What are the most difficult things about learning Spanish? What can you learn from the way we overcame the challenges of learning a second language?
Thank you Alberto for your kind Christmas gift.
Audio message from Marina from Asturias.
What are the most difficult things for English people to learn about the Spanish language?
Verb tenses (and endings)
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Ser and estar
The subjunctive
Some words that are difficult to pronounce:
perro, carro (car, carriage, cart, shopping trolley), correr, torre, ocurrir, etc. (double ‘r’)
Ahorrar – to save money
Miedo, mierda
Desarrollando – developing
Distribuidores – Distributors
Otorrinolaringólogo – Otolaryngologist, or ENT specialist
Gender of some irregular nouns ending o/a: LA mano, EL problema, el tema, EL idioma, EL agua, LA foto, etc.
Gender of all nouns that DON’T end o/a:
la carne (meat/flesh), el borde (edge), la fuente (fountain, source, spring, etc.), el mantel (tablecloth), la cárcel (prison, jail), el carnaval (carnival), la postal (postcard), la crisis (crisis), el iris (iris), etc.
Another difficult distinction for non-Spanish speakers is with the two Spanish nouns la editorial (publisher) and el editorial (newspaper editorial/leading article). Remembering the gender of each noun is difficult and the two words also have completely different meanings.
Not using subjects with verbs:
eg. Comió y se fue pero los otros están aquí ahora. = He/she ate and left but the other (men or men and women?) are here now.
False friends: embarazada (pregnant), constipado (have a cold), bombero (firefighter), sensible (sensitive), disgusto (worry, irritation), actual (current, present), asistir (attend), discusión (argument), pretender (attempt), suceso (event), suceder (happen, occur), etc.
The speed of Spanish (Japanese and Spanish have the greatest number of syllables per second)
Too many people speaking at the same time (in a noisy, crowded place)
Choosing between polite “usted” and informal, but friendlier, “tú”
Discussion
What do you remember about when you first started speaking Spanish? How did you overcome any shyness and/or embarrassment?
What do you do these days to maintain, or improve, your level?
Where’s the best place to practise your Spanish? – Angelica’s advice in episode 290, find someone you feel comfortable speaking to.
…and now it’s your turn to practise your English. What’s the most difficult thing for you about learning English? Send us a voice message. https://www.speakpipe.com/inglespodcast
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On next week’s episode: Board Games
The music in this podcast is by Pitx. The track is called ‘See You Later’
I really enjoyed the podcast. It was useful for me because sometimes I teach Spanish.
Nice and funny podcast .Thank you.
Thanks for your comment, Raiza. We’re really pleased you like it and you find the podcast useful. Please let us know if there’s anything you would specifically like us to talk about.
Hi Reza and Craig,
I rellay enjoyed wit this chapter and I have to regard something refered to what you said:
Craig: 32:37… Also, for me, especially in the beginning, the first year or two when I was learning Spanish, THE SPEED of the language, it was really difficult for me in the beginning to kind of catch the music, to go into the language, to understand the odd word. The odd word means the occasional word that’s said, and it sounded really, really fast for me, which is probably true for anyone learning a new language. But I actually read that Japanese and Spanish have the greatest number of syllables per second. So you’re hearing a lot of syllables in a short space of time, which is one reason it sounds so, so fast for us. So maybe as an English learner you’re frustrated with the weak forms that you hear in English, the linking words, the linking sounds that we’ve spoken about many times, but for us it’s THE SPEED of Spanish when we first start to to learn it.
So Craig, do you undertand when I say you both speak so fast?, of course I have to slow the player to 0.9 speed in order not miss you, Some time it remember breaking news in BBC. I think you need and speedometer or something like this (Hihihihihi) or a metronomo like piano classes.
And in the other hand, Tradicionally Spanish people say that the best people speaking castillian spanish are from Valladolid, it is to say “los vallesoletanos”. Iven Salamanca too, but the firs ranking of pure Spanish is for Valladolid. We make a lot of jokes with this, and the worst people are for Adalusie area, some areas, not all where there is a andaluz very closed. For example, Ozú is Jesús. And of course, catalonian people are completely missed. I had a very good catalonian friend, now in EEUU as Cancer Investigator in UTA University, and two years ago mailed a message with a lot of mistakes and faults like a child of 7 years and this is the cause of bad political manangement for this issue in this country,
Best regards, have a good time.