How do you say "Im trying to learn Spanish"?
How do you say "Im trying to learn Spanish"?
8 Answers
Also, Chamaco you are right that "How you speak is a function of who you are, where you grew up and your thought process", but there is also grammar and syntax, and if you teach your students to make mistakes because "it is how they are" I can't say I agree.
One thing is to say "Yo estoy aprendiendo español", which is not entirely right nor entirely wrong, and the other one is to say "No me gusta tanto mirar el televisor" which is something wrong since you don't stare at the television but instead you watch television, or "Me encanta mucha juegos electronicos", where you gave the electronic games a female quantity, disregarding the fact that the electronic games are a male in Spanish.
Lastly, you have to take one more thing in consideration, which is slightly more important: the regional/local speech. Are people going to really understand you if you speak this or that way? You can have your own way of speaking, but is speech serves the purpose of sending an idea and it is not being fulfilled, then the purpose of it failed and it is time for you to try again.
Intentando a aprender espanol. But in spanish you aren't "trying" to do a thing....you are either doing it or not. Yo estoy aprendiendo espanol. 
The word "try" does in fact existe...but no one really makes such a construction in everyday speech. Yo estoy haciendo esa cosa. Me da dolor, pero estoy haciendola.
Estoy intentando aprender español.
Estoy tratando de aprender español.
Both mean, I am trying to learn Spanish.
Estoy tratando de aprender el espanol.
I say this like ten million times a day, and I'm gonna say it again. How you speak is a function of who you are, where you grew up, your thought process, ect. My good friend Greg said "you don't you Yo"....but that is his particular style of speech, which comes to him from a number of places. People in Boston say "I'm gawna go pawk my caw. That's not natural to me, because I'm not from Boston, I'm from a different place. I understand it, but that is not my accent, and therefore not natural to my mouth. Anyway, I might say "Yo" with the sentence, depende en contexto. I can never express to my fellow students enough that you have to say what is the most natural to you, which may or may not natural to me or Greg. This is the process of thinking in spanish. You listen to what I say, then to what Greg says, then you let it marinade inside you for a minute, and then you will say it in the way that is natural to you. Heck...that whole construction is a function of me...where I come from, what I listen to, ect. You might not even use those words...but the communication of the idea is forever the most important thing.
How do you say "Im trying to learn Spanish"?
The word "try" presupposes failure, so you better don't.
you aren't "trying" to do a thing....you are either doing it or not
As Erin says, you would not need to use 'yo' as the conjugation of the verb implies it is you.
Chamaco Malo is not entirely right though, as you could say 'Estoy tratando de aprender cálculo, pero no me va muy bien' and could continue explaining that you will not continue, making his comment that such a grammatical construction is wrong not entirely correct.
As I always say though, it depends on where you are from, as in some countries it may not be the rule but in others it may be completely accepted and part of the colloquialisms and/or regular sentence construction.
Have a great day! ¡Que tengas un buen día!
ps: please, please, please... it's español. and it can be in uppercase too, ESPAÑOL.
Don't use "Yo"
Just say: "Estoy aprendiendo español".
