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What is your primary weakness in Spanish?

What is your primary weakness in Spanish?

9
votes

Hi everyone! First post and first day here. I've actually been learning Spanish for a couple days now, but just stumbled across this website today. I'm really loving it so far; it seems like the perfect fit for a beginner like myself!

Anyhow, I thought I would introduce myself to the community and receive some insight on what your weakness is in Spanish?

Learning to roll my R's and pronunciation in general is kicking my butt right now. I've also noticed that I tend to confuse myself on words that have accents. I'm constantly second-guessing myself and consulting my vocabulary list, haha. Needless to say, I take my time when I'm writing something in Spanish.

3006 views
updated Jan 29, 2015
posted by michaelmuah
Please fill out your profile so that we may better help you . Bienvenido al fora , buena suerte amiga. - ray76, Jan 7, 2015
My only weakness in Spanish is not understanding a flaming word that is said to me , I have two stupid ears , my mouth is not that clever either , but i do love the language so. - ray76, Jan 7, 2015
Bienvenido al foro. - annierats, Jan 7, 2015

7 Answers

5
votes

Welcome, Michael. Yes, this is a great site. Lots of good lessons, articles, etc. here.

"R" rolling is a problem for me too. One trick I use for the single R is to say almost like a soft D sound before the R. The double Rs, forget it!! wink

As for my biggest weakness, it would have to be understanding what Spanish speakers are saying to me. That will just take a lot of practice.

If you would, let us know a little more about yourself in your profile. It will help everyone here to know how best to help. See ya around!!!

updated Jan 11, 2015
edited by Winkfish
posted by Winkfish
Good on you mate , well said ,worthy of a vote from me . - ray76, Jan 7, 2015
Gracias! - Winkfish, Jan 7, 2015
I agree, and at the same time you have to think up an answer to whatever it is they are saying at top speed... - annierats, Jan 7, 2015
Thanks, Winkfish! Love the name by the way. Yeah, I've heard that listening skills are a slow but steady improvement. I've been listening to podcasts and watching the news in Spanish every day in hopes that I can train my ear early on. - michaelmuah, Jan 7, 2015
5
votes

The worst thing is that when I speak I still have to think so hard about the next verb that in the meantime I make some absolute idiot error before I even get to the next verb.

I think speaking Spanish is very like show-jumping. The verbs are the jumps and the better your horse gets, the higher they put the jumps and the more combinations they put up.. The nice promising novice horses get a sweet little course at 1 meter high with an inviting double. The Grade A horses have to clear a 1.50 m course with two triple combinations and a double subjunctive oxer.

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updated Jan 7, 2015
edited by annierats
posted by annierats
The illustration is an eventer, actually, but as it is a fellow Swede it seems appropriate. - annierats, Jan 7, 2015
lol stick to lower fences like I do :P - billygoat, Jan 7, 2015
Nice analogy, aha. I guess the only way to get around that is to reinforce it better in your head so that it feels more natural. Maybe try timed tests so that it will teach you to respond faster? - michaelmuah, Jan 7, 2015
No, I reer speaking to people without being timed as well, thanks. But it may work for some. - annierats, Jan 7, 2015
Prefer, I mean, typo. - annierats, Jan 7, 2015
4
votes

For me it's speaking too. My listening has really improved over the last year or so and, although I sometimes don't understand every single word, increasingly I am able to follow most conversations and feel the gist of what somebody is saying.

When it comes to speaking though, there is often a big blockage between my brain and my mouth lol. I am working on this, so hopefully will improve in time!

updated Jan 7, 2015
posted by billygoat
I feel your pain about the mental blockage. I've been trying to start conversations with myself in Spanish and see how long I can sustain it at once, and I run into that blockage every time. More practice, more progress! - michaelmuah, Jan 7, 2015
that's it mate, don't be put off, just keep on going :) - billygoat, Jan 7, 2015
Do you have an unfortunate programme that now runs in the brain which informs you of mistake after it is too late to change what you're saying? I do. - annierats, Jan 7, 2015
It informs me I said 'las' instead of 'los' or I forgot a personal 'a', but too late, it interferes with forward thinking at the moment. - annierats, Jan 7, 2015
yes, I have that setting too! lol - billygoat, Jan 7, 2015
3
votes

For me, the order of difficulty is: writing, reading, speaking, listening. Writing and speaking have the advantage that you can select words you know to compose a sentence. Reading and listening mean there are unknown words coming at you. Listening is way the hardest because unknown words are coming at you fast and in an accent!

updated Jan 28, 2015
posted by jennysk
2
votes

I think it depends on the learner's background, own native language, any second (third etc) language(s), domestic situation, location, resources, reason(s) for learning, and, to a limited (yet often overstated) extent, age (I believe there's actually no scientific evidence to support the claim that young children are capable of learning language faster than adults - the fact that they do in practice learn their mother tongue in three or four years has more to do with constant immersion, necessity, absence of other language to lead them off-track, and the encouragement given to them by their parents, family and peers).

It's interesting that you mention learning to roll your R's as a particular problem for you. For me, being Scottish, this has never posed a difficulty since we Scots roll our R's all the time anyway. We also possess the KH sound (as in 'loch') represented by Spanish J (and sometimes G), so pronouncing this too is a non-problem for us. In fact, surprisingly, I've found pronunciation quite easy in Spanish, and so far in my (limited) opportunities to speak the language with natives I've always managed to make myself understood. Of course, the sensation of one's first utterances in any foreign language may make the speaker feel a little self-conscious when hearing come out of your own mouth words that sound strange to you, which is weird.

I have to say I've found pronunciation of Spanish much more straightforward than French, which is the foreign language that I learned at school. I think Spanish is much easier to pronounce for English-speakers. It has fewer sounds than French, and certainly fewer unfamiliar sounds (e.g. the French nasal endings, which even to this day I can't replicate, even although I can recognise the differences among them when spoken by a native). Moreover, Spanish is written almost entirely phonetically, which French isn't always (although even French is obviously much more phonetic than English).

On the other hand, understanding Spanish-speakers is probably the greatest challenge so far. I'm not sure if this is because it's inherently harder to attune one's ear to Spanish, or simply because I haven't had enough exposure to it yet - I suspect the latter. It did take me a good while to become able to understand French-speakers, yet nowadays I can understand most of what's being said on French news, for example (although I do still struggle with some of the more colloquial language in certain genres of cinema). Similarly, I'm beginning to be able to understand 'good' Spanish much better than I could at the start, e.g. 'well-spoken' individuals making public announcements on TV as opposed to taxi-drivers in the street (who tend to garble no matter what language they speak).

Reading and writing Spanish are pretty easy. The phonetic system makes spelling quite intuitive. I feel my background in French has given me a tremendous 'foot-up' in this regard (they say it takes an English speaker with no prior Romance language about three years of complete immersion to become functionally fluent in Spanish, yet only two if you already have French, Italian, Portuguese or even Latin etc). On the downside, I find my French creeping into my Spanish where it's not always wanted, and this can occasionally distort my meaning. For example, the Spanish preference for 'hooking' pronouns onto the end of infinitive verbs is quite 'unFrench', so I often make the mistake of following French sentence structure, e.g. 'Quiero lo ver' as opposed to 'Quiero verlo' (French: 'Je veux le voir').

Admittedly, Spanish verbs are challenging. The number of tenses and moods, the number of conjugations, and the pervasiveness of the subjunctive, all render verb-learning more difficult. That said, I would make two observations in this regard: (1) The overall verb structure, no matter how massive, has common patterns, which are, broadly speaking, quite logical and regular (even the irregularities have regularity to them ¡!), and I've actually enjoyed trying to master them. (2) Spanish verb order is probably more natural for an English-speaker than it would be, say, in another Germanic language. For example, Afrikaans, a cousin Germanic language of English, has virtually no conjugations and many fewer tenses, but the placing of verbs in the sentence is quite odd for an English-speaker (only present indicatives and modals go near the beginning while the rest get pitched away at the end in a particular order).

The Spanish preference for omitting object pronouns seems odd at first, but you do become used to it after a while, and the verb conjugations or context usually compensate for their omission.

Finally, vocabulary seems relatively straightforward. There is a vast commonality of vocabulary between English and Spanish, while many of the more difficult words are so frequently used that you learn them quite swiftly. And again there are patterns in the vocab to help you along.

Buena suerte.

updated Jan 29, 2015
edited by Faldaesque
posted by Faldaesque
Agreed, good outline. Omitting pronouns actually seems to be the norm rather than an exception (most Romance languages except French, Slavic languages, Finno-Ugric languages - yes, yes, all of them could be classified as "less important" :P). - Manity, Jan 28, 2015
English, particularly spoken English, often omits them too (perhaps more often than we realise), particularly in questions and short statements... - Faldaesque, Jan 28, 2015
Yeah. I remember a girl in our guild (wasn't she even Scottish? I recall she was from "up north" but that's open to interpretation) who always spoke like "Am tired. Am hungry. Am bored." - Manity, Jan 28, 2015
Aye, but you should remember that Scots for 'I' is 'Ah', so maybe she was saying 'Ah'm tired, ah'm hungry, ah'm bored'... ;-) - Faldaesque, Jan 28, 2015
I was thinking more of examples like, 'Done your homework yet ?'... or 'Enjoy the movie ?'... ;-) - Faldaesque, Jan 28, 2015
In one of our comedy programs there was an advertisement for scones: ‘So good, scone before you know it’ (It’s so good, it’s gone before you know it), omitting ‘it’ two out of three times !!... - Faldaesque, Jan 28, 2015
She typed it that way in chat, I doubt I would've spotted it otherwise. Your examples are, as she'd say, spot-on. ;) - Manity, Jan 28, 2015
Aye, she cannae spell for toffee, either, the puir wee hen... - Faldaesque, Jan 28, 2015
Ahahah, nice! :D It's like I'm reading Pratchett again, trying to decipher what the Nac Mac Feegle are saying. - Manity, Jan 29, 2015
2
votes

For most adult learners, reading, speaking, writing, then understanding a native speaking is the usual order.

Keep trying on the rolled R's. Get the tip of the tongue on the front of the hard palate and make it vibrate. This is muscle building so it may seem difficult or impossible at first. I find it easier to practice by repeating "erre" or "perro", If you can find a native speaker who will help you that would be great too.

And of course good luck with finding a "cute Spanish chick" too!

updated Jan 7, 2015
posted by Jubilado
I've been rolling my R's on every word that has a single R in it, so that by the end of the day , I've practiced doing it a couple hundred times. I just have to make sure I'm hydrated; it's darn near impossible with a dry mouth. - michaelmuah, Jan 7, 2015
And thanks! A boy can only dream. ;) - michaelmuah, Jan 7, 2015
I can read and write fine, it's the speaking I really have problems with. - rac1, Jan 7, 2015
0
votes

The fact that it's in a foreign language...

updated Jan 28, 2015
posted by Faldaesque