Jamesito´s Spanish Corner, Everyone welcome to discuss practical Spanish!!! Options

[Jamesito]

Come on people!!!!! this is supposed to be an active forum, all levals of spanish welcome from absoulte begineer to Advanced Speakers!!!! Help with School Homework, translations, Life in Latin America and Spain. Anything goes, so just ask a question!

Jamesito

[shellshock1911]

Check out this site that my Spanish teacher showed me at school!

http://www.uni.edu/becker/Spanish3.html

And you can test your Spanish here. I got 22 out of 40 questions right. The verb tenses killed me.

http://www.esl-languages.com/en/study-abro...-test/index.htm

[Jamesito]

22 is good!!!! I´m not very good with tenses either all the time and some of the questions could have been more than one of those answers! I got 33 which is good aswell, I would imagine a Spaniard or Latin American should be getting 36 or more. That test is desinged for a languagers school to gauge your level! Most school´s run on the same system so it´s easy to join the right group for you,

A1- Total Begineers
A2 - Begineers

B1 - Intermediate
B2 - Upper Intermediate

C1 - Advanced
C2 - Perfecting small errors - Fluent

When I studied in Barcelona I stared at B1 and finished on B2 after a few weeks of intensive clases. Now I would say I´m C1, by the end of next year I should be C3 - Master lol . At the end of the day this is just a guide you could be an amazing speaker and still end up in B1 for your bad written grammar... that´s what that test really is... it´s part of a complex struture, so I would be pleased with your 22 for the moment and look to try the test again in a few months and try and imprive your score.

Jamesito

[shellshock1911]

Awesome.

Can you help me with this?

Like how would you say "I JUST went to the movies."

I was reading in my book and it said something like, use acabar de + infinitive. Ok, well if you were to say "I went," it would be "Fui," right? Well in this case you would change the conjugated form to infinitive right? So it would be "Acabo de ir al cine?" Just trying to get this cleared up and any extra comments or tips on the matter would much appreciated. Thx!

[Jamesito]

Awesome.

Can you help me with this?

Like how would you say "I JUST went to the movies."

I was reading in my book and it said something like, use acabar de + infinitive. Ok, well if you were to say "I went," it would be "Fui," right? Well in this case you would change the conjugated form to infinitive right? So it would be "Acabo de ir al cine?" Just trying to get this cleared up and any extra comments or tips on the matter would much appreciated. Thx!

Hola,

Acabar de + infinitive is correct if you have just finished doing something like watching a film, Acabo de ver una pelicula!,

The problem with using "irse" is that is sounds strange in Spanish for that particular use. Be careful when talking about going, coming and arriving in Spanish. You cannot say I am going to come to the cinema tonight when talking to someone who is there all ready like you can in english (Voy a venir al cine está noche) it´s bad grammar, as it would be "Voy a irme al cine está noche".

"Acabo de irme al cine" - I have never said that in my life hehe gramatically it looks ok but I don´t like the use of irse here!!! it looks wrong to me personally but ask one of the spanish speakiers here to see if it exists...

My examples


Acabo de llegar del cine or Recien regreso del cine - I just got back from the cinema.

Me fui al cine - I went to the cinema

Those two are both ok for what you want to say i think, Peace

Jamesito









Recien Regreso del cine or Acabo de llegar del cine - I Have just come back from the cinema.

[shellshock1911]

Right now I am doing demonstrative adjectives.

Ok let me see if I am doing every thing right.

Este coche - This car
Esta silla - This chair
Estos tiendas - These stores
Estas Paredes - These Walls (awesome song by the way)
Ese coche- That car
Esa silla- That chair
Esos tiendas- Those stores
Esas Paredes- Those walls

And if you are asking a question and gender is unknown. It is "Qué es esto?," verdad?\

And I will probably be using this forum a lot over the next year at least, so if no one else is asking questions, I will still be! My spanish teacher told me Spanish 3 and 4 are taught entirely in Spanish are extremely tough, so that I should be speaking very good if not almost fluent Spanish by the time I get out of Spanish 4. In Spanish 3 they jam all the verb tenses and everything to do with grammar in you and make you learn unreal amounts of words at home. Then Spanish 4 is just entirely comprehensive review of everything you have learned. No doubt in my mind that I am willing to do all that and by the time I am done I will only be a junior in high school, so I can get started on Mandarin Chinese next!

This post has been edited by shellshock1911: Mar 7 2008, 03:50 AM

[Juan M. Valero]

...And here in Miami about 95% of people speak Spanish, so my lack of it hurts ...

mmm interesting... I will come to MIAMI when I will be rich

[Jamesito]

Shellshock,

Yeah, to be honest there is not a great deal of intrest in this room yet but as this is a guitar forum im not surprised, I might be inactive for a while in Latin America as I dont have internet, but i will try me best to moderate this thread. All your stuff before was ok, no problems there. This year I will be teaching english in Spain so I´m gonna have to touch up on my english lol, it´s soo bad.

Juan,

Yeah I´m gonna visit Miami this year to buy some guitars and chill out, Miami is really cool but you need plata man!!!!

Jamesito

[shellshock1911]

Shellshock,

Yeah, to be honest there is not a great deal of intrest in this room yet but as this is a guitar forum im not surprised, I might be inactive for a while in Latin America as I dont have internet, but i will try me best to moderate this thread. All your stuff before was ok, no problems there. This year I will be teaching english in Spain so I´m gonna have to touch up on my english lol, it´s soo bad.

Juan,

Yeah I´m gonna visit Miami this year to buy some guitars and chill out, Miami is really cool but you need plata man!!!!

Jamesito

Yea np. What are these verb tense called, and how are they used in Spanish?

"He was taken from his home."
"I have noticed your errors."
"I used to have car."

This post has been edited by shellshock1911: Mar 8 2008, 05:34 PM

[Jamesito]

Yea np. What are these verb tense called, and how are they used in Spanish?

"He was taken from his home."
"I have noticed your errors."
"I used to have a car."

The first one is normal past tense, this would cover a action that has occured once and has been completed in the past some time ago, "Me fui al cine" I went to the cinema, action has ended and it´s definate.

The second one is intresting bascially the action has been completed but recently in the past. In spain an example would be "He hablado con Laura Hoy" I have spoken to laura today, in latin america they would say Hablé con laura hoy (using the nomal past tense) both are correct but the first example is better.

The third is imperfect tense, used to explain an action that is continious in the past or when describing something in the past. So for a continous action "Estaba muy enfermo la semana pasada", you were not just ill once, u were ill for a duration of time. Describing the past "La casa era gigante" the house was gigantic, so used for description of anyking.

Hope thats ok

Jamesito

[shellshock1911]

Ok sorry this is driving me crazy. Reflexive pronouns.
Ok in all these I am doing action to myself.
Let's say I want to say when I eat breakfast.

I see stuff like:

-Generalmente no desayurarme hasta la ocho

-Generalmente no me desayurar hasta la ocho

Or I want to say I look at myself in the mirror

-Mirarme en el espejo

-Me mirar en el espejo

Why does the reflexive pronoun go infront of the verb sometimes and sometimes it is attached to the end of the infinitive? Does it matter which way I want to do it?

And when using reflexive pronouns, do you always use the infinitive?

Like if you want someone to bring you a fork, do you say

Me traigo un tenedor
Me traes un tenedor
Me trae un tenedor (affirmative)
Me traer un tenedor
Traerme un tenedor

This post has been edited by shellshock1911: Mar 10 2008, 02:58 AM

[stratman33]

I am taking a basic French and Spanish class at my middle school so i only know basic stuff like how to introduce myself and ask hows it going

Me llamo Tyler

Como estas?

[shellshock1911]

I am taking a basic French and Spanish class at my middle school so i only know basic stuff like how to introduce myself and ask hows it going

Me llamo Tyler

Como estas?

Cool if you ever want to advance a bit just ask me . I would say I am at intermediate level, I am working up to advanced. I can show you how to break down those two phrases.

"To call" is "llamar." Since you want to say "I call myself Tyler," you use "llamo." "Me" is like saying "me" or "myself" in English, but it goes in front of the verb "llamo." I think this is all correct.

Como- How?
Estas- You are/are you?

[shellshock1911]

Hehe, I have gotten a lot better since I last posted here...Throw something at me, anything, and I will see if I can translate it, it doesn't matter if it Spanish to English or English to Spanish.

[Pablo Vazquez]

Esto sonará probablemente realmente estúpido porque su tomado de un translater. en línea. hehe

[Vinod Saranga]

Great thread thanks.
I was looking for a way to learn spanish.

[Henry Dietzel]

I just came across this thread and after reading I was
reminded of how wonderful the people are at GMC

A special thanks to Jamesito for the original post and Luli for filling in the list
You both rock

\m/[(>.<)]\m/

This post has been edited by Henry Dietzel: Sep 4 2008, 03:37 AM

[FrankW]

How do you say, "I appreciate your situation, but you can't just sneak into my country illegally and expect me to welcome you with open arms, my taxes are high enough!"?

This post has been edited by FrankW: Sep 9 2008, 10:47 PM

[Fran]

How do you say, "I appreciate your situation, but you can't just sneak into my country illegally and expect me to welcome you with open arms, my taxes are high enough!"?

It would be something like this:

Entiendo tu situación, pero no puedes colarte ilegalmente sin más en mi pais y esperar que te de la bienvenida con los brazos abiertos, ¡mis impuestos ya son lo bastante altos!

Weird sentence you have chosen!

[DeepRoots]

How do you say, "I appreciate your situation, but you can't just sneak into my country illegally and expect me to welcome you with open arms, my taxes are high enough!"?

Oh my ..