Journal Alioth's Journal: More Spanish steps 3
So, I've been doing more of the Spanish beginners courses on the BBC website, and (yay me) I seem to be making some progress - I'm now able to at least discern words if I hear something spoken in Spanish, even if I don't actually understand what most of them mean - as opposed to a stream of strange sounds.
For practise, during the day, I'm trying to think of the words I've learned for various things or situations as I encounter them, such as when I'm approaching a junction on the bike, I'll think "todo recto" when I'm about to go through Cross Four Ways, or "la derecha" as I'm about to turn right. Or after saying good morning to a co-worker, I'll think 'Buenos dias'. Then I'll go get my 'cafe con leche' or when Jaime's Kitchen arrives, 'Me da un bocadillo jamon con queso'.
The interactive drama the BBC have on the web site, 'Mi vida loco' is fun to do. It's these sort of things which make me realise what good value the BBC license fee really is.
The one thing I do wonder, though, is if I'm sort of doing the equivalent of a Spanish person learning English as spoken in London in preparation for a trip to Glasgow. After all, the Baeleric Islands also speak Mallorqui as well as Spanish, so I'm sure they have a much different accent when speaking Spanish compared to someone from Madrid. So far I've found out that the 'c' (in words like 'cerveza' and 'gracias') are pronounced 'th' in some parts of Spain, but like an English C in Southern Spain.
From a French perspective (Score:1)
During a trip to French speaking Luxembourg one time (on my own), I did the same thing, thinking of the English phrase and trying to translate that to French using my rudimentary recall of GCSE-level, then storing away that phrase for later, if necessary.
That said, I've just been in Paris for work for two weeks and only uttered a smattering of French. Mainly it was the fact I was with French work colleagues who would happily converse in French, while I struggled to keep up - which is as it should be, really
Re: (Score:2)
One of the things I noticed when I spent a week with a friend in deepest rural France (my friend, a fluent French speaker, was there teaching French kids English as part of his degree course), was that just that week in France taught me more than the entire GCSE French syllabus!
The other thing I noticed, the more alcohol I consumed, the better I could understand and speak French. Well, it certainly _seemed_ that way.
Muchas biblioteca! (Score:2)
My friend took German in school, I took Spanish. He still knows some German (his Mom is German, so he still hears it occasionally), my Spanish skills are dead. So we throw what few Spanish words we do know around like they mean something;-)
Feliz bano aqui!