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Justin Trullinger
Joined: 28 Jan 2005
Posts: 3110
Location: Seoul, South Korea and Myanmar for a bit
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 Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 12:20 am Post subject: |
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Last week a cashier told me the price of my purchase ($2.50) in extremely elaborate "gesturese." When I got the receipt, and saw that it was actually $2.37, I idly asked her (in Spanish) if she had rounded it off because she didn't know how to gesture for thirty-seven. She laughed, admitted that she had, complemented me on my Spanish, and then proceded to count my change to me in gestures.
It's a funny old world...
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hlamb
Joined: 09 Dec 2003
Posts: 431
Location: Canada
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 2:21 am Post subject: |
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| ls650 wrote: |
| hlamb wrote: |
| I had a secretary at my school last year refuse to speak Spanish to me because she said she had trouble understanding my accent. |
Yeah, I would find that a bit insulting. How was her English? |
Her English was pretty good, but she wasn't speaking it to improve her own speaking skills. She was using it as a "favour" to me, since my Spanish is "so hard to understand" (her words, more or less). It's funny that I manage quite well communicating with people other than her! I'm at a low intermediate level and I do have trouble with pronunciation, but most of the time people understand me. It kind of bugged me that at a language school the attitude was against learning.
That particular secretary was my Spanish teacher briefly and she translated everything. She also taught what she wanted, regardless of what level I was at. Within a few weeks we made a mutual decision to ask someone else to teach me. My new teacher was excellent. |
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tomteacher
Joined: 30 Jul 2006
Posts: 34
Location: Changwon Korea
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| Posted: Thu Sep 14, 2006 2:03 pm Post subject: |
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I had a great time learning Spanish and I think in 11 months total split into a 3 and an 8 month period I attained an intermediate level in Spanish (although my grammar and verb endings were crap). You've got to put yourself into situations where you're forced to speak Spanish in order to get any better. Having a girlfriend/boyfriend who speaks no English helps with your language ability.
I'm having a very hard time learning Korean, I guess Spanish is just easier. |
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wildnfree
Joined: 14 Jun 2005
Posts: 134
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| Posted: Wed Jul 16, 2008 8:49 pm Post subject: |
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Just to revise an old post...
I have been in Andalucia, Spain for almost a year. I can understand any spanish speaker from any other region and about 50-80% of what is being said here. I have to laugh at latinos when they talk cause it is just sooooo easy compared to it here..how can i put it .
"Estiramiento " (stretching) here is "jtiramiendo" ..
"tambien" "tamyen".
You actually need to hire a teacher or someone to show you the difference between standard and dialect spanish to make any sense ...When I eventually make it to colombia i'll be able to understand everything after this.
Learning is not easy..lots of practice and not be afraid to look stupid and always ask. Learn localisms. Make local friends (not always easy but hey). Someone said they hovered in the intermediate level and only after 3 years they are fluent...I would agree it takes that long. (it happened to me in another language). The really odd thing is, i don't thing your level goes improving daily, but jumps - i stayed intermediate for years in another language and then litreally, as odd as it seems - I was fluent and it seemed like overight |
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JZer
Joined: 16 Jan 2005
Posts: 3898
Location: Pittsburgh
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| Posted: Thu Jul 17, 2008 12:35 am Post subject: |
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| The really odd thing is, i don't thing your level goes improving daily, but jumps - i stayed intermediate for years in another language and then litreally, as odd as it seems - I was fluent and it seemed like overight |
Or maybe there was some external factor? Did you become more embedded in the local happens? By that did you start hanging out only with local friends and or girlfriend/boyfriend? |
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