Learning the Spanish Language — Project Day 34

Demonstrative pronouns

Locate the position of the thing being talked about — relative to the speaker.

These expressions fulfil the same function in English:

This (one)
That (one)
These (ones)
Those (ones)

Obviously, these are some of the first expressions you are taught in any language. But advanced performance is often about using the basics more subtley — rather than merely accumulating new globs of knowledge. This is especially true of 'edge cases' where ambiguity or outright misunderstanding can arise from less than perfect usage.

In this case, the variation of Spanish mascuine singular endings, from the typical noun form, provide constant potential for error. I'd guess the same applies to differences between the ways Spanish and my other languages use 'one(s)' implictly or explictly.

Common irregular verbs

I did 24 simple translations employing the following verbs in the present indicative:

dar
decir
hacer
ír
jugar
oír
poder
poner
querer
salir
venir
ver

I got 100%, but not without looking up a few forms for the rarely used subjects, e.g. vosotros.

It was a reminder that I'm better at using some of these verbs in the more difficult tenses and moods, than I am in the simple present.

That's not a desperate problem, because I recognise all the forms and I was OK for pretty much all the subject positions, that I or my interlocuters are likely to regularly occupy — I'm very rarely going to be addressing 'you all / youse' informally.

That said, I did struggle to recall forms for dar and juego — where my sensitivity to their changes in the preterite forced a double take, before I recalled their comparatively regular present forms.

Even More on Para and Estar

Again, because that's just what Michalis happened to be talking about in today's Language Transfer recording.

Once upon a time I would have skipped through this, checking only to see if there was some new wrinkle, that I didn't already know about.

But in recent years I've become painfully aware of how skin-deep much of my previous language learning has been. So right from the start of this project, I've been determined to give maximum attention to embedding and enriching the basics — and tried to be relaxed about how slowly I'm adding fundamentally new knowlege.

The Progressive Present and Past Tenses

Another unplanned pair of topics encountered in today's Language Transfer recording. And two of the tenses which come most easily to English speakers — because we use them so much.

Obviously, we need to be careful, because Spanish speakers use them far less. So the Mihailis stresses the fact that many meanings of the past progressive will be expressed by Spaniards using the imperfect. He's not really explicit about when Spaniards use one tense rather than the other, but I infer that the progressive is reserved for contexts in which the ongoing/active character of the action is being stressed, e.g. when the action is synchronised with other events or actions.

English Gerunds vs. Spanish Infinitives

Obviously, since the progressive tenses make use of the gerund form, Mihalis is keen to point out that you can't use the Spanish gerund in the same way that English uses verb forms ending in '-ing' as the adjectives, e.g. the ringing bell, the singing bird, etc.

Apart from pointing out that Spanish speakers will often use infinitives with prepositions to communicate the same idea, it also provides him with a conveniet segue into the topic of deriving Spanish adjectives from infintives.

Deriving Adjectives from Infinitives

By replacing '-ar' and '-er/ir' endings with '-ante' and '-ente/-iente' respectively.

Another thing that comes easily to English speakers, because of the huge number of nouns and adjectives we have that end in '-ant', '-iant', -ent', 'ient', etc — a rather salient point, eh?

Tener, Hacer and the Preterite

I'm currently working my way through Pimsleur Spanish 2. It's pretty basic, but giving me lots of opportunity to practice speaking. And providing I don't pause too often, it can still be quite challenging to respond immediately and correctly to hundreds of commands per 30 minute session.

I'm absolutely sure it helps. Not least because the repetitions within and between sessions gradually enable stock phrases to come out naturally, with very little calculation.

I did trip up on a couple of occasions — getting the use of tener and hacer the wrong way around, when first describing the weather and a person's age. But I got both right in all subsequent instances.

The session also threw in a few unnanounced uses of the preterite. The first one also tripped me up, because I just wasn't expecting it — I used the perfect. Thereafter, I interpreted or constructed preterite expressions with 100% success. Another motivating reassurance.

Verbs Requiring the Preposition 'a'

In specific cases. Usually between the verb and a following noun or verb.

N.B. Don't confuse this preposition 'a' — with the personal 'a'

I made about 5-6 errors in exercises on this topic, but none of them were the use of the preposition 'a' with verbs.

Mostly a mixture of my usual sloppiness with gender or subject agreement and two cases of choosing the 'wrong' verb. Wrong in the sense of not quite as close to the translation given in the solution. One of the latter really doesn't matter, but the case where I chose a verb that didn't require 'a' was clearly an error — even if the semantics were OK.

The textbook lists 50+ verbs that take 'a' — quite a few of which I've never encountered before. Since the exercises used less than half of them, I need to do some work of my own on the rest. Composing sentences to use them would be useful. Not least because I could then translate them into English and use them for revision translations later.

Learning Tasks Checklist

Task	M	T	W	T	F	S
Word/phrase aural+oral	✓	✓	✓	✕	✓	✓
Sentence aural+oral	✓	✓	✕	✕	✓	✓
Socratic aural+oral	✓	✓	✕	✕	✓	✓
Verb exercises	✓	✓	✕	✕	✓	✓
Pronoun exercises	✓	✓	✕	✕	✓	✓
Preposition exercises	✓	✓	✓	✕	✓	✓
Reading	✓	✓	✕	✕	✕	✕
Physical exercise	✕	✕	✕	✕	✕	✕
Non-subbed video	✓	✕	✓	✕	✕	✓
Subbed video	✓	✕	✓	✓	✓	✕
Research lang. learning	✕	✕	✓	✕	✕	✕
List 'issues'	✓	✓	✕	✕	✕	✓
Prepare materials	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓