Anyone else successfully learn a new language? (OFFICIAL COLI LANGUAGE THREAD)

[Raiders]

I only have one thing to add. It's an important note because a novice speaker would look at it and think the translation is different, when in reality, there's no difference(it means the same thing).

Native Spanish speakers don't use possessive adjectives(my, his, her, etc) when using reflexive verbs that involve body parts or personal belongings. Instead the appropriate gender matching article is used and the action that is happening or the belonging is "understood" by the reflexive pronoun that accompanies the verb.

Using the sentences above...

Me lavo las manos(instead of mis manos) = I wash/am washing my hands.("Me" is the indicator of who is receiving the action.)

Ayer por la mañana , ellos se cepillaron los dientes = Yesterday morning they brushed their teeth. ("Se cepillaron indicates third personal plural in the preterite (past) tense.)

Lastly, the verb doesn't have to be generally reflexive.... you can and will come across sentence constructions such as....

Me perdió el bosillo = I lost my wallet(literal: It was lost by me, the wallet )
Nos pagan hoy (el dinero) = We are getting paid today(by your employer)[/I]

Yeah I had added an example with mi novia me da besos depues nuestro cita, but deleted it because I didnt want to throw him off because I looked it up and it said they need to match (subject and object), but they do work in the same way, its just a lil more advance to start mixing the subject and object.

and to translate the mi novia me da besos depues nuestro cita

My girlfriend gives me kisses after our date.

The me in front of da refers to me (yo) because I am receiving the kisses and the da (ella form of dar) because she is giving them.

 

[Fatboi1]

I'd love to learn Japanese in like a week

You gotta remove that mindset of "I gotta learn this in X amount of time"
It's possible to become fluent in less than 2 years though if you show up and put in the time. Basically you let Japanese consume you. Your ears are always hearing Japanese, your eyes seeing Kanji/katakana/Hirigana and you pretty much emulate a Japanese environment.

That's what I do. This is pretty much my desktop right now as I speak.

Yeah, looks daunting as I have all my windows open but this is pretty much a snippet of what I'm talking about. Random Japanese Zelda playthrough, some SRSing, Japanese OS etc. This dude pretty much put hella hours into immersing himself with Japanese watching videos, movies (no english subtitles), SRS(electronic flashcards for maximum retention and less work etc.



I've been "learning" it since December last year but the first 2 and a half months was learning and reviewing the 2046 Kanji. The main thing that keeps me going is that I do what's fun in the language. . Reading boring ass books about Mr.Tanaka and Suzuki San at a Izakaya ordering drinks is gonna cause you to just fall off and stop. I felt pretty when my Japanese "friend" told me to text her Mom(who doesn't speak English) while she's in the hospital since she'll be bored.
(her mom on the right chat)
*earlier chat*

I don't even feel like I'm studying or "learning" japanese. It's just normal. It's my life right now in a non obtrusive way. When people say "Japanese is hard man" I just smh. It's actually simpler in some aspects compared to English.

 

[Big Blue]

Spanish (HS) and Italian (college).

 

[the bossman]

this is pretty much the same thing as white americans saying black americans dont speak english well

na I'm thinking more like the difference in language when looking at English people vs Americans and Portuguese vs Brasilians

 

[Medio]

i'm going to give advice to those learning vocab in your language.

don't google translations from the language you are learning to english.
rather go to google images and type the word in spanish in the bar and then you can see an image and understand better instead of seeing the word in english

 

[dennis roadman]

na I'm thinking more like the difference in language when looking at English vs Americans and Portuguese vs Brasilians

the relationship between english and american is much closer and friendlier than those countries', it's just friendly banter, like americans to canadians.

there's another layer to spanish and portuguese people saying latin americans speak the "wrong" way

 

[jaydolf spitler]

Pretty good in Spanish. Parents are haitian so they tried to teach me french and creole primarily. Then I started school and had to learn English and i had a Spanish babysitter who would only speak in Spanish to me so my parents said fukk it and taught me English only but I still had that background in the other languages so when I took spanish for 6 years in middle thru high school I picked up on words real quick. I'm from Florida so there's plenty places t practice and haiti is right next to the Dominican so lots of Haitians can speak it. Also went to the Dominican and got real good at it in 07 and lived in cali for 6 months and had to use it there too. Got me like good thing I didn't go full out with French. Not many places I've had to use it

 

[The Coochie Assassin]

I feel now I'm at a solid basic level of conversational portuguese. IMO the best strategy is using multiple forms of learning. I took a traditional class here in DC for 6 months. I found some folks from Brasil online and started talking with them via skype on a weekly basis. They would help me with the portugues and I would help them with english. I would listen to music, read news, & watch movies in portuguese whenever I could. If I had just stuck to only Rosetta stone or pimsleur I dont' think I would be nearly as fluent.

The main difficulty I have now is getting my brain adjusted to hearing the language and understanding it at a normal pace in a real conversation. I can say any statement or ask any question with ease now but when the person responds, there are many times when I have to ask them to repeat it and slow down. It sounds like they are speaking 500mph to me but to them they feel like they are speaking at a normal pace. It's only because I'm not used to hearing the language all the time. I think that will improve with time and repetition.

Then you have to remember that different regions have different accents and slang just like here in the US. When I'm in Salvador and I'm speaking, a lot of the brasilians there clown me saying they understand me but I sound like I'm from Sao Paulo because of the way I pronounce words and some of the words I use are too formal. The teacher in the class that I took was from Sao Paulo so thats where I got most of my pronunciations from. Imagine someone who grew up in NYC and you drop them in the middle of Louisiana. It's still English but it's a different breed


this is really it. once you learn the proper grammatical structure of sentences, the rest is just learning vocabulary words and getting your brain adjusted to listening to the language and understanding it. That takes a lot of repetition.

lol my first Portuguese teacher was Baiano but I did my first long stay in Rio, so I picked up the carioca accent

 

[Big Blue]

Pretty good in Spanish. Parents are haitian so they tried to teach me french and creole primarily. Then I started school and had to learn English and i had a Spanish babysitter who would only speak in Spanish to me so my parents said fukk it and taught me English only but I still had that background in the other languages so when I took spanish for 6 years in middle thru high school I picked up on words real quick. I'm from Florida so there's plenty places t practice and haiti is right next to the Dominican so lots of Haitians can speak it. Also went to the Dominican and got real good at it in 07 and lived in cali for 6 months and had to use it there too. Got me like good thing I didn't go full out with French. Not many places I've had to use it

I'm Haitian but my French sucks. I want to learn because I love Montreal. The women

 

[jaydolf spitler]

I'm Haitian but my French sucks. I want to learn because I love Montreal. The women

Yea I travelled to Montreal and Quebec beore. Prolly the only time knowing French would have come in handy in my life. I like the fact that I'm good with Spanish tho cuz these Latina women

The other day I learned that sometimes even not being perfect at speaking the language can give you an advantage over some of these brehs who are native speakers. Women thinking it's cute when you slip up and teaching you new words and shyt while the native speaker sits the sidelines

 

[the bossman]

lol my first Portuguese teacher was Baiano but I did my first long stay in Rio, so I picked up the carioca accent

how long were u in Rio breh?

 

[The Coochie Assassin]

how long were u in Rio breh?

My longest stay was 2 months. I did 5 months in Sao Paulo the year after.
Check out my blog http://www.rioinaweek.com/

 

[the bossman]

My longest stay was 2 months. I did 5 months in Sao Paulo the year after.
Check out my blog http://www.rioinaweek.com/

dope blog, especially that 10 Ways Black Americans & Afro-Brazilians Can Help Each Other article.

did you go to a portuguese school there or just make friends and learn thru your daily interactions with them?
where did you live in Rio? Barra da tijuca? I hear it's better for gringos to live there but that shyt is far as hell from zona sul
out of the 2 cities which one did you feel had better business opportunities?

 

[Francis]

English, by the end of the summer I'll move to London so I think I'll master it very quickly, in like 6 months I think (hope )
Those english accents tho
I understand spanish but I can't speak it (never applied).

 

[MAGNETO.]