Introducion

[Senor_Slippery]

Greetings,

My name is Jeremy and I thought I should introduce myself to the SpanishPod community. I studied Spanish for three and a half years in school, and even had a private tutor. However, I haven't officially studied Spanish for quite some time, and thought I could practice here at Spanishpod101.com. I remember everything I have learned, but I don't feel that I know enough. I can have casual conversations in Spanish, but my vocabulary is quite limited. Also, I have trouble properly conjugating certain verbs and tenses. I thought that writing frequently and reading posts of others, and trying to translate them, would be great practice. I am going to attempt to translate this introduction in Spanish, and would appreciate any corrections. Thank you!

Hola, mi nombre es Jeremy, y yo pensé que debo introducirme a la comunidad de SpanishPod. Yo estudié español por tres y medio años in escuela, y tenia/tuve (I don't know which to use) un meastro personal. Quisas (however?), yo no estudié por mucho tiempo, y yo pensé que podría practiar aquí a Spanishpod101.com. Yo recuerdo todo yo aprendí, pero yo no senti que yo sé bastante (enough?). Yo puedo tener conversationes casuales en español, pero mí vocabularia is muy limitado. Además, yo tengo problemos (conjugating) corectamente verbos particulares y (tenses). Yo pensé que escribido frecuentamente y leido (posts) de otros, y tratando (trying?) a traducirlos, (would be) practica bueno(?). Voy a intentar para(?) traducir eso introducion en español, yo aprciaria(?) correciones. Gracias!

[Bouks]

Welcome, Jeremy! I am in a similar situation...I studied Spanish intensively, and proceeded to use other languages and forget all my Spanish. So I am here to get it all back. Therefore...I will leave the corrections of your Spanish text to the pros here I'm glad you joined us!

[eagle1]

Hello, I am studying Spanish to give me something to do and to broaden my education. I am disabled and this is also a good way to past some time. I hoping that I can get some help with my studies. I have only been studying Spanish for a couple of months so I am just starting to learn. I have a limited vocabulary and I am looking forward to increasing it. Maybe while I'm at it I might even make some new online friends.

[Joseph]

Hey there eagle1,

Great to have you with us! ¡Mucho gusto! So, where are you starting out, since you're fresh to our course? Feel free to throw any questions you have at me and I'll do my best to respond as soon as possible.

¡Muy bienvenidos!
Joseph

[eagle1]

El Gusto es mio . I am studying with Visual Link & Spanish Pod 101. I am doing it for two reasons 1 to kill time and 2 to improve my mind. I like learning new things when ever possible. The reason I am killing time is because I'm disabled and can't work.
Gracias, Hasta lluego

[Kimmy]

Hi! I want to learn Spanish so I can talk to Spanish speaking customers without asking for help. I forgot all the spanish I took in High school. I never got the hang of the past, present, or future tenses anyway. I work in retail. The hardest part for me is finding someone to practice with. I wanted to get rosetta stone as well, but I can't afford the $500 dollars.

[sckhoo]

newbie in Spanish. Am doing evening class here in Kuala Lumpur. Thought of compliment the class with the podcast, so I can practice while driving to work.

Great podcast so far. But I am only at newbie level. long way to go. looking forward to it.

[jpv206]

Thanks for listening sckhoo! Hope life is well in the big KL!

If you're at the "newbie" level and taking a class, I highly recommend the new Absolute Beginner lessons and the new Beginner lessons that Fernando and I are publishing Mondays and Wednesdays here. You can also check the archive for "newbie" series lessons and other levels that are more your speed. Welcome!

[klman102047274]

Hola buenos dias,
So I stumbled into Spanish pod 101 from itunes and I think its really cool. My name is Kyle i'm from Flagstaff, Arizona and I'll be heading off to college pretty close to the border. What better way is there to prepare than get help from the internet? I've had spanish classes in school, but that can get tedious at times. My hispanic friends talk really fast. So its nice to hear things fast and slow, to figure out what to listen for alond with polishing my pronoun order and verb conjugating grammar stuff. Unlike alott of the smart kids I go to school with, I can not keep the technical gargin in my head unless I practice carrying a coherent conversation with someone who's not using tons of expressions and making all of their sounds blurr together. Thankfully vocab isn't hard. Spanish Pod has helped my ears tremendously.
Thanks a ton for all of your help, especially Jp and Carlos. You guys rock. Keep up the great work.

[jpv206]

klman102047274
Hi Kyle, glad you found us! Good luck with your Spanish, and let us know if you have any questions!

[Helma]

Hola todos!

My name is Helma , I live in Rotterdam, the Netherlands (Europe) and am Dutch native speaking.

I have followed a Spanish course at a, I think this is called a neighbourhood centre or community centre, for about 3 seasons.
The pace of teaching was very low which I didn't mind at that time because I just followed it for fun. I like to know more about different languages, which is a Dutch habit I think. (At the schools here they teach us (high school) French, German, English and some Spanish and éven at some schools Chinese.)
Because this pace of teaching I didn't learn to speak in the past, after those seasons,I only now (some!) in the present which is realy frustrating! This course did not continue because the teacher stopped working there.

A few weeks ago we were on the Canarian Isle 'La Palma' and I thought I could try to speak some but... no way! Just before we went I subscribed to spanishpod101 and downloaded everything I could and listened at my Ipod almost everyday to those lessons. I really love it!

I have one big problem though, it just seems to be difficult for me to understand!
My friend, who I met at this course, does this so much better.
To find a learning system I searched on the internet and found the site of Daniel Tammet (authistic savant who has been in the David Letterman-show, see also at youtube, or his website http://www.optimnem.co.uk/)
Now I am learning with spanishpod101 and I really like learning with this system!
I hope to really understand the fast speaking spanish language sometime so I know what to reply.... (instead of translating first, miss words and only press some 'uh.. eh...-sounds out)
Do you have a system for me to learn to understand without translating, please let me know!
Are you also from the Netherlands or native Spanish speaker and trying to learn Dutch? Don't hesitate to contact me!

Helma

PS:
Maybe a tip for you:
(to get in contact with native speakers/other students around the world)http://www.mylanguageexchange.com/default.asp

PPS:
Are you still there? Sorry for this 'much to long' message

[delcasmx9242]

Great having you here on the community!
We love having people all around the world.

Is great that you found a good system to learn, that method seems very interesting. I had heard about Daniel Tammet, but i didn't knew about his method.

I know Spanish can seem vary challenging, but don't worry, i am sure you will be able to master the language.

I do have a few tricks for learning languages i have tried and some i have come up with my students and they seem to work very nice.

My first recommendation is of course, practice, try speaking all you can, either with somebody or by yourself, that will help you get used to the words. Practice is key for learning any language.

Other very important thing is the language rhythm and flow. If you can sense the rhythm of the language things will be much much easier. Try this, speak all you can using a very marked "spanish accent" try using all the words you know and try to use the longest sentences you can, if some of the words come up as gibberish it doesn't matter, the point here is that you get used to the rhythm. This might sound silly, but it works very well.

Other thing you can try is to break the sentences in the main components, only concentrate on the most vital part of the phrases and respond according to that, when you hear something, concentrate to get the subject and verb right don't mind the rest, and then try and "guess" an appropriate answer. you might get a lot wrong at the beginning, but later you will get better. This way you can get the idea of the conversation and there is no need to translate all, this helps because if you learn to think this way, if you miss a word you still can understand what people is talking about.

And one last tip to help you practice, every time you can, try thinking in spanish, if you see something like a dog on the street think "perro", the idea here is that you think directly the word in spanish, don't think dog and then translate, try that your first thought is the spanish word. This one is hard, but with time you will get better and get rid of the habit of translating, also it will do wonders to your vocabulary.

Hope this helps

Great having you here at spanishpod101!
fer

[Helma]

WAUW!
That's great to have all those tips, I love the lost one and I will practice this immediately! It's easy and I think I can increase my vocabulary this way too.

Thanks for taking the time to send me this. (oh, ánd that you took the time to read my message)

As I have progressed my Spanish I will let you know on this topic.

kind regards
Helma

PS:
I've got one tip once wich maybe can be a tip for someone else, write names on post-its and put them on the things around you like :
la barandilla (balustrade)
escalera (stairs)
la nevera (fridge)
enz.