Still, that's awesome and you're doing damned well, considering!
The truth of the matter is that my Spanish is still pretty crap, as I don't actually use it that much in my daily life. I use Catalan far more because that's what my family here and most of the people I know speak. However, two of our friends are Venezuelan and I meet with one of them and another lady, a total of three times a week, to have a Spanish/English exchange.
I also got into reading a lot in Spanish, very early on, partly because not knowing any Spanish speakers meant it was one of the few ways I had to practise it and partly because there are still a lot of things that are not translated into Catalan but only into Spanish (political bolloc, we won't go there right now!)
I've found that something that's really helpful is reading stuff I've already read in English. The first things I started reading in Spanish were Discworld books. At the moment, I'm about halfway through Dune, which I haven't read in about 20 years! But I'm familiar enough with basically what's going on, to make it easier to get through, even when there are words or phrases I don't know.
Heh, I have an LJ friend who's a Kiwi but lives in Switzerland with her Arentinian husband! She tells me about some of the pronunciation/vocabulary differences from time to time, too. :)
The whole novio thing is very recent so you haven't missed out that much :)
It's been suggested to me that I change my facebook language to Spanish. But I'd just end up getting confused and not knowing what the hell was going on so I think I might leave that for a while ... quite awhile.
Dammit, what else have I missed out on recently?!
Still, that's awesome and you're doing damned well, considering!
The truth of the matter is that my Spanish is still pretty crap, as I don't actually use it that much in my daily life. I use Catalan far more because that's what my family here and most of the people I know speak.
However, two of our friends are Venezuelan and I meet with one of them and another lady, a total of three times a week, to have a Spanish/English exchange.
I also got into reading a lot in Spanish, very early on, partly because not knowing any Spanish speakers meant it was one of the few ways I had to practise it and partly because there are still a lot of things that are not translated into Catalan but only into Spanish (political bolloc, we won't go there right now!)
I've found that something that's really helpful is reading stuff I've already read in English. The first things I started reading in Spanish were Discworld books. At the moment, I'm about halfway through Dune, which I haven't read in about 20 years! But I'm familiar enough with basically what's going on, to make it easier to get through, even when there are words or phrases I don't know.
Heh, I have an LJ friend who's a Kiwi but lives in Switzerland with her Arentinian husband! She tells me about some of the pronunciation/vocabulary differences from time to time, too. :)
Reply
It's been suggested to me that I change my facebook language to Spanish. But I'd just end up getting confused and not knowing what the hell was going on so I think I might leave that for a while ... quite awhile.
Reply
Baby steps. :D
Reply
Leave a comment