Posts Tagged ‘Roots’

Why is Spanish Such a Hard Language to Learn

December 23rd, 2009

Spanish is like any other languages apart from the few special facts about the language which makes it identical like other languages. Spanish language is not particularly a hard language to learn, it has it’s set of difficulties which is faced to learn any new language. English is actually more difficult to learn than Spanish. Spanish and English have many words in common and some even sound similar, so it’s very easy for an English speaking person to learn it.

It’s just that it’s more difficult for an adult to learn a foreign language than a child. Our schools really should teach it throughout a person’s school years. Some very smart people have trouble learning a foreign language, while some of lower intelligence do extremely well.

Languages other than Spanish like English which is a Germanic language, however German isn’t especially easy for English speakers to master because there are so many different conjugations. Even more than in Spanish. Chinese is one of the most difficult languages for English speakers to learn because the structure is completely different. In English we spell things phonetically using a 26 character alphabet. Chinese uses thousands of characters, and is not phonetic. Spanish isn’t that hard to learn if you have a basis in Latin or some other of the Romance languages like French or Italian.

Sometimes you can get another language because of it’s similarities to one you already speak for example if you’re German you might have a good chance of learning English as English has it’s roots in German.

One basic problem faced by people in learning Spanish is not the writing skills which is easy to attain the Spanish grammar being easy but conversational skills is tough in Spanish because of it’s vast vocabulary and accent. One thing to remember about the Spanish language, is that not all Spanish speakers use the same accent. I originally learned Latin-American

Spanish, and one of my teachers spoke with the Castilian accent. I could not understand much of what she said. The grammar is very close to English grammar and the words are usually written phonetically. It shares a large common ground with English, French, Italian, Portuguese, German. . . etc. so it’s easy to learn for people of Latin/Germanic language descent.

The easiest way to learn a language is to study a short time every day, as opposed to a long time every once in a while.

There was a time when the capability of learning a new language was completely based on the person’s genetic ability.

Things have changed drastically with technology, now it is possible to learn and adapt a new language like Spanish in 3-4 months . I have listed few habits that you can develop to learn Spanish quickly , Watch the news in Spanish. This is a good exercise because you will always have a context. Watch the film as you listen to the story. You can read the subtitles and

listen at the same time. When you hear people speaking in Spanish try to understand what they are saying to each other.

. Be fearless. When you are in a setting in which you can use your Spanish just do it. Most Spanish-speakers are glad to help and happy you are trying. In order to learn and master the language, you will need to practice and immerse yourself in the language and understand the culture.

No comments »

Posted in Articles

Tags:

Easy Spanish

December 18th, 2009

Everyone who is starting out learning the language looks for some easy Spanish to try and get to grips with it. Often they are amazed to discover that it can be a lot easier that they ever imagined.
Spanish and English share common roots with Latin in particular, and to a lesser degree, Greek as well. This means that many of the words simply need a different ending from English to become Spanish – and they will mean exactly the same thing too! Does that sound like easy Spanish? It does and it is.
Take “plastic,” for example. That word becomes “plastico” in Spanish. Well, you wanted easy Spanish, and it surely can’t get any easier than this. When English-speaking people think about learning Spanish they start to see it as one big problem. No hay problema, and if you can’t work out what that Spanish phrase means, then you do have one.
The best way to get to grips with easy Spanish is to learn all the easy words first. The grammar is a little different, but that will follow naturally. Take the phrase mentioned above: “no hay problema. ” It literally means, “not there is problem. ” It won’t take long for anyone to adjust to this way of thinking and make that, “there’s no problem,” its English equivalent. ”
However, let’s stick with the easy Spanish words first. It’s the endings that change in many cases, and it tends to be a regular thing too. As in the example of “plastic” becoming “plastico,” many other words ending in “ic” change to “ico” in Spanish. Clásico, cómico, histérico, metódico, técnico are all examples where you should have little difficulty in guessing what the English equivalent terms are.
It’s not just the “ic” ending words either. Easy Spanish get’s even easier when you bring in all the other groups, such as “abundant” becoming “abundante” in Spanish, “monument” becomes “monumento,” “pianist” becomes “pianista,” “indication” becomes “indicación,” “patent” becomes “patente,” “religious” becomes “religioso. ”
There are even better ones too. Easy Spanish can be very easy at times. How do you spell, “central”? You spell it quite simply as, “central. ” The pronunciation is different from the English (you emphasize the “a” and not the “n”), but it’s delightfully similar and certainly a good example of easy Spanish.
There are others too. Examples include words like, “animal,” “noble,” “admirable,” and “director. ” Usually these kind of words have the same meaning as in English, but sometimes they are a little bit different. The English word, “conductor” applied to a person usually conjures up a picture of someone leading an orchestra. In Spanish it means the driver of a car or other vehicle.
Sometimes easy Spanish needs a little bit of lateral thinking. A car is “coche” in Spanish. You may think at first glance that it’s nothing like the English, but think back to the days of highwaymen roaming the English countryside looking to hold up a coach. Coaches were the cars of those days, and the Spanish word, “coche” is just the modern equivalent.
There certainly are Spanish words that bear no resemblance to their English counterparts, but that’s to be expected; otherwise they would be the same language. Easy Spanish certainly exists, and it’s easy to learn too. Go on, try it!

No comments »

Posted in Articles

Tags: