Vote for my Pimsleur 30 Challenge on Facebook or SpeakingFluently.com
March 16, 2012 24 CommentsThanks to everyone who has taken part on Facebook so far. I had some messages from people who are not on Facebook, so I wanted to give everyone a chance to have a say in which language I take on for my Pimsleur 30-day challenge. There is plenty of time to vote. I will collate the results from Facebook and the SpeakingFluently.com and post the winning language here, so get clicking to register your vote! 🙂
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24 Comments
Actually, all the languages you have listed sound really intriguing. I have voted for Thai 🙂 No matter what language you will decide to study, I’m sure your results will be both amazing and a really good insight for us into the usefulness of the material you are testing.
Robert, Thanks so much for voting and for your encouraging words. I will certainly do my best! 🙂
Ok so I am not a native Spanish sepekar and i speak Argentine Spanish. I cannot say that I know of any websites that can teach you the accent but here are the basics. Pronunciation: Pronounce every ll’ and y’ as a sound somewhat between a straight up sh’ and a zh’ (like in measure). I personally pronounce it as if it were an sh’. (this has some exceptions like the spanish word for and y’ where y is by itself. There, you just pronounce it normally.) Also we never say alled’ for there’ we either say alle1′ or ahed’ (the alle1′ will be pronounced like ashe1′). We also don’t use aqued really for here’ we say ace1′. We also leave out a lot of s’ noises especially at the end of words like I say voh’ for vos’.** On top of the basic sh’ noise stuff, you will need to get the intonation down and this will be the hard part. This I cannot explain to you through writing. You are going to need to look up examples of Argentine sepekars. For movies, I would recommend that you watch The Motorcycle Diaries and El Aura (note that TMD is not a very accurate depiction of che guevara (who is from Arg) BUT the mexican actor who is given his role captures the Argentine way of speaking 100%. It is a beautiful thing to hear haha. The che guevera debate we can have another time but I personally believe that he is a monster and many other Argentines share this notion.) **VERB CONJUGATION (voseo vs tuteo):Ok so this part is absolutely necessary if you want to sound argentine. You must learn to use the voseo correctly. If you want to embody this accent you must bid farewell to tfa’. We do not use tfa’. We use the argentine voseo and we say vos’. What you must realize is that our vos is NOT the same thing as the Spanish voseo and the conjugations are different. Vos is second person singular (you) and vosotros is second person plural (y’all) and is only used in Spain. Note that we still do use usted and ustedes just as any other latin american country would for formal situations (but we are less quick to use it than many haha). I will explain to you the differences in conjugation from tfa to vos. There is only a difference in two tenses: the present indicative and the commandspresent indicative:tfa eres = vos sostfa este1s = vos este1stfa llegas = vos llege1stfa sabes = vos sabe9stfa quieres = vos quere9stfa sales = vos saledsso basically for these it is very easy and ser is the only irregular. You need to take the infinitive, swipe off the r’ from the infinitive verb, add an s’ and then place the natural stress on the last vowel as opposed to the second to last. In this form, stem changes don’t matter and all verbs work the exact same way besides ser it is truly the only irregular in present indicative voseo. MANDATOS (commands):va = ande1 (ir*)se9 = se9 (ser)llega = llege1 (llegar)sabe = sabe9ten = tene9 (tener)sale = saled (salir)this one is easy as well. You get rid of the last r’ again in the infinitive and don’t add anything back. This time you leave it with a vowel at the end and then put the stress on that vowel. Once again, there are no irregulars other than ir’ (to go) instead of saying va’, we use andar’ for this and say ande1′ because it fits better with the voseo. I hope that this has been of some help and if you need anything then feel free to email me. You should be able to do it from my yahoo answers page. I would greatly appreciate ten points haha
Whats a good program to learn Spanish 1?I am doing HORRIBLE in my Spanish 1 class I have a Mic so that I can do some stuff on the tcupmoer. What are some good FREE programs I can use to learn Spanish 1. (Like Rosseta Stone) I want to learn the basics so I can at least understand what my teacher is saying and what to do on grammar/vocab.No, I do not want to download any torrents or any cracks.
learning a language takes years. and also denepds on the determination and memory capability. you try to learn it better (supposedly) and faster, you will fail. learning languages is a very slow and tedious process. it takes a LOT of time. software like Rosetta Stone etc doesn’t help either, because it just throws a person into the language without any background knowledge or anything. It doesn’t teach languages the way it should (such as by starting with the alphabet, vowels, diphthongs, and pronunciation). Best to start slow or you will only increase the embarrassment of yourself when attempting to speak it.
Saluton Richard,
Close match, this voting! I voted for the only European language – that is Hungarian!
Kind regards,
Fasulye
Fasulye, Thanks! I do have a soft spot for Hungarian because it’s spoken on The Balkans too! 😀
Thinking about taking an Learn Spanish grporam in Guadalajara, MX, what questions should I ask?Thinking about taking an Learn Spanish grporam in Guadalajara, MX, what questions should I ask.I’ve researched the internet for all of the schools in Guad, but beside cost of grporam and length, what other questions should I ask to make sure that I get the best possible experience.
What’s the best program to learn Spanish?I’ve seen the Rosetta Stone arcmeocimls and I must say that they market themselves very well. Does this program actually deliver such great results? Is the pricing pretty conservative? Are there any other programs that you would recommend? Thanks in advance.
Hello Richard,
I’m going to vote for Hungarian, because of the Hungarian minority here in Slovakia.
The language is completely different from anything I have ever studied and I find it fascinating!!!
No matter what language you will pick, good luck and have fun!!! 🙂
Ciaoo
D.
People who LEARNED spanish not ivante speakers?How did you learn spanish? How long did it take you to learn. What programs did you use, are the available online to download for free? I use to speak spanish when I was little, but as I got older I stopped using it, and basically forgot most stuff. Any way I can bring it back?
I think you are writing to the wrong person 🙂
There’s no reference to Spanish in my comment, nor I’m saying I can speak it!
Ciaoo
D.
I voted for Japanese! I think it will give you a challenge 🙂
Have you tried Wyz Ant program to learn Spanish on line?Hi, eyboverdyI was just thinking about becoming a Spanish tutor and I saw that website, so I just would like to know a little bit more about it and if you recomend that one as a student.Thaks.I am mexican what I need to now is if I can trust to submit my information on this page to be a Spanish tutor.Thanks.
Are there any good free online pmaorgrs to learn spanish?I took a spanish class but when I went to Mexico i learned that the class didn’t do any good for me. We just wrote alot and I need to hear it over and over again for me to remember. I’m just looking for something the lets you hear it and it’s free. Are there any?
Hello Richard,
I’ve voted for the hungarian, because I’m from Hungary:).But no kiding it is not the only reason of me.Also very interesting to follow a talented language learner trying to pick up Hungarian, I really enjoyed Benny Lewis’s journey in Budapest, when he aimed to reach a particular level in hungarian.Since I’m a native hungarian speaker, I’m sure that it is one of, or even the hardest one of languages.
Good luck 🙂
that Rosetta Stone, while expensive, is an exllceent program for learning the language. If the raise is that huge, it would be worth the investment.If I were you, I wouldn’t hire the Colombian right away unless she is a teacher. Think about it if you had to teach someone to speak English, would you know where to start or how to go about it? It’s difficult without a plan. For example, I have taken Spanish classes before but they were not conversational, like the one I’m taking now. I’m finally learning how to put together sentences and learning the most useful vocabulary words to know. It’s very different because of the focus. Another tip the teacher gave which seemed to help several classmates: watch the soap operas on the Spanish channels. You can get used to hearing the words spoken and turn on the subtitles to see the words. Good luck.
How many students per each ehtcaer? The fewer the better.Will you live with a Mexican family? This is a great opportunity to practice what you’ve learned.How many hours per day are you in the classroom?Is there homework?Are there weekend excursions, if you stay longer than one week?
hello , they’re speaking English, and it doesn’t mean they can acautlly communicate. Being semi-fluent means you have a functional comprehension of at least 65% in the conventional range of that language, while fluent would be anything greater than 80%. If you don’t have the time to learn a language properly, and you’re after something quick and easy, then you’re probably headed towards disappointment. The best method to getting as far as you can get in the shortest period of time is called the “3 step”. The first step is to complete a FULL Pimsleur (MUST BE PIMSLEUR) course. Listen to each lesson at least 2 times, taking notes the first time with new vocabulary and studying before listening the second time. The 2nd step is to form a list of the 2,000 most common/frequently used words/vocabulary in English, to also include the most common/frequently used eight parts of speech in English (verbs, nouns, pronouns, adverbs, adjectives, prepositions, conjunctions, and interjections), which you can search the web for. Once you’ve formed the list, you need to find accurate generic-translations, which you can apply to most common case scenarios of that language(definatley the most challenging part of all this). Once that’s done, make flash cards or whichever method works best for you in memorizing vocabulary, but try to include each word in a sentence, on top of just the new word and it’s meaning (basically, know how to use it as correctly as possible). In your sentence forming exercises try to use each word in 10 or more ways, and you’ll acautlly notice yourself incrementally advancing every 500 words. Repetition is the key here, so this would also be a good time to solidify your pronunciation. After you’ve memorized all that, the 3rd step is to locate 4 movies that are preferably some kind of Disney movie, or anything of a slower pace. Childrens movies seem to work best for this. Watch ONLY these same 4 movies in the language you’re trying to learn, with good, quality English subtitles, continuously, to the point where you know what’s going to be said next. If you need a bit of assistance with the movies or sentence forming exercises, this is where you can use whatever you want to help yourself out (dictionary, phrasebooks, Rosetta Stone, internet, etc). Try to plan completing each step in this order, exactly as described within a time-frame of about 10-12 months. When you’re done, you should be somewhere in the range of “semi-fluency”, at the point where learning after the “3 step” is quick and easy, and being close to fluent after 2 years of using it everyday, and learning at least an additional 100 new vocabulary words a month during that time. The downside to the 3-step method, is that when you’re finished, you still may not be grammatically up to par, but will know more than enough to get there easily, which is what makes this the best and most efficient “fast” method, but not necessarily a good substitute for formal education. Either way, it can’t hurt to try! Good luck!
Take all the Spanish classes you can, of cruose. Use it! Speak Spanish at every opportunity. I am trying to improve my Spanish too. My car radio has only Spanish pre-sets. Do you use Yahoo Answers en Espaf1ol?My Spanish comprehension has improved by watching telenovelas! (The news programs are still to fast for me). You learn everyday usage from telenovelas, you get used to the characters’ speech patterns and the thread of the storyline lets you puzzle out the meanings. You also get hooked on the story and that encourages you to spend an hour a day in immersion. Many of my Mexican friends say they learned English from cartoons (youth helps too).Songs too. I’d never have learned words like arriero or estribo if I didn’t love mariachi music. If your Spanish is pretty good use the Spanish subtitulos, for both Spanish and English programs. If you have Tivo, keep reversing Spanish programs to hear the words you don’t understand. I have Netflix and order movies in Spanish, there are many great ones from Spain, Mexico, Argentina, even Peru. Rent El Norte , for example, or Voces Inocentes . or modern romantic comedies like Chicas Malas The link below is to my favorite Spanish resource. It has a very active forum with Spanish speakers from all over the world and a terrific dictionary that provides conjugations.a1Suerte!
Which Spanish learning rargopm is better: Spanish for Dummies All-in-One or Learn to Speak Spanish Deluxe ?I can’t decide between the two rargopms, they’re both about the same price, and both have very good reviews, but I can’t decide which to get. I know nothing about the Spanish language except for hola . I’m a beginner. Pros and Cons about the two would help. Any suggestions are okay.
well no matter wat pargrom you chose they not going to show you real spanish(like the one we latin ppl speak) find yourself a spanish speaking person and ask them to teach you. is not that hard my baby is 3 years old and speak english and spanish really good.
Saluton Richard!
I voted for Hungarian too, because it is the most widely spoken Non-Indo-European language in Europe. Cuándo piensas publicar tu decisión (el idioma que ha sido elegido)?
Egal für welche Sprache Du Dich entscheidest, ich freue mich schon auf Deine Rezension.
Alors je te souhaite très bonne chance!
A presto!
Mae
Saluton Richard!
I voted for Hungarian too, because it is the most widely spoken Non-Indo-European language in Europe. Cuándo piensas publicar tu decisión (el idioma que ha sido elegido)?
Egal für welche Sprache Du Dich entscheidest (bzw. Deine Leser sich entscheiden), ich freue mich schon auf die Rezension der Materialien.
Alors je te souhaite très bonne chance!
A presto!