I am taking Spanish 101, and find it very confusing. Could anyone give me some pointers to making it easier?

Answer 1

It is hard to give general pointers with Spanish. You just have to pay attention to the irregular verbs, and memorize how to conjugate them correctly. Conjugate verbs over and over and over again.

I never ever have used the "vos" conjugation....I learned Mexican Spanish, not Spain Spanish.

A little rhyme: "This and These" both have T's.....(that and those are eso and esos.........This and These are esTo and esTos.

I never....even with a minor in Spanish, NEVER was taught "last name" in spanish. In case they never teach you this, it is "apellido" or "nombre de apellido" (but I never use the second one)

Most importantly...more important than ANYTHING else: SPEAK the language! Find people who are from latin countries and speak to them in Spanish. Find people (including your spanish teacher) who are more advanced speakers than you, and speak spanish with them.

What's that? You say that you are embarrassed they will make fun of your bad spanish? Forget about it and speak it anyway. They will correct you, and you will learn (possibly through embarrassment) how to pronounce it correctly.

Without actually moving to a spanish speaking country, you have to find a way to constantly speak the language. NO ENGLISH if you want to learn another language.

One last word: Embarrassada....it doesn't mean embarrassed....it means pregnant.

Answer 2

yeah, make up little ways to remember words, like for instance la carcel is jail, a way to remember is a person smashed their car and they're in jail. little things like that make spanish so much easier to understand and remember because you have fun doing it. also, i played spanish computer games, and those are fun and helpful, although they are geered towards younger audiances they make it easier. i've been taking it for 7 years, and the thing that helps the most is making up little ways to remember the words. also when you know it decently take a movie put spanish subtitles on it, and before they say the line see if you could translate it. : )

Answer 3

Is conjugation a pain for you? It is for most. Most people don't understand WHY they conjugate verbs.

Well, it's to tell you who did it.

Take this sentence: Yo hablo espanhol (cant do the weird n thing so I do nh instead, like portuguese).

Well, the "hablo" isn't JUST to agree with the "yo" and make your life miserable. The reason is that the "yo" doesn't even need to BE there. In reality, "yo hablo espanhol" doesn't just mean "I speak spanish." What it actually means is, "*IIII* speak spanish", emphasizing the hell out of the I, as if to say, "I didn't say HE speaks or YOU speak spanish, I said *EYE* speak Spanish, dammit!"

Another example: Many spanish-speakers are familiar enough with English to know what you mean, but most who live in deeper Latin America AREN'T. To them, if you mess up your agreement, and say,

"Yo hablas espanhol",

they won't pay attention to the "yo", but rather to the "-as" on "hablas". They won't understand that you MEANT "yo" but got "-as" wrong. They will think you MEANT to say, "You speak Spanish", that you MEANT "-as" and got the "yo" wrong, or just changed your mind about what you were going to say in mid-sentence.

So conjugation is not just agreement with person in Spanish.
Conjugation IS person in Spanish, and pronouns may or may not be added for emphasis.
But pronouns aren't person, like in English. They are just an emphatic supplement to person.
Person is attached to the verb in the form of a conjugated suffix!

Answer 4

Practice with a native speaker. The easiest way to remember is say everything out loud, and put to use what you have learned so far. Practice every chance you get.

Answer 5

as quickly as there grow to be a frog that grow to be working a marathon and after 20 minutes of working he faces a river, so he stops and says to himself, I ought to end this race, how do i'm getting to the different section devoid of drowning? So the frog says I also have a sensible thought!! i'm going to drink each and all of the water. So he drank it.. ("POP"!!!)

Answer 6

try to interact with people who speak spanish, and maybe even watch some tv shows in spanish

Answer 7

Try http://www.bilingualamerica.com.

Answer 8

Yes,I can