The Spanish-speaking world is a huge place, encompassing many different nationalities, ethnicities, cultures, and identities. Getting someone's nationality right is often just as important to them as getting their name right! We're not all Mexican, you know!
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Soy Ruso, pero nuestro pais es tan grande. Porque casi cada persona aqui es una mixtura de nacionaldades.
I see some grammatical differences here. (with English)
llamarse is a reflexive verb - to call oneself. Similar to - lavarse - to wash oneself. Now i can understand me lavo, te lavas, se lava. As it follows the English meanings.
But me llamo, te llamas, se llama is a step away from - I am called, you are called, he/she/it is called.
It is not difficult, but takes some thinking about
como se llama tu pero? - what does your dog call itself?
todger, that's great!
Some people question why I teach sometimes the literal gloss of the grammar and then require you to do the step that takes some thinking..... The ask, 'wouldn't it be better to just skip to the current English meaning?'
But your comment is exactly why I don't skip the step, so you can see the patterns! :)
After all, we're not really learning translation, we're learning Spanish grammar!
Just joined the website - I am recupertaing from open-heart surgery and I find this website as a fantastic way to spend the time at home.
A questions:
Is there a certain order of studying the lessons? Onviously there are different level, but within a category, let's say Newbie, is there an order of difficulty, so that you can take the lessons in this order?
Thanks in advance
Boaz (Israel)
boazw not really, the idea is to learn what you want when you want so just jump in anywhere. theyre all good.
boazw, I hope you have a speedy recovery! If you're new to Spanish, pick any Newbie level lesson that seems interesting to you and listen to it; they're all intended to be entry level. Think of it as a lesson buffet... start where you want! Skip the lessons you're not interested in :)
SpanishPod is a great tool to introduce you to Spanish and work on listening comprehension, which is a weak spot of many other methods.
Hola!
Me llamo Valdecyr. Soy brasileño. ¿De qué parte de Brasil? De una bela ciudad llamada Campinas. Así, tambien soy campinero. Me gusta mucho estudiar el español aquí en SpanishPod.
Hola Valdecyr
Que bueno verte aquí
Hola Stevestr!
¿Entonces estás acá también? que bueno!
Praxis language courses are really useful, funny and help people join very supportive and active communities. Prior at EnglishPod and now at SpanishPod I can realise how learning a second or even a third language can be so interesting. I do really love study languages and know different cultures! Here I could at last find all of this.
Hi,
Just started with SpanishPod and have a couple of questions if you don't mind.
Am I right in thinking that the endings of "me llamo", "te llamas", "se llama" don't change according whether the person concerned is male or female?
Also, I don't hear much of the "th" being used for "s" or "c" sounds, is this a difference in pronunciation between European and Latin American Spanish?
Thanks,
Al
al-walker
You're correct, verb endings only depend on whether you are talking to a 1st, 2nd or 3rd person (singular or plural).
The absense of the 'th' on c's and z's is found in latin america. You will find the 'th' sound spoken in spain.
Welcome to Spanishpod Al, Bienvenido!
much gracias! how shall we say morocco
kalman12
por Morocco decimos marruecos
for Morocco we say marruecos
y la gente de marruecos son marroquí
and the people of morocco are marroquí
Hi, I'm new to Spanish Pod. The beginning level or newbie level here is not really entry level. It's perfect for me because I've already taken some Spanish classes but people who haven't learned how to conjugate the verbs yet would be hopelessly behind.
Hi parachute101
The idea behind the lessons is to learn through spoken language, the way we all learn as children.
Listen to the translations, and just accept that "como se llama" means "what's his/her name". The fact that you're using reflexive verbs isn't important. Just memorize it as a chunk, and start using it. After all, how much grammar did any of us know when we first learned to talk?
But for anyone who does want to learn more about grammar, check out the "La Clave" lessons. Those deal exclusively with grammar.
I came here with no knowledge of Spanish conjugations.
I agree with parachute101 in that more could be done. However I found that THE CHUNKS are really important. Order is something we recognize once we have enough data to SEE (hear) a pattern. Then the rule is a recognition of the pattern and tool for extention. You can learn the rule first, but it will almost certainly get in the way of fluency as there are lots of rules.
Early on, JP and Stevestr mentioned an online dictionary/thesarus/translating dictionary called wordreference , and for that I thank them immensely, I have found it to be the perfect complement to this site. It is great in that if you enter an unknown verb in any tense, it tells you what tense you are looking at, the root verb and the meaning. Click on the little conjuagate button next to the root and it will diagram ALL the forms of that verb with the places that the verb varies from the normal rules highlighted. Like a paper dictionary, you can see the words that are spelled similarly on the same page (in a column on the left but that online list includes all the spellings in the database, not just the root of the word, all forms of the conjugations regular and irregular.)
WordReference is great, I don't know how I lived without it.
The WordReference forums are incredibly helpful as well. They have answers to thousands of common questions (and a lot of uncommon ones) people have asked, and you can ask questions of your own. Once you start using this dictionary/forum combo, I think you'll find it invaluable.
And for the life of me I don't know why my last message came out in bold...??
¡Hola, guapos y guapas! :D
Yo soy noruego, pero me gustaría vivir en España. Fui en Tenerife, en 1994, y en verdad me lo (la?) gustó.
As always, suggestions and corrections are welcome. :)
evandar
I am pretty sure you want to say
"me gustó"
I don't think you should include "lo" or "la"
Ah, muchas gracias stevestr, for correcting me. :) I'm finally beginning to remember to include "lo"s and "la"'s, and I guess I've become somewhat triggerhappy.
I was thinking, could I have said "lo/la me gustó"? And anyways, is it El Tenerife or La Tenerife? ^^
Soy belga pero es una error biologica : debia de ser de Tenerife, es porque me voy en la isla cada vez que puedo (y que tengo dinero porque Iberia cuesta tan al vuelo).
Hola Liliana, en el ejercicio 2, pregunta numero 2, las opciones A y D son iguales. En el ejercicio 3, el ultimo no tiene sonido.
marco, I'm afraid I'm not as proficient in Spanish as you, hence I have problems understanding just what you said. I could throw it into an online translator, but on the advice of JP, I've decided to stay away from them as much as possible. So if you could repeat what you said in English?
As for the exercises and audio reviews, quite a few of them have errors. I've only checked the early material so far, I don't know if later lessons are free of these annoyances.
Hi Evandar, oh no I'm not good at all in spanish :-) I try to write as less as possible english here because I want to communicate as much as I can in spanish even if it's full of mistakes and if it looks foolish or a bit messy (I should put a disclaimer end of my messages "don't read me unless you know what's spanish and what's not" !). this because usually a (pretty) teacher is correcting me the day after and it helps me structuring my phrases. I'm french speaking and I was saying that being born in Belgium (like I am) is a biological mistake because I was supposed to be born in Tenerife (Island) instead, and going there every single time I can (when I have funds, it means). Have a nice afternoon and thanks for the comment ! Marco
Olvide decir que la foto del episodio aqui con el muro azul y las chicas sonriendo es super. Marco
Wow! Was that Yenny helping out in this dialog (#0004) or was that another Cuban? This was pre Esti, no?
¡Wow! ¿Fue qué Yenny que ayudarles en este diálogo (# 0004) o fue una otra cubana? Esto fue antes de Esti, ¿no?
Here is a sentence from the newspaper:
Three of every four indigenous Guatemalans are illiterate, according to the UN.
About half the population there are indegenous people, the Maya.
JP translated de as from (de México) it also means of.