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comment by user-inactivated
user-inactivated  ·  1744 days ago  ·  link  ·    ·  parent  ·  post: Pubski: July 10, 2019

Thanks for the offer, and I hope to not offend by passing on it. I try my best to be respectful of copyright laws and such.

That said, I'm learning a few different ways. I just recently picked up two books, one on grammer and the other a direct translation dictionary for Latin American Spanish and English, both of which will go nicely with a verb dictionary Dala already owns. I definitely need help on the grammer end and obviously, there's no such thing as too much vocabulary.

As for learning it, I'm doing a few things. The majority of time that I watch Netflix now, for example, it's with Spanish audio. I don't absorb words very efficiently that way, but when I do learn words, they stick really well, like an "Aha!" type of discovery. I've learned words from bruja to lugar to ayuda this way. I also watch videos on YouTube as well. I'm a huge fan of Ana and her Butterfly Spanish Videos because she's pretty good natured and that honestly helps a lot. Easy Spanish is mostly conversations, especially with people on the street, so while it's less structured and academic, it's pretty interesting because you get to hear a lot of the different ways people talk. There's quite a few other good channels, but those two stick out as being pretty unique. The rest are your standard phrases and vocab building videos. Lastly, I try to read spanish out in the wild alongside English whenever possible. Product packaging, instructions, labels, you name it. I learn some interesting words that way, like advertencia or incendio or peso.





user-inactivated  ·  1744 days ago  ·  link  ·  

No offense taken at all.

I'll take a gander at Ana. A teacher's attitude really does make the difference - goes for any subject.

Regional dialects/accents can be fun to hear.

Semi-related, my current roommates are from Brazil. Their Portuguese sounds nothing like a Spanish relative to me half the time. Their cousin who came over could have fooled me otherwise.

¡Buena suerte!

johnnyFive  ·  1744 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Portuguese is funny that way. I can barely understand anything when I hear Portuguese spoken, but then reading it and it's surprisingly comprehensible.

user-inactivated  ·  1744 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Exactly! It has to be the way they enunciate, though I'm curious about how the regional accents stack up against eachother. My roommates joke a bit how some accents are incomprehensible to them.

user-inactivated  ·  1744 days ago  ·  link  ·  

I've known a few people from Brazil through my life. One guy in particular, a man with swagger, used to brag the Brazilian Portuguese had the manliness of Spanish and the flowery romance of French. I've always loved that description.

user-inactivated  ·  1744 days ago  ·  link  ·  

Totally borrowing this in conversation.