Monday, August 17, 2015
Saturday, August 15, 2015
Friday, August 14, 2015
Thursday, August 13, 2015
Yo soy ...
All the words involved so far in the Duolingo lesson one does not form a full sentence. Today we add these words in front of it to complete the sentence
So if I wanted to say I am a man, I would say
Yo soy un hombre
Similarily, if I wanted to say I am a girl, I would say
Yo soy una niña
This concludes lesson 1 on Duolingo
So if I wanted to say I am a man, I would say
Yo soy un hombre
Similarily, if I wanted to say I am a girl, I would say
Yo soy una niña
This concludes lesson 1 on Duolingo
Wednesday, August 12, 2015
Tuesday, August 11, 2015
un
Just like in English we have "a" and "the", in Spanish
You can use it with the words we have already learn
un hombre (a man)
un niño (a boy)
un can only be used with masculine nouns, so un niña is not correct, because niña is feminine.
Disclaimer
un is an indefinite article, meaning "a", for masculine nouns (click on the link for sound)
You can use it with the words we have already learn
un hombre (a man)
un niño (a boy)
un can only be used with masculine nouns, so un niña is not correct, because niña is feminine.
Disclaimer
Monday, August 10, 2015
la niña
The girl
Notice the similarilty between the boy (niño) and the girl (nina)? Yes, it is often the case that male and female only differs in the last alphabet, switching from 'o' to 'a'.
Disclaimer
Notice the similarilty between the boy (niño) and the girl (nina)? Yes, it is often the case that male and female only differs in the last alphabet, switching from 'o' to 'a'.
Disclaimer
Sunday, August 9, 2015
el niño
The boy
Note that we use el again, of course, a boy is male, and also be careful with the accent mark.
Disclaimer
Note that we use el again, of course, a boy is male, and also be careful with the accent mark.
Disclaimer
Saturday, August 8, 2015
la mujer
This time we talk about woman.
Note we said El hombre and La mujer. El is the "the" for masculine noun, and La is the "the" for feminine noun. In Spanish, we often need to use different words for different gender.
Disclaimer
Note we said El hombre and La mujer. El is the "the" for masculine noun, and La is the "the" for feminine noun. In Spanish, we often need to use different words for different gender.
Disclaimer
Friday, August 7, 2015
el hombre
After learning a few phrases that we can use the greet people, I noticed busuu is now charging for doing the exercises. I didn't plan to pay for it, so I found something else, duolingo.
Duolingo has a different approach, it teaches word-by-word instead of sentences, and it gives sentences example from time to time. In fact,I spent only about a week with busuu and have spent my time mostly on Duolingo.
Without further ado, let's get started to our first word on Duolingo
Duolingo has a different approach, it teaches word-by-word instead of sentences, and it gives sentences example from time to time. In fact,I spent only about a week with busuu and have spent my time mostly on Duolingo.
Without further ado, let's get started to our first word on Duolingo
Thursday, August 6, 2015
Tengo ... años
After asking the question, we should reply it!
This is also simple, isn't it? Let's learn some grammar here. Do you notice 'Tengo' and 'Tienes' look similar? They mean the same too. Actually they are the variation of the same word.
I have is 'Tengo'.
You have is 'Tienes'
So verbs actually changes when the subject change, just like in English you add 's' when the subject is he/she/it. But Spanish is way more complicated than that, as we will see there will be more variations.
Well, I am 36 this year, but how do I say that in Spanish?
Disclaimer
This is also simple, isn't it? Let's learn some grammar here. Do you notice 'Tengo' and 'Tienes' look similar? They mean the same too. Actually they are the variation of the same word.
I have is 'Tengo'.
You have is 'Tienes'
So verbs actually changes when the subject change, just like in English you add 's' when the subject is he/she/it. But Spanish is way more complicated than that, as we will see there will be more variations.
Well, I am 36 this year, but how do I say that in Spanish?
Disclaimer
Wednesday, August 5, 2015
¿Cuántos años tienes?
How old are you?
If you ask this 'literally' in Chinese of English, this would be really impolite. It is would be asking how many more years you are going to live, but this is Spanish, this is simply asking how old are you.
Note the inverted question mark at the beginning of the question. It is an open question mark, it marks the starting of a question.
Disclaimer
If you ask this 'literally' in Chinese of English, this would be really impolite. It is would be asking how many more years you are going to live, but this is Spanish, this is simply asking how old are you.
Note the inverted question mark at the beginning of the question. It is an open question mark, it marks the starting of a question.
Disclaimer
Tuesday, August 4, 2015
Soy de ...
After asking people where do they come from, should you go answer it?
This one is easy, but where do you come from?
Disclaimer
This one is easy, but where do you come from?
Disclaimer
Monday, August 3, 2015
De dónde eres?
Where do you from, a typical question that one would ask after meeting a new friend
Another strange way of ordering words. Why do we put the preposition 'of' as the first word in the sentence? I don't know, that's the way it is. Let's ask again.
The reply was simple, preposition cannot end a sentence, so we have to put them in front.
Disclaimer
Another strange way of ordering words. Why do we put the preposition 'of' as the first word in the sentence? I don't know, that's the way it is. Let's ask again.
The reply was simple, preposition cannot end a sentence, so we have to put them in front.
Disclaimer
Sunday, August 2, 2015
Me llamo ...
After asking what is the other people's name, you would probably here this reply
With the help of the friend in discussion forum, this is trivial to understand now.An interesting question here is why we use Me (accusative pronoun) instead of Yo (personal pronoun). A little Googling solved the problem.
Accusative pronoun means it is being acted on.
In English, it would be wrong to say "Me called", but it is fine to say "call me", it is that second "me" thing that is the "Me" in our Spanish sentence, but in Spanish it is put in front.
Same reason applies to the previous post that we used "te" instead of "tú".
Edit: forget about the Accusative pronoun piece, that is wrong. It is a reflexive pronoun, and advanced concept that is too early to mention here yet, see the llamo becomes (call myself)? That's the reflexive part of the word.
Disclaimer
With the help of the friend in discussion forum, this is trivial to understand now.
Edit: forget about the Accusative pronoun piece, that is wrong. It is a reflexive pronoun, and advanced concept that is too early to mention here yet, see the llamo becomes (call myself)? That's the reflexive part of the word.
Disclaimer
Saturday, August 1, 2015
Cómo te llamas?
So you make new friends, you need to ask about his/her name, wouldn't you?
Well ... um ... I don't really understand this。Why do we use (How, Cómo) to ask this question which should have been asked using (What, Qué)。
People told me that I should just memorize this. But this is just really strange ...
Edit: After writing this I decided to ask this question in the discussion group. Here is the answer.
llamas actually means (called) , so a more literal translation of the sentence is "How is you called", of course, asking it like this is rather awkward in English, I guess, similarly, asking the literal translation of "What is your name" in Spanish (as in Qué es tu nombre) would probably be equally awkward there.
Disclaimer
Edit: After writing this I decided to ask this question in the discussion group. Here is the answer.
llamas actually means (called) , so a more literal translation of the sentence is "How is you called", of course, asking it like this is rather awkward in English, I guess, similarly, asking the literal translation of "What is your name" in Spanish (as in Qué es tu nombre) would probably be equally awkward there.
Disclaimer
Adiós, hasta pronto
Goodbye, see you soon ... well this is not the last blog. I just want to tell you how to say good bye in Spanish,
So we say (good bye) (until) (soon), which basically means see you soon.
This is the first time we see an accent mark。Notice the ó on Adiós has a special mark。That is called an accent mark, let's take a good look at it。
A word with exactly the same letters with different accent marks can means something different, so one must also remember the accent marks when remember the spelling!
Disclaimer
So we say (good bye) (until) (soon), which basically means see you soon.
This is the first time we see an accent mark。Notice the ó on Adiós has a special mark。That is called an accent mark, let's take a good look at it。
ó
A word with exactly the same letters with different accent marks can means something different, so one must also remember the accent marks when remember the spelling!
Disclaimer
Friday, July 31, 2015
Encantado
Nice to meet you!
To be honest, I already forget about this phrase long time ago before I write this post. The much more popular way of saying this is Mucho Gusto. It is also what SpanishDict says.
Disclaimer
Encantado means "Nice to meet you" (click on the link for sound)
To be honest, I already forget about this phrase long time ago before I write this post. The much more popular way of saying this is Mucho Gusto. It is also what SpanishDict says.
Disclaimer
Thursday, July 30, 2015
Buenas tardes
Good evening everyone!
In Chinese we don't usually say good evening, it is either good morning or good night. But western people do differentiate them. When you are off work, you say good evening to your colleagues, and when you are going to bed, you say good night to your families, you never mix them up.
Face it, learning a language is also about learning the culture behind the language. The higher context it is, the harder it is.
I used to just remember that, but now I know. Why do we have buenos dias and buenas tardes? It turns out that Spanish have genders. Dias (days) is a masculine noun, so it must be described using a masculine adjective, in this case, buenos. On the other hand, tardes (afternoon or evening) is a feminine noun, so it must be described using a feminine adjective, and in this case, buenas.
Edit: By the way, buenas tardes can also be used to mean good afternoon, so don't be surprised when someone say that to you in the middle of the day :)
Disclaimer
Buenas tardes means good evening (click on the link for sound)
In Chinese we don't usually say good evening, it is either good morning or good night. But western people do differentiate them. When you are off work, you say good evening to your colleagues, and when you are going to bed, you say good night to your families, you never mix them up.
Face it, learning a language is also about learning the culture behind the language. The higher context it is, the harder it is.
I used to just remember that, but now I know. Why do we have buenos dias and buenas tardes? It turns out that Spanish have genders. Dias (days) is a masculine noun, so it must be described using a masculine adjective, in this case, buenos. On the other hand, tardes (afternoon or evening) is a feminine noun, so it must be described using a feminine adjective, and in this case, buenas.
Edit: By the way, buenas tardes can also be used to mean good afternoon, so don't be surprised when someone say that to you in the middle of the day :)
Disclaimer
Wednesday, July 29, 2015
Buenos dias
Good morning!
Yet another phrase that can be used on its own.
Now we have learnt a few words. It is time to look backward a little bit. I wish I did that but I didn't. There is a few things I need to be able to do.
Buenos dias means good morning (click on the link for sound)
Yet another phrase that can be used on its own.
Now we have learnt a few words. It is time to look backward a little bit. I wish I did that but I didn't. There is a few things I need to be able to do.
- Given the Spanish word, what is the English word for it.
- Given an English word, what is the Spanish word for it.
- Given a Spanish sound, what is the Spanish word for it.
- Given a Spanish word, what is the Spanish sound for it.
Yes, it is that simple, to be good in Spanish, we must be able to do this, and I think it is an easy job so far (we only have four words right now), but it will get harder and harder as we proceed.
The key to success for me is to keep doing exercises (it is okay for the exercise to be repeated) at regular interval. Doing 10 problems per day for 10 days is better than doing 100 problems a day and rest for the rest.
Online services so far do a really poor job on giving 2 for now, which I really need, I will see what can I do about that.
Tuesday, July 28, 2015
Hola
This is the second word I learn in Spanish, or put it the other way, the 1st word I systematically learn.
Hello, simple enough. You can say Hello to anyone.
This is the first time I started to use online services to start learning. I started with busuu. This website teach me a few phrases, and that's all. It offers mostly paid service, so I cannot really recommend it because I just tried a few free samples there, but it is a good start, isn't it?
Disclaimer
Hola means Hello. (click on the link for sound)
Hello, simple enough. You can say Hello to anyone.
This is the first time I started to use online services to start learning. I started with busuu. This website teach me a few phrases, and that's all. It offers mostly paid service, so I cannot really recommend it because I just tried a few free samples there, but it is a good start, isn't it?
Disclaimer
Gracias
Starting this post we actually talk about Spanish.
I don't know your experience, but the first Spanish word I ever heard and remember is this one.
This word can be used alone, and basically it means the same thing as 'thanks' in English. So even if you don't know a single word in Spanish, just know this one and express your appreciation!
Disclaimer
I don't know your experience, but the first Spanish word I ever heard and remember is this one.
Gracias (click on the link for sound)
Yes, I heard about that when watching prison break. A popular series here in America. I keep listening to this Sucre guy speaking this word in season two when they are locked in Panama. In some sense, it is this drama that get me started with Spanish, So, 'gracias', Paul Scheuring.
This word can be used alone, and basically it means the same thing as 'thanks' in English. So even if you don't know a single word in Spanish, just know this one and express your appreciation!
Disclaimer
Monday, July 27, 2015
Disclaimer
This blog is written by me and me only.
It is a journal of what I learn in the past few months.
I have been a lousy learner, never pay attention to details, used lot of free resources and potentially wrong ones ...
So in short, the content might be wrong, I am writing as accurate as I can, but that's it.
Corrections are more than welcome!
It is a journal of what I learn in the past few months.
I have been a lousy learner, never pay attention to details, used lot of free resources and potentially wrong ones ...
So in short, the content might be wrong, I am writing as accurate as I can, but that's it.
Corrections are more than welcome!
Why learn Spanish?
Numerous people ask me, why would you want to learn Spanish. Often, I would just say it is just for fun. Well, not really, let me analyze why would one want to learn Spanish for you.
First of all, Spanish is the world second most popular language. I am lucky that I know Chinese, the most popular one. You bet English is the second most popular. Well, it depends on what criterion you are using. We can see that in this website.
Second, as a second language in America. While I am there, why not learn the second language of the country? In South California, there are many people speaking Spanish, especially so for those Mexican immigrants. I bet knowing Spanish is going to increase my competitiveness in Silicon valley.
Third, as the world second popular language, there are tons of information written in Spanish on the web. Knowing Spanish means you will have more information at your finger tips.
So, I learn Spanish. I wish you, my readers, will also go learn Spanish.
First of all, Spanish is the world second most popular language. I am lucky that I know Chinese, the most popular one. You bet English is the second most popular. Well, it depends on what criterion you are using. We can see that in this website.
Second, as a second language in America. While I am there, why not learn the second language of the country? In South California, there are many people speaking Spanish, especially so for those Mexican immigrants. I bet knowing Spanish is going to increase my competitiveness in Silicon valley.
Third, as the world second popular language, there are tons of information written in Spanish on the web. Knowing Spanish means you will have more information at your finger tips.
So, I learn Spanish. I wish you, my readers, will also go learn Spanish.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Learning Spanish
I have been learning Spanish for 4 months or more, but I never blogged about it. I thought, writing a blog to journal what I did is a good idea. So I will start blogging about my learning now.
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