Need to learn Spanish!

May 8 05:22 UTC 1995

I am looking for someone to teach me spanish...I've tried all the tapes 
and books for tourists and all the Berlitz, Sunset, and etc. things...
I really need someone to teach me basic words and GRAMMAR!  Can anyone
help me with this?  I do crafting and am an artist and would be willing
to barter...I also write poetry.  Thanks in advance!

response 2 of 12:

Oct 8 00:34 UTC 1995

I would recommend looking at the Spanish item in the language conference.
(j lang). Several of us who read and write Spanish have had exchanges in there
with native Spanish speaking students from Spain and Latin America.
The disadvantage of that item is that we try not to speak English in it.

So we could start right here, mixing Spanish with English, if you think 
that would be helpful. 

If you wrote something in Spanish, I would be happy to look it over.
You could do it in this item, or by sending me mail. The advantage of 
mail is that any errors would not be public, the advantage of the conference,
is that we could make it a group discussion, and benefit from the analysis
of each other's errors.

This exercise could be very useful for reading and writing skills, but 
there is no substitute for immersion, or at least a language lab, if you
want to improve your spoken Spanish.

response 4 of 12:

Oct 8 18:24 UTC 1995

Ja ja ja, muy bueno, Valerie. 

Note that the "ja" is a laugh, as the Spanish "j" is a gutteral fricative "h"
sound, transliterated as "kh" in semitic languages.

Pronounce "La Jolla" in Spanish, and it should come out sounding
(to an English speaker) like "La Hoya", but actually the "H" sound
is different.

OK, I lied, you can do pronunciation this way, but it's tough.

response 6 of 12:

Nov 9 06:37 UTC 1995

Hi Freida. In Spanish, adjectives must agree with their nouns in both
number and gender. The word for day, dia, has feminine form (ends in a)
but is irregular and masculine. Its plural, dias, is masculine too.
So the proper form of the adjective "good" buen, is masculine plural.

Buenos Dias.

"Agua" (water) is another masculine noun in drag. (El agua).

(pretty tricky, huh?)

response 8 of 12:

Nov 10 06:51 UTC 1995

Agua is singular, Valerie, so the correct form is Bueno.
Also, in most cases, descriptive adjectives follow the nouns they modify,
so if you are trying to say "good water", it should come out
"Agua bueno"

"Dias buenos" means "good days" -- it is not an idiom.
"Buenos Dias" means "good day" and is idiomatic, signifying roughly "hello".
Even though it is an idiom, and the meaning is thus unexpected, the
words still agree in gender and number. This is universal in Spanish.

response 10 of 12:

Nov 14 03:13 UTC 1995

Muchas gracias, Sen~orita popcorn.

response 12 of 12:

Sep 24 18:03 UTC 2001

(I hope all those dictionaries and tutorials for improving your
language still write you and your.)