Languages and Culture Learn Spanish

pues tienes razon jedimdo ,como esque hablas tan bien el castellano me has dejado impresionado ,me encanta saber k aki hay gente k habla en español
bueno ,adios

 

Well, i'm a native speaker. You may guess my home country in my profile: Colombia. I know Spanish, English, and I'm learning Japanese right now.

The third most spoken language in the wolrd is still unrevealed.
C'mon. Try a google search, it should be somewhere in the web.

 

me has dejado todavia mas impresionado,yo hablo el ruso,castellano,catalan,turco y unpoko de ingles solo me falta japones el k mas deseo aprender,escribeme algunas expresiones en japones si no te importa ,bueno adios.

 

Más impresionado estoy yo (aunque un poco dificil de creer, me entenderas).
En cuanto al japones: watashihanihongobenkyoushimasu (Yo estudio japones).
Hay un thread Let's speak japanese si quieres ver mas japones.

 

no tepreocupes te comprendo,lokpasa eske estuve viviendo en varios países diferentes y al final estoy akien españa y bueno asiaprendi losidiomask se ,lrusoyamesabia porke soy de alli en cuanto aturcoestuve alli durante dos años,el castellano y el catalan aprendiaki en españa bueno eso estodo ,adios

 

Well, no one even want to guess
This is the TOP THREE most spoken languages in the world!
1. Mandarin Chinese 1.200 million
2. English 690 million
3. Hindi! 670 million (Hindi is the main India's official language. There are 18 official languages!)

And Spanish is the fourth.

 

Ditto to that. My home country is Puerto Rico. (*supresses patriotic impulses*) I'm also learning Japanese. I think speaking Spanish helps pronunciation-wise.

Spanish is pretty hard to learn, I think. I mean, verbs alone are enough to boggle the mind (heaven knows I don't know them all; I use them, but I don't know them... ^^). But seriously, it's a great language to learn. It's a lot of fun. The words, they just roll of your tongue. ^^;; When I'm feeling lazy I speak Spanish. It's just fun. ^^

 

Japanese's sounds are more similar to spanish ones than english. That makes learning japanese more easy if you already have experience with languages as spanish.

I forgot to post how many people speak spanish:
4. 425 million speakers! most of them spreaded in Latin America.

Tu eres Gatafairy verdad? Tu escribiste 'TerraII weakest link'

'Useful' vocabulary:
Cool: Chevere, bacano (Colombianism)
Nah(No): Nombe
...

 

I agree. Not about the Puerto Rico bit , but about learning Japanese. Knowing Spanish has made it easier to pick up Japanese, even with no prior or current instruction.

For example, I find it easier to translate the various forms of I, you, us, etc. into Spanish than to English.

As for pronunciation, I've never had a problem. I can somehow prounonce any language well if I've only heard it first.

 

And not all the spanish is the same!

The country with the best spanish spoken language is: Mexico.

Each country has its own words for the same thing. and their slangs. In my country (argentina) it is called "lunfardo".

Mexicans has a slang full of "ch".

Not all southamerica speask like in mexico!

Argentinians speak with an italian accent, perhaps because there was a lot of italian inmigration years ago.

Also in spain, the language known in north america as "spanish" is actually the "castellano". Three other languages are spoken, Galego (in Galicia, the north west tip of that country), Catalá (in Catalonia, capital Barcelona, the southeast part near France) and Euskerra (the Basque country, at the north-east part).

And also in south america, at least three native languages are still widely spoken: Guarani (Paraguay/Argentina/Brasil), Quechua or Quichua (Peru, Bolivia, Argentina) and Aymara (Bolivia).

 

I've heard something else kaptainbar. The country with the best spanish is Colombia. The colombian spanish is the less affected by accent. El español colombiano es muy conservador. Hay bastantes dialectos no cultos en el país, es cierto. Pero el colombiano estándar es como el que ves en television, por ejemplo, la nueva presentadora de noticias de 'CNN en español', Claudia Palacios.
In argentina people speak in language very similar to spanish (ok, just joking, they destroy the language). Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador's spanish has many influence from local languages. And mexican spanish has too much accent and many words exchanged.

 

We, the argentine people, speak spanish quite bad . The only place where it's spoken with a lot of it's own richness is in one province, Santiago del Estero.

I forgot it, and it's right, Colombia speaks what it's known as "neutral spanish"; the language spoken in almost all translated series, documentals, soap operas and such things.

 

Just like how English spoken by people from England is quite bad. They don't so much speak the language as chew it up and spit it out.

Us Canadians, though, speak English perfectly. And just so you know, we don't all speak with that northern accent and say "eh" all the time.




But, we're getting off topic. This thread is about Learning Spanish, not arguing over who speaks the best English.

So, here's a table showing Verb conjugations in present tense, although, accents are excluded due to difficulty typing them, and, there are exceptions to this:

-ar ending verbs(using verb "hablar" as an example)

Yo (I) - hablo
Tu (You, Informal) - hablas
El, Ella, Usted (He, She, It, You Formal) - habla

Nosotros (We, Us) - hablamos
Vosotros (You (group, informal)) - hablais
Ellos, Ellas, Ustedes (He, She, It, You Formal, Plural) - hablan

-er ending verbs ("comer" as example)

Yo - como
Tu - comes
El, Ella, Usted - come

Nosotros - comemos
Vosotros - comeis
Ellos, Ellas, Ustedes - comen

and, -ir ending verbs ("vivir")

Yo - vivo
Tu - vives
El, Ella, Ud(abb. for Usted) - vive

Nosotros - vivimos
Vosotros - vivis
El, Ella, Uds (ustedes) - viven

Keep in mind that Spanish is pronounced differently than English, so some words sound weird. Ie. "come," meaning "he eats, she eats, or you eat" is pronounced "co-meh"

Coming next, Numbers! (Wow, this is a completely different order than I learned, but oh well.

 

Shouldn't it be "We Canadians"? (Because "we" is part of the subject, and therefore, must be in the nominative case, which "us" isn't.) And It's my understanding that English people (that is, "proper" not "cockney") speak the best English; best grammar, sentence structure, etc.

 

*Vosotros is used only in Spain*

Numbers: 0-30

cero
uno
dos
tres
cuatro
cinco
seis
siete
ocho
nueve
diez
once
doce
trece
quatorce
quince
dieciseis
diecisiete
dieciocho
diecinueve
veinte
veintiuno
veintidos
veintitres
veinticuatro
veinticinco
veintiseis
veintisiete
veintiocho
veintinueve
treinta

hmm, accents in there somewhere. I take latin now, so I am a tidbit rusty. Edit them in in a bit.

 

Umm, thanks. I was going to do it myself, but... For higher numbers, it's pretty simple. Just add the higher number to the beginning.

Ie. 1234 is "un mil, docientos, treinta y nueve"

So,

100 - cien, ciento (for counting)
200 - docientos
300 - trecientos
400 - quatrocientos
500 - cincocientos
600 - secientos
700 - setecientos
800 - ochocientos
900 - nuevocientos
1000 - un mil
2000 - dos mil
10000 - diez mil
100000 - ciento mil
1.000.000 - un millon (pronounced "mi-yon")

And I suppose someone should do the alphabet, to, so there's less confusion. Letters should be followed by pronunciation in Spanish, as well as how to say them in the language.

Here's a simple way to remember vowels.

"Ah, Ay, Ee, Oh, Ooh, El burro sabe mas que tu."

Meaning: A, E, I, O, U, The donkey knows more than you."

 

In argentina the "tu" form is scarcely used, instead of it we use:

Usted habla (like "you speak")
Vos hablás (with an accent on the second "a", like "thou speakst"). This one is second person familiar, very much like in german "Du sprichst". This way of talking might sound rude to some other latinoamerican people, then when we speak for example with someone from venezuela, mexico, colombia or elsewhere we use also the "tu" form.

The form Vosotros (second person plural) is only used in Spain. Here it's used "ustedes" no matter familiar or not.

 

There is no defined teacher in this thread. Everybody can help out if they wish to do so.

This thread's been really informative so far, keep up the good work!

 

Ie. 1234 is "un mil, docientos, treinta y nueve"

>>In fact, the first thousand is spelled without the "un", something like "mil doscientos, treinta y nueve"

So,

100 - cien, ciento (for counting)
200 - docientos >>Doscientos!
300 - trecientos >>Trescientos!
400 - quatrocientos >>cuatrocientos!
500 - cincocientos >>quinientos!
600 - secientos >>seiscientos!
700 - setecientos
800 - ochocientos
900 - nuevocientos >>novecientos
1000 - un mil >>mil
2000 - dos mil (it's written all together)
10000 - diez mil
100000 - ciento mil >>cienmil
1.000.000 - un millon (pronounced "mi-yon")



and 1.000.000.000 are "mil millones", not "un millardo" or "un billon"

un billon is 1.000.000.000.000

 

Oh. Well, you'll forgive me for my mistakes, seeing as I haven't studied it in some time. I simply forgot to mention regional locations, so thanks for getting that.

Umm, my knowledge is beginning to fade now, so after this post, I'll leave the teaching to you guys for a while, while I dig up my old notes.

I guess I'll do colors now. Please correct me if there are any errors. Just the basics right now.

Red - rojo
Orange - naranja
Yellow - amarillo
Green - verde
Blue - azul
Purple - Uhh, there was some disagreement about this word. I just tried to avoid using it. I've heard it could be either "purpureo" or "morado." If anyone can clear this up, it would be great.

Por ejemplo: "Las limas esta verde," or, "The limes are green."
"los pájaros vuelan en el cielo azul," meaning "The birds fly in the blue sky."

I'll be back when I find my Spanish/English Dictionary and my notes from when I studied it.