DKC Atlas Forum

[Kiddy14]

Eu concluo minhas aulas na sexta-feira.

Yay! I'm learning portuguese

[gamer_boy997]

Cuál es la diá favorita de semana?

I needed a dictionary for "of", cual es "de" en espanól .

[PotoGamer]

Pretty good! It should be: "Cuál es tu día favorito de la semana?", but that's okay.

Mi día favorito de la semana es el sábado, porque es el unico día en el cual me puedo relajar.

[gamer_boy997]

Mi día favarita es viernes, porque comienza el fin de semana.

I needed a translator for everything after the comma.

[PotoGamer]

That's really good, the only error I noticed was that it's supposed to be spelled favorito, but if it's used on a female noun it would be spelled favorita. (example: mi día favorito, mi canción favorita)

Time for a random tip: "Porque" is written differently depending on what it's used. If it's used in a question it is written as "por qué", but if you use it in an answer it would be written as "porque".

[Kiddy14]

"Cuál es tu día favorito de la semana?"

Cual doesn't need an ortographical accent

This is called acento diacrítico, it says one syllable words must only be accentuated when specifying ambiguity; for example, "el" must have accent when you're talking about the third person singular pronoun: "Él leyó un libro."; while "el" without accent is actually the male article, as in: "El libro azul." That way, you can differenciate a sentence like "Él leyó el libro".

[PotoGamer]

Are you sure that it doesn't need an accent? I thought that all words that were used in an interrogative sentence needed it. But now that I think about it, it does make sense to not add the accent, since cual doesn't have a another way to be used, it wouldn't need to be differentiated with an accent. Wow, I guess I totally proved myself I was wrong.

[gamer_boy997]

Ugh... I use words on a translator, but I end up with a bunch of different words in the results... help me!


EDIT: I probably should have said this a long time ago, but...

I LUUUV when English speakers talk in spanish and pronounce the "R" the English way, instead of the Spanish Way,

Well, I would LUUUV to pronounce it the Spanish way, but my tongue finds it difficult for some reason, so...

[PotoGamer]

Well, online translators have their faults, and there's no way to fix them (unless you buy a human translation, but those things are expensive). I don't really know how to avoid those mistranslations, but if you want a better translation, you should try using very simple words. I don't really have much experience with these things, since I rarely ever use them. But if you need to translate something, post it here!

One time, my family was staying at a hotel and there was this guy who was talking to a woman and my sister and I were in front of them. The man was saying "You should totally dump that guy, he has no feelings for you. He's just a piece of [insert s word here]" and my sister and I were talking about how it looks like some kind of soap opera. Of course it's rude, but you CANNOT resist seeing how funny it was

[gamer_boy997]

^ Yeah, you can't always trust the internet.

Mi primero idioma era inglés. Yo soy aprendizaje español.

I needed a dictionary for some of this, and I didn't get a mouthfull this time .

[Kiddy14]

The problem with online translators is that they translate everything literally. If you say "The letter was for Pete" it may translate it as "La letra era para Pete" while the correct translation was "La carta era para Pete".

I think you meant: "Mi primer idioma es el inglés. Yo estoy aprendiendo español".

About your problem trying to pronounce the "strong R", try putting a pencil in your mouth while pronouncing words like "río", "carreta", or "carnaza".

Tip: In spanish, as in many languages, the verb "to be" is translated in the verbs "ser" or "estar" according to the context. "Ser" means something you are as in present simple, while "estar" is something you are doing or is happening to you, as in present continous. Examples:

I am reading a book.
[Yo] estoy leyendo un libro.
I am a lawyer.
[Yo] soy un abogado.
She is really grateful with you.
[Ella] está muy agradecida con usted.
They are very kind with me. I don't know why they're behaving like that with you.
[Ellos] son muy buenos conmigo. [Yo] no se por qué [ellos] están comportándose así contigo.

[gamer_boy997]

^ You do know I'm not an expert like you, right? I barely have any idea what you are saying .

Uno azul manzana.

Manzanas son no azul!

Umm... I ran into the translating problem again, I don't know what "are" is in Spanish, so I went with "son".

EDIT:

About your problem trying to pronounce the "strong R", try putting a pencil in your mouth while pronouncing words like "río", "carreta", or "carnaza".

I know, we are supposed to roll our "R's" by rolling our tongue, but I stink at it, I already tried rolling my tongue, it doesn't help. Can't you Spanish people live with us pronouncing the "R's" our way? You guys have trouble with our language, so we will run into trouble in your language, we live with your mistakes, so you can live with our mistakes, right?

EDIT 2: I even tried the pencil technique, (even though I don't think it was literate), and I STILL couldn't get it. I'm not going to try again right now, because all I do is get upset that I can't do it .

[Kiddy14]

I know =P But I enjoy linguistics, so I'm kind of geeky in the subject =P

Well, you see. I'm mexican, so I speak spanish; my language's phonetics are more "opened" than english's, we gesticulate more; and english has too many "intermedium" sounds, like "tear", "read", "create"; so I DO HAVE an accent in a way. The "R" sound from english isn't in spanish, and the "hard R" sound in spanish isn't in english; but when I talk in english I pronounce the "R" the "english way", the movies I talked about are 50 years old, when studying abroad or learning another language wasn't really a priority, and people didn't bother trying to pronounce things correctly. So I think there's nothing wrong with you having an accent, but when it is about OFFICIAL pronunciation, you must do it correctly =P

About your problem pronouncing the "hard R", don't be too harsh with yourself, it is hard for somebody who has never pronounced it before, let's see if this one works for you... put your tongue just like you would do when pronouncing an english R, now in that position stick it to your palate and try to get some air to go in between your tongue and palate, but don't let your tongue unstick too much from the palate, you will eventually make a sound similar to a cat's purring, go on and let a little more air get through and, with a little more practice, you'll get the sound

[gamer_boy997]

^ I'm currently trying, but instead of a cat purring, I get some sort of frog croak , I'll probably get it soon though, I might just not be practicing enough.

EDIT: I looked around the internet, and found out that a tip was to say words like "butter" and find how you flick your tongue, and do the same with the "R's" in Spanish, is that something that works? If so, I might be doing it right, but still, it seems to sound like a frog croak.

This might be the problem: I seem to be using my throat more than my tongue , could that possibly be a problem?

[Kiddy14]

"Butter" would be ok to practice the "soft R", but I don't see how it would help with the "hard R" =P

Try doing what Selena did, say "reloj" =P

About the throat thing, put your tongue in the front of your palate, not in its back.

[gamer_boy997]

Soft R and hard R? I thought it was short R and long R .

[Kiddy14]

You can call it short R or soft R, as well as either long R or hard R.
It depends in the region, here we call the "w" "doble u", but in other places it is called "doble ve".

[gamer_boy997]

^ Yeah, in cursive, the w actually looks like a "double u", but in manuscript, the w actually looks like a "double v", but it's still called a "double u".

I'm still tring to get the Spanish R correctly, lots of other people have trouble too, it doesn't usually take a day to learn it, so it will probably be a while.

Besides, I should be focusing on the actual Spanish language rather than the consanant sounds.

Spoiler!

Lunes
Martes
Miercoles
Jueves
Viernes
Sabado
Domingo

The reason why the Spanish R is important is because there are two different R sounds, and some words only differ from these R sounds. I guess I could use the English R for short R, and squeeze in two English R's when nessassary...

EDIT: Cuál es tu temporada de la año favorito?

[gamer_boy997]

What does "para" mean? If it means to, then what does "a" mean?

[Kiddy14]

It also means "to".

Beware... the long-y examples list is coming

[Yo] los ocupo para mejorar el proyecto.
I need them to improve the project.
[Yo] voy a correr.
I'm going to run.

When to use them... there might be an explanation, but if there isn't one, anything left would be memorizing when they're used.

[gamer_boy997]

I see...

Cuál es tu la tempora de el año favorita?

[PotoGamer]

Nice! Only 3 errors: 1. Cual does not need a tilde; 2. season: temporada; And I think you need to use "del" instead of "de el", but I don't really know how that works...Oh, and you made a typo at the start: "Cual es tu...", not "Cual es tu la".

Mi temporada del año favorita es el Invierno, porque durante esa temporada hace más frío.

EDIT: Ugh, I accidentally ended up pressing the submit button because my mouse was acting crazy. And because of that, I forgot to write something:

Cuál es la tuya?

[Kiddy14]

Yes, "de el" becomes "del" and "a el" becomes "al".

I'll tell you something, last weekend I realized "cuál" does have an accent when being in a question, so yeah, sorry for corrupting your minds

I'm curious gamer_boy, what spanish are you learning at school? I mean hispanic american spanish, or iberian spanish?

[gamer_boy997]

^ I have no idea .

¡Mi temporada predilecta es el verano, ninguna escuela!

Needed a translator for that .

[PotoGamer]

predilecta

Uh...what? I've never heard of that word. Online translators use some strange words at times...You can simply use favorito/favorita instead of predilecta, since that's what's typically used. That, or maybe it's used more in other Spanish speaking countries. But all that aside, I don't see any other errors.

¿Cuál es tu canal de televisión favorito?

[Kiddy14]

Mi canal de televisión favorito es Nickelodeon.

Predilecta is used mostly in Spain, and translators base everything in Spain ¬¬
Is funny reading "nerd" being translated as "empollón" XD

Well, let's see. Here I'm learning using the American accent. That means I'm learning using a rhotic accent. In Spain, letter "s" sounds different than "c" preceded by letters "e" and "i" and letter "z". In Hispanic America (and some very little Spain zones), letters "s", "c" and "z" sound the same no matter what. This phenomena is called "seseo".

So yeah, if I'm rhotic, would you say you are "seseante" or not? =P

[Shadow]

My native tongue is finnish, but I'm pretty good at english. But I suck at swedish.

[CrankyMan]

I speak Croatian, am I the only one that speaks it???