How Did You Learn Spanish?

[internationalguy]

WOW, well I guess that clears it up. Thanks. I hate having to mispronounce to be understood.

 

[khairyexpat]

In Havana 2002, I had ZERO ZILCH NADA. I bought a Cheynne CD. I liked "Un dia es un siglo sin te" so much, I asked the Dueno of the Casa Particular on the Malicon in front of the Ocean to write me the lyrics. With his zero English and my zero Spanish it took me a week to know roughly what the words mean. I repeatedly kept listening and reading the words. Then quite few words here and there sounded identical like English. 2005, here in Argentina suddenly, it just dawned on me that the grammar is the same as French. Only then that I started to comprehend a complete sentence. Did not take formal classes which is too bad, because I got complacent getting by, muddling through, with the little bad awful Spanish that I have.

 

[sesamosinsal]

I liked "Un dia es un siglo sin te" so much, I asked the Dueno of the Casa Paricular on the Malicon in front of the Ocean to write me the lyrics.

A day is a century without tea?

 

[khairyexpat]

A day is a century without tea?

My daily fix ! ... ain't that awful, ... what can I tell you.
And don't even ask about "hubiera" or "tuviera", things like that I wouldn't touch with a ten foot pole.

As a perpetual tourist, just passing time by here, I really never been hard pressed to learn it.

 

[ajoknoblauch]

I took a one-semester night class in Spanish but then, in 1979, I did a five-month trip through Chile and Argentina. Chile, in particular, was a pariah country at that time (even though times were harder in Argentina), and few foreigners ventured there, so I found myself in a total immersion experience. It was mentally exhausting, but also highly productive in terms of learning to speak the language, even though I still lapse into chilenismos at times.

 

[kellrobinson]

A day is a century without tea?

Or in the Argentinian version,
"Un dia es un siglo sin mate."

 

[khairyexpat]

You know what really gets me, ... is when you watch the Spanish subtitles for all kinds of swearings, it doesn't matter WTF is being said, they all translate to ONE word: "maldicion" .... why is that?

 

[French jurist]

Also, did anybody else experienced the anxiety of having to tell a taxi driver that you wanted go to pueyrredon? That name killed me

I lived on Billinghurst for 5 years. At first, I was pronouncing the English ("billing-heurssst") and I finally understood I had to say "billing-hhhhourste").

Strangely enough, I cannot speak with an Argentine accent but I can speak Castellano with an English accent, while if I speak English trying to take the English accent I guess I'll sound like a French trying to imitate the English accent.

 

[mc kenna]

HAHAAhaa i speak english with a hick accent and castellano with a hick accent pero de aca eh?

 

[nlaruccia]

You know what really gets me, ... is when you watch the Spanish subtitles for all kinds of swearings, it doesn't matter WTF is being said, they all translate to ONE word: "maldicion" .... why is that?

A lot of curses lose their meaning when translated. Try translating "tengo que cambiar el agua de aceitunas" or "tengo que echar un cloro" or "la puta que te pario" to English. I love how every curse word in a movie with Spanish titles is translated to "rayos!".