Do you speak another language?

Get who thru?  Get me thru?  Get me thru where?  I can't see it being helpful in the slightest if I needed directions or wanted to order three beers. 

You are pregnant, you don't need three beers.[]
 
But for future references, all it takes is:  Drei Bier, Bitte....[]

Well yeah ok I could have worked that one out.  But I can hardly hold a fluent conversation.  I can ask for directions a bit but wouldn't be able to understand the replies!!!  Happily, most German people I know cut in and speak very good English to save having to hear their own language being mercilessly and clumsily slaughtered by me!

ORIGINAL: pofi_pasquale

Heres something to consider:

It wasn't until I started studying languages and linguistics until I realized that most of the things you are struggling with (excluding gender) like tenses: 1st, 2nd, 3rd person, present progressive, past progressive, etc. exist in english, we just don't realize it as native speakers, and though you are not suppossed to translate ver batim from one language to another, the tenses and uses for them, and frequently the structure are very similar:

Take the present progressive, for example:

I am thinking = estoy pensando

We combine the use of the verb "be" + verb + ing, where Spanish does essentially the same thing: "be" + verb + ando (ing).

When you think about it that way, it doesn't make it seem so foreign.

Bingo.  For me it was really brought home when I took a class in History of the English Language.  And that is when we looked at this Generative Model exercise that attempted to describe all the if then rules of Modern English with regard to tense, gender, plural vs singular, etc.  It's complex, it's rules are just deeply ingrained in us and we (meaning native speakers) learned them by osmosis rather than a strict course of study.

 
Great Pofi, happy to see that someone sees my perspective.
 
I could go on and on about similarities between the structure of English and Spanish -- off the top of my head, the "helping verb" have + ast participle [I have eaten = Yo he comido] he being "have" and comido being the past participle... and the uses are the same as well 
 
of course there are dissimilarities too...
 
 

I speak English, German, some Spanish (mainly Tex-mex. I've trie Castillian Spanish with some workers and they don't understand). I used to speak Latin. I've known a few words of Russian and Ukrainian, Japanese, Chinese, French, Ethiopian.
 
Back when I was studying Russian, my first wife and I enjoyed the Van Cliburn 8th Piano Competition. The winner was Alexei Sultanov. We called Russia trying to ring up his family home in Tashkent. My wife was trying to think of something to say and I said "Ya dumayu Royalye" (roughly, I play the piano). The operator went into high gear and we had to stop her as she had gone beyond my ability to translate.

I speak fluent Korean and some Japanese and Chinese. I also claim to speak a little French as well, but nobody understands me due to my harsh accent [] I see some other i-Doggers speak Japanese!

I am fluent in French and Flemish. I can read Spanish and German but not speak them or understand them when spoken. Had Latin for six years, can still read it. Had Greek (not the contemporary kind) for four years, could not read it anymore but it still helps a lot to understand "big words".

I speak a little Russian, german, japanise, italian and spanish. Enough that I can ask basic questions and give small answers in return. I am studing russian more right now and plan to move on to german after that.

I speak french  i also can carry somewhat a conversation in dutch and german. My grandparents grew up in germany moved to holland had their kids then moved to canada. My dad thought it was wise that we learned his first language as well as his parents first language. i would reccomend learning spanish. it can be difficult but it will get easier and it is so much nicer going to a country speaking their language. it really gets you to experience their culture

ORIGINAL: Xebby


I'm just curious, who here knows how to speak another language other than English?  Who is learning another language or who would like to know one?
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I'm currently trying to learn Spanish and it's so difficult.  I though it would be easy because my family all speaks the language but I never learned it as a kid and now I'm trying to understand it.  I'm taking a Spanish class right now and learning how to conjugate verbs is really frustrating me.[/font]

I've learned to conjugate present tense verbs with -er -ir and -ar endings
 
 
 
 
What about it is frustrating you? is it figuring out which form?
 
 
well, just as an example, here is a conjugation of comer (to eat)
 
yo- como                                                     nosotros- comemos
tu(dont have accent thing)- comes                 vosotros- comeis (only use vosotros in spain! otherwise use ellos)
el, ella, usted- come                                      ellos, ellas, ustedes - comen
 
There is the conjugation, i'd be happy to help
 
 

I love that when i'm frustrated at the end of a business call i can cuss in spanish and nobody around knows what i'm talking about []

The conjugating thing is not the hard part when I have to write it out: yo, tu, el... but when I have to use it in speech it becomes a bit more tricky. I get so confused over who is who and when to use el or usted, ellas and the such. I could easily conjugate a verb if I don't have to use it in a sentence but trying to use it as I talk is what I find difficult. In English the word stays the same, "go" is "go", no matter who you are talking about, guess that's why I'm so confused.

I guess I could say what I'm the most confused about is sentience structure. In Spanish 1 we learned the meaning of the words now in Spanish 2 we are learning how to use them to communicate.

Another thing that confuses me is the dialect, Like I had said before, my family speaks Spanish as their first language but their dialect is a New Mexican (US) dialect and I'm learning the Mexican dialect, it's so different then what I'm use to hearing every day. My Grandma tell me that even thought she learned Spanish before knowing English and still speaks it fluently she can still not understand many of the programs on the Spanish channel because the language is so different then hers.

ORIGINAL: Xebby

My Grandma tell me that even thought she learned Spanish before knowing English and still speaks it fluently she can still not understand many of the programs on the Spanish channel because the language is so different then hers.

 
That happens even with my Grandmother that lives in Mexico City, is jsut about slang and how times have changed

Well...I took 6 years of spanish and used to know it very well. I haven't practiced it at all since high school and have, sadly, forgotten most of it. I think if I were to go to a spanish speaking country I would pick it back up fairly quickly.

What I've found is that as soon as I learn a few words in a language, if instead of thinking "Hello = hola" I just think "hola" and begin to use whichever words in that language to think in that language, I learn the language more quickly than I would if I were to translate. 
 
I apply that same idea to my communications/body language with my puppers as well.  I try to think "dog" or "spanish" or "russian" or whatever I'm trying to use to communicate.
 
But you also know I'm crazy right?