I began learning Spanish around the 1st grade but never really took an interest in it until I started the 5th grade. Ironically learning Spanish helped me understand English. In the Spanish language you learn the basics of a word and how to change it to belong to the person who owns the word.
EX.: Cocinar- To Cook Beber- To Drink *Aplaudir- To Clap
| Yo (I) | Cocino (I cook) | Bebo (I drink) | Aplaudo (I clap) |
| Tύ (You ‘informal’) | Cocinas (You cook) | Bebes (You drink) | Aplaudes (You clap) |
| Ѐl, Ella, Usted (He, She, You ‘formal’) | Cocina (He, She, You cook) | Bebe (He, She, You drink) | Aplaude (He, She, You clap) |
| Nosotros (We) | Cocinamos (We cook) | Bebemos (We drink) | Aplaudimos (We clap) |
| Ellos, Ellas, Ustedes (They <male/female>, You All) | Cocinan (They, You All cook) | Beben (They, You All drink) | Aplauden (They, You All clap) |
*Aplaudir, is a special word. Words that end with an –ir follow the same changes as those that end with an –er; except when changing the word for nosotros (we), and then you add the –ir ending.
EX.:
English
Improper: For you I clap
When I hear/see this sentence it sounds incomplete
Proper: I clap for you
Spanish
Incorrecto: Para tu yo aplaudo
In English the Incorrecto (Improper) sentence translate as “I applaud you for your”, it’s an incomplete sentence in Spanish as well
Correcto: Yo Aplaudo te
If a foreigner spoke to a fluent English speaker and said “For you I clap” that person would understand what the foreigner meant. But in Spanish the fluent speaker would not know. In English the rules of the language are more lenient than Spanish. If someone was to change a single word in a Spanish sentence, that one word would throw the entire meaning of that sentence off unintentionally. It took me a while to become more confident in my writing of English. It’s taking me longer to become more confident in my speech for Spanish. After I mastered these rules of language, I believe I have in my head, it made it easier for me to communicate to others both fluent and non-fluent speakers.
Reading Tina’s language story about how she incorporated perfecting English with her interest in Spanish and her chart with the syntaxes was great. Tina’s story reminded me of how someone said that English was mostly a unisex language and seeing Tina’s chart proved that Spanish was the opposite of English as it is with French.
ReplyDeleteI recalled my attempts to learn French in school and failed miserably because I was unable to consistently keep track of all the syntaxes. I was accustomed to translating English into Chinese for my parents, but to translate English into French, especially written format (with conversational French you can get by) I would always get the masculine and feminine forms mixed up, no one ever made a chart like Tina’s to explain to me. I cannot be certain, but I do not think there are masculine and feminine forms in Chinese. “My friend” in Chinese is unisex just like it is in English, in French it would be “mon ami” and “ma amie” same as it would be distinguished in Spanish.
For me it is chore and difficulty to learn a new language. I do not know how people do it, with all the rules and regulations of language arts I will stick to my native tongue, English, and will stand aside and admire those who can accomplish such a feat.
Hi, Tina,
ReplyDeleteWhat is your Native American group? What language do they speak? I'm wondering if you know any words or phrases... ? It's so interesting that you're actually discouraged from speaking it since you didn't grow up there. It's too bad because I bet there are less and less speakers so "sharing" the language with those interested would promote it. What do you think?
Like Tina, I liked how you pointed out that by learning a foreign language, you were able to learn more about your own! The same thing happened for me with French.
I kinda like "For you I clap!" We're lucky that English is so amenable to being messed up. We can be so poetic in a kind of lazy way! Spanish and French poets play with sounds and word play. Much more sophisticated. Maybe...
Looking forward to reading more from you!!
I totally Understand what you mean Tina with the difference between proper English and Spanish. Weirdly enough I didn't notice myself the grammar difference and I've been speaking Spanish most of my life. I actually noticed when my friend asked how to say Spiderman in Spanish and the arrangement of "El hombre Araña" actually made me realize this isn't the first incident. To you who learn this in Spanish this was a no brain-er but growing up and not noticing I'm arranging the words backwards or in a different formation of words was kinda mind blowing for me
ReplyDeleteYeah we know what you mean about that, is a little complicating it when the people learn another language such as Spanish, Russian, Chinese and other languages, because every language have a different form, how they write and speak, that is the reason the foreign people do not speak proper, during our English class we learning how we can write and speak especially our pronunciation although and we are having a little impact in our own language because how Tina shows us the English does not make sense when you translate in Spanish so sometimes when I speak Spanish I speak not properly.
ReplyDeleteEven though you was born here, it's good to know that you are interesting on learn the structure, and make perfect the knowledge of the Spanish between the native Americans, we are from Spanish countries in Central America, and back there when we were small we usually do not use English as a second language often because was not an obligation, but rather an option. And now that we are older and we are living here, we demand a greater effort to learn English properly and quickly, because besides to learn the meaning and the translation of the words we have to start to think in English in everywhere and in everything that we do every day, to make shorter the time that to we can interact with this society of English speakers.
During the class what we took in ESL 097, we managed to have more confidence in ourselves to so power can deal with this social environment that exist in this country. It was very difficult to adapt to this language because our native language is Spanish and is a bit difficult for me, because when we start learning a different language that you speak. In our Hispanic Culture when we want to write something in English, we was thinking in Spanish first before we star write in English so we can understand more of what we want to talking about.