when I was young, and most women have at least some experience and seem much more expert. But the man is meant to lead and the woman follow. So I have to lead although my skill is much less than my partner's. Comparison! And yes, the answer is to feel compassion, and use the other's quality as a spur. "I love you" - A Story, part 1   Estaba enseñando inglés. Tuve un alumno particular, una mujer de unos cuarenta años, bastante atractiva y muy agradable. Las lecciones iban bien. Tuvieron lugar en su oficina, una habitación grande con una mesa de conferencias y un escritorio. Un día estábamos sentados en la mesa de conferencias y ella fue a busca...

 Hoy mi primera experiencia con Language Transfer. Un poco fácil, pero creo que el método es bueno.

 Las tares hoy son de pronunciación. I watched two short videos from  https://www.youtube.com/c/ButterflySpanish The teacher, Ana, is young and pretty and slightly manic; which is not a bad way for a language teacher to be, I think. She also has a little website,  https://www.butterflyspanish.com Here is a short clip of me repeating a Duolingo story: I found out how to record sound in Windows 11. The trick is to open the Game Bar, by typing Windows key + G. Then make sure the microphone is on in the Capture widget. To start recording, Win+alt+R. A small blue widget opens, showing that recording has started. It records the screen and my voice until I click stop. Then I can find the recording in C:\Users\rob62\Videos\Captures and play it. And here is the rest of the story: I use Spotify, and I have just listened to this Spotify Duolingo Spanish Podcast . Quite easy to follow, because there is explanation in English as well as the Spanish story.

Hoy una lección con Jisa en italki. Comida y bebida, favoritos. She had prepared some material this time, so I didn't have to think what to say. It was rather easy.  Then at the end I tried to tell her about the JAS22 course, but she didn't understand my English, so I used Google Translate. Now I am wondering about how well we seemed to communicate in the first lesson, last week. If her English is only basic, she must have understood my Spanish more than I thought, even though a lot of the time I was making wild guesses and using Italian words because I have so few Spanish ones. Well, approximate human communication is quite a phenomenon!

 Yo empecé estudiar español hace un mes en Duolingo. He tenido una lección en Italki. But this is cheating: I am using Google translate. So instead I will just write in English for now. I have been using Duolingo to improve my German for several months now. Then I started giving some English lessons to some local children. Their father is Italian and their mother comes from Uruguay. I thought it would be fun to be able to speak some Spanish to her, for instance to answer when she said “Mucho gusto” on meeting me. So I started some Spanish on Duolingo too. I am a complete beginner. I have been taking German lessons on Italki for a couple of months, and I have a very good teacher, Luisa. I decided to try a Spanish lesson there too. I had half an hour with Jisa, which went quite well. I was able to converse just a little, and when I didn’t know a word I tried using the Italian word. I booked a second session with Jisa. She tried to have a conversation with me, but I had to confe...

 Hoy empiezo este blog sobre mi aprendizaje del español.