スペイン語
Now that I'm in my second week of learning Spanish from basically scratch (I could barely count to ten and not much else), I'm finding that:
1) For the first time In my life, I'm learning a language the hard way. That is, going in knowing little to nothing about it. Japanese always came easy to me, but Spanish is making me feel bad for everyone else who always has trouble learning languages. It also makes me want to bang my head against a wall sometimes.
2) Spanish pronunciation is easier than English pronunciation, and also very similar to Japanese pronunciation. The vowels are used similarly and have only one sound each (unlike English, where vowel pronunciation is half a guessing game and half stupidity) and even the rolled R sounds similar to the Japanese R. This is the main reason why I will learn Spanish before even attempting French, as I am, according to my previous roommate, incapable of pronouncing the French R.
3) When teaching foreign languages, explanations are crucial, and you need people of the same level if you want a class to go smoothly. Unfortunately, these are not happening in my class, where the majority have already taken spanish in high school and my teacher likes to ramble in Spanish for extended periods of time.
4) It seems that my one year of high school latin will pay off later on when we learn verb conjugations. bam bas bat. bamus batis bant. It's the chant that Ms. P promised we would never forget, and I still haven't, for the most part. Romance languages were based off of Latin, so it makes sense.
In other news, I worked on book reviews at my internship today. Something I found I was quite proficient at, really. The process was simple, and I did do quite a few. The only problem is, my "to read book list" has once again increased by two books. Luckily, these books don't come in until the end of January and February, so I still have time to wait on those while I try to finish reading everything else.
Nos Vemos! (See you!) <----See, you only learn/understand it if you also have the English translation! (see "Chosho's What I'm Finding out Through Learning Spanish List", #3)
1) For the first time In my life, I'm learning a language the hard way. That is, going in knowing little to nothing about it. Japanese always came easy to me, but Spanish is making me feel bad for everyone else who always has trouble learning languages. It also makes me want to bang my head against a wall sometimes.
2) Spanish pronunciation is easier than English pronunciation, and also very similar to Japanese pronunciation. The vowels are used similarly and have only one sound each (unlike English, where vowel pronunciation is half a guessing game and half stupidity) and even the rolled R sounds similar to the Japanese R. This is the main reason why I will learn Spanish before even attempting French, as I am, according to my previous roommate, incapable of pronouncing the French R.
3) When teaching foreign languages, explanations are crucial, and you need people of the same level if you want a class to go smoothly. Unfortunately, these are not happening in my class, where the majority have already taken spanish in high school and my teacher likes to ramble in Spanish for extended periods of time.
4) It seems that my one year of high school latin will pay off later on when we learn verb conjugations. bam bas bat. bamus batis bant. It's the chant that Ms. P promised we would never forget, and I still haven't, for the most part. Romance languages were based off of Latin, so it makes sense.
In other news, I worked on book reviews at my internship today. Something I found I was quite proficient at, really. The process was simple, and I did do quite a few. The only problem is, my "to read book list" has once again increased by two books. Luckily, these books don't come in until the end of January and February, so I still have time to wait on those while I try to finish reading everything else.
Nos Vemos! (See you!) <----See, you only learn/understand it if you also have the English translation! (see "Chosho's What I'm Finding out Through Learning Spanish List", #3)