¿Qué hace ahora mismo? My tutor said that daily ask yourself simple questions through the course of the day and just try to answer it with very simple sentences.
¿Qué hace ahora mismo?
Ava Dawn
November 15, 2014
Ava Dawn
November 15, 2014
Ahora mismo estoy bebiendo un café. I am doing this from the top of my head. Someone please correct if there is a better way of saying this. En manana, nosotros celebramos el cuarenta y cinco anniversario de bodas. Hay una Misa de accion de gracias con mis familias y amigos.
Dan-H24
November 15, 2014
Aurora: Esta es un buena idea. Traigo yo hablo en español todos los días. Deseo que tuviera un perro con quien hablar.
Pienso que tu primero frase es correcto.
¡Felicitaciones para tu anniversario!
Ava Dawn
November 15, 2014
Ahora mismo, juego con mi computadora y estoy esperando por mi esposo para ir a la iglesia "Nuestra Senora, Reyna de los Angeles". Cantaba en el coro cada sabado a las cinco y media de la tarde. Estoy muy feliz.
Robert-C7
November 15, 2014
Pues, para practicar...fuimos a comer dim sum a un restaurante en Irvine. Los signos en el baño estaban en español y chino.
Ava Dawn
November 20, 2014
Hoy en mi trabajo, celebramos la Dia de Gracias. Todos empleados "brought" muchas comidas. Robert como se dice bathroom in chino?
Robert-C7
November 20, 2014
Bathroom in Chinese literally translates to "wash hands room". It is this:
洗手间 (xǐshǒujiān)
Ava Dawn
November 21, 2014
Wow! It can't be phonetic?
Robert-C7
November 21, 2014
洗手间 is Hanzi, which is what Chinese people use for writing. xǐshǒujiān is the same thing written in Pinyin, a writing system that the China implemented to help people learn Chinese. The markings on top of the vowels (diacritics) indicate which of the four tones to use.
Note that Pinyin is used to show how to pronounce words in Mandarin, the primary dialect in China. There are many other dialects which are mutually unintelligible, the most famous being Cantonese. All dialects use the same writing system, Hanzi.
maha266
November 23, 2014
can someone explain please;
¿Qué hace ahora mismo?
i understand it latterly .. what are you doing now -the same-?
still not makes sense to me .. Is mismo means something else here?
Ava Dawn
November 24, 2014
What are you doing right now.
Ahora mismo, yo "looking at" la fotografia de DanH24. Very beautiful. Just did not finish enjoying the scenes. My computer stopped. I have to go back later on. I still have to look for that particular altar that he took while in Cuba.
Ava Dawn
November 25, 2014
Ahora mismo, estoy comiendo, muy delicioso y muy rico in el barco. I wish my Spanish is so much better so I can share what's happening in the cruise. George and I love cruising that we almost go every year, sometimes twice a year. We live in Southern California where we can go to Hawaii without taking an airplane. The cruise ships leave LA harbor aand after 2 weeks will take us back to Los Angeles.
Dan-H24
November 25, 2014
Ahora mismo estoy revisando lección 7.3. En una hora voy a montar mi bicicleta montaña.
Aurora: ¿Hace cuántos días ir en barco desde Los Angeles hasta Hawaii?
Ava Dawn
November 26, 2014
16 days back and forth. Hoy, nosotros somos en Ensenada, Mexico (estamos?) hasta a las cuatro de la tarde.
Dan-H24
November 26, 2014
I think your self-correction is correct. We use estar when we are talking about location, right?
Cristian-Montes-de-Oca
November 26, 2014
Aurora!!!!! You are in Ensenada???? Cool, welcome to my State, Baja California!
Ava Dawn
November 27, 2014
Gracias Cristian! Ensenada is beautiful!
Dan-H24
November 28, 2014
Ahora mismo estoy escribiendo una composición sobre la vida de Lazarillo de Tormes.
Ava Dawn
December 7, 2014
Estoy en el salón de belleza de mi cabello de color.
Dan-H24
December 7, 2014
Ahora mismo voy a estudiar Rocket Spanish.
Ava Dawn
January 17, 2015
Today I took a 40 question Spanish test and only got 11 out of 40. Estoy muy triste. But it's okay. At least I know where I am and what I still need to do in Spanish. I know one thing. Conversational Spanish is no longer my main goal. I want to learn how to write essays in Spanish without using the dictionary or google translation. I got spoiled with Rocket Spanish with the high scores and all, getting also close to 100 points in the RS tests.
Ava Dawn
January 18, 2015
I keep getting offers from Rosetta Stone and I wanted to raise up the ante. I looked at the 5 levels and they seem to give examples of phrases and sentences in the present tense only. Rocket Spanish with the Premium Plus already starts with the Preterite and the Past Imperfect. Anybody out there have tried out the Rosetta Stone? How was it? It is supposed to be the gold standard on language learning.
Robert-C7
January 18, 2015
I have used Rosetta Stone for Spanish and Chinese. I am almost through level 3 of Rosetta Stone Spanish. Each level has four units and each unit has four lessons. They introduce the preterite in unit 6 (level 2) and the imperfect and future tenses around unit 8 and 9 (end of level 2 and beginning of level 3). They have also been throwing in some subjunctive and imperative sentences. I have not yet gone through level 4 or 5 so I can't really tell you what is in it.
The thing about Rosetta Stone is that there is no English translations and there is no grammar explanations. So, you need to supplement your learning. You learn the language by seeing pictures with the Spanish text below. You are supposed to let is soak in and learn it more intuitively, like a child. Some people like this, others hate it.
They do have an online component which you can pay extra for - about $99/year. For that, you get access to their games, you get access to the course materials online, and most important, you get four (4) 30-minute live group tutor sessions per month. They have two unique sessions per unit, and in a 5 level course, that totals 40 different sessions.
I recommend both Rocket Spanish and Rosetta Stone. If you get Rosetta Stone, be sure you get the online component and be sure you do the studio sessions.
Dan-H24
January 18, 2015
I can see the advantage of associating pictures of known objects with their words in the new language. In fact, I read somewhere that doing that is good because it starts to build bridges in the brain from object to new word without the English word being processed in the middle. I try to do that when I read; just visualize what is being described without translating into English in my head. Sometimes it works, other times not so much.
I do think the lack of grammar education would be a disadvantage, though. As we all know, some Spanish sentences follow the same grammar patterns as the English. Others do not. A good example is the posting I made yesterday, "Me duele el corazon." Without grammar lessons educating us to facts such as when talking about body parts in Spanish, the verb is preceded by a personal pronoun and the body or body part is preceded by an article and never a pronoun as it is in English, how would we ever make sense of such sentences?
But, as Robert said, you need to supplement Rosetta Stone, as you do Rocket Spanish and I imagine, every other program out there.
Steven-W15
January 18, 2015
I totally agree: each program has its own strengths and weaknesses. If I'm out walking around, I do Barron's (originates from the US Department of Defense) which concentrates on doing drills (boring perhaps but very helpful). If I can sit in front of my PC, I find that nothing is better than Rocket Spanish.
Dan-H24
January 18, 2015
Steven: what is the deal with Barron's? I was looking around for it online and didn't find much info on the program itself.
I did, however, find a book called 1001 Pitfalls in Spanish by Barron's that looks interesting.
Steven-W15
January 18, 2015
Dan: The course is "Barron's Mastering Spanish Level 2" (the highest level). If you google this, you can purchase the CD's at Amazon (for example). From the CDs I converted these into mp4 files to put on to my iPod. I have found this to be the perfect complement to Rocket Spanish.
Steven-W15
January 19, 2015
A few caveats to add here. The book that comes with the course is really big, heavy and incredibly poorly done. The only thing I've used it for is to look up a few phrases I couldn't understand on the audio.
The course is not fun (Rocket Spanish is fun) - it's basically going through various drills. It's good for what I use it for: practicing Spanish while I'm away from my computer (i.e., walking, which I do a lot of).
Joyce-W1
January 24, 2015
Since Barron's Mastering Spanish Level 2 is a $49 investment ... and I've spent a lot of $$$ (I should say flushed a lot of $$$), I'd like to find audio material to supplement RS that might be free or less expensive. Maybe I should make my own recordings of readings?
What else are you using to listen to while walking/driving/etc.? I do have Pimsleur CDs that I haven't finished (and have already paid for) ... maybe I should reactivate those.
Ava Dawn
January 24, 2015
We are in San Francisco today attending the "March for Life". My daughter wants to celebrate her birthday every year doing this.
Nosotros somos/estamos en San Franciso para celebrar "La Vida". Mi hija quiere a celebrar su cumpleano (enye) cada ano(enye). Can someone correct this please.
Dan-H24
January 24, 2015
Joyce: One thing I do that has been helpful was starting a set of verb flashcards on Quizlet. I went back to the very beginning of Rocket Spanish and worked forward, adding every verb that I encountered, plus the verbs that were the root of nouns and adjectives that I found in the lessons.
I am up to over 250 right now, and add a few more each time I study a new lesson. When I drive somewhere I start listening to the audio of the set. Sometimes I set it to say the word in English first, then I say the Spanish word out loud. Other times I set it to say the Spanish word, then I try to visualize the action...oír...I visualize hearing something.
Other times I just listen to one of the RS audio lessons, just to familarize my ear with the words.
Quite often when I work in my darkroom I set Pandora to a Spanish channel or listen to a Gloria Estefan album in Spanish. My concentration is on my work, but I am hearing some of the lyrics in Spanish.
ricardo-rich
January 25, 2015
Hola Joyce,
There are a great many free podcast lessons and just the audio, from lightspeedspanish.com.uk, they also have many youtube videos.
Saludos,
Ricardo
ricardo-rich
January 25, 2015
Hola Aurora,
Hoy (nosotros) estamos en San Fransico para celebrar "La Marcha por la Vida". Mi hija quiere celebrar su cumpleaños cada año haciendo esto.
Saludos,
Ricardo
Steven-W15
January 25, 2015
There is some really useless stuff out there for learning Spanish. If I were to start again, I would do nothing other than Rocket while I'm at my PC and Barron's while I'm walking around (which I do for hours every week). For reference, I would put Barron's Mastering Spanish Levels 1 and 2 at the same level as RS Premium Plus.
Ava Dawn
February 3, 2015
Today, I decided to follow Dan's advice and take advantage of all the Spanish speaking people at my work. Usually, I just greet them with "Buenos dias", Como esta......... Today, I started with Armando from Ecuador,(he calls me prima because his last name is the same with my maiden name). saying "Buenos dias. Tanto tiempo!, Como estas. He answered muy bien y tu?. I answered "Perfecto. Como siempre. Estoy feliz.And Armando's smile was priceless. I asked if it is unusual to use these greetings. And he said it was great. I then tried it with Margarita, our housekeeper in the lab. And then with Elizabeth, a phlebotomist from Mexico. Es divertido.
Ava Dawn
February 3, 2015
Qué pena que no seamos Cariocas= why seamos for "What a shame that we are not cariocas" Is seamos subjunctive or imperative?
Steven-W15
February 3, 2015
Subjunctive.
"Qué pena que...", "Qué lastima que..." - represent opinions which invoke automatically the subjunctive.
You are quite correct though in the sense that the subjunctive and imperative tenses (in the negative) are identical.
Ava Dawn
March 2, 2015
I am listening to this beautiful song in you tube
A beautiful song " No llores por mi Argentina"
I am trying to post the link but not able to.
I decided that after doing a Rocket Spanish lesson, I will listen to a song in Spanish via You Tube
Matthew-H68
April 22, 2015
Hola Aurora-cls, I tried the Rosetta Stone Level 1 Spanish Course
for at least a year or so before my mother found out about Rocket
Languages learning program, and I personally found it very
frustrating. After going through modules 1-2 of Rocket Languages
Spanish Program I tried using Rosetta Stone again, and found it
much easier to understand despite its being a slightly different
format. You would have to try it for yourself and find out if it's
worth it. Adios amigo
Dan-H24
April 23, 2015
A lot better than Madonna in Evita.
Ava Dawn
April 23, 2015
Yo fue (fui) a Portland Oregon y Seattle Washington el semana (la
semana) pasado/a. Hace calor. El sol esta afuera todos los tiempos.
No esta lloviendo y no mucho vienta. Someone please correct this.El
clima es muy bueno.
I don't want to use the google translator this time. No quiero a usar el google translator este tiempo
I don't want to use the google translator this time. No quiero a usar el google translator este tiempo
Dan-H24
April 23, 2015
Aurora: Pienso que quieres decir:
Fui a Portland, Oregon y Seattle Washington la semana pasada.
¿Tal vez, "hace sol todo el tiempo" es mejor? No se...
No mucho viento.
Gracias por la oportunidad a practicar leer y escribir. ¡Espero que estoy correcto!
Saludos,
Dan
Fui a Portland, Oregon y Seattle Washington la semana pasada.
¿Tal vez, "hace sol todo el tiempo" es mejor? No se...
No mucho viento.
Gracias por la oportunidad a practicar leer y escribir. ¡Espero que estoy correcto!
Saludos,
Dan
Ava Dawn
April 25, 2015
Muchas gracias Dan.