Cracking Up

Thanks to my younger sister sending me an invite, I'm now addicted to Trivia Crack.  Most of the games I have going are in Portuguese + a few in Spanish and English.  I even tried one in German just to see if I could get very far, but no such luck.  It's a good way to think on your feet in the language(s) you're learning.  All those futebol questions are killing me though. ;)

Still Here & Foreign Movies

Just checking in to say I'm still around.  Okay, so my goal of posting every day hasn't worked out as planned, but aren't we all a tad overly ambitious when New Years strikes?  :)

I recently moved back in with my parents, and in many ways I think it will be a good thing, though I intend for it to be temporary.  First of all, they get HITN on their TV, which is a Spanish-language network.  I've watched Cuadriga, which is basically one of those Sunday-morning roundtable shows where they discuss news of the week.  I also like Puertorriqueñísimo and Así Canta Puerto Rico, which of course focuses on life and music of Puerto Rico, and even though I'm not normally into cooking shows, I've watched Sazón y Algo Más from time to time.  I really should be posting this to my Spanish-blog...

Another thing is, hopefully my mom and I can work on our Spanish together.  I think it sometimes helps to have a study partner for motivation, even if it is the blind leading the blind.  I also hope my being around will inspire her to get out her German courses, because I think she's probably more into the German than the Spanish.  She bought Teach Yourself German a few years ago, but I don't think she's used it at all (yet.)  Being the language addict I am, I think I actually finally asked her if I could take off the wrapper and look at it...the book, not the wrapper...  ;) 

In closing, I saw I'm not Scared last night, which is an Italian movie.  I think I've seen more movies in languages I'm *not* studying than am!  But that's okay, because I've liked most of them and don't mind subtitles (much better than dubbing.)  I had to laugh when they would say "Mangia!" during mealtime, and in one scene when a little girl becomes exhausted riding her bike in the hot sun and sighs, "Uffa!"  I was like, 'This movie is so Italian.'  :)

My parents told me they had watched The Secret in Their Eyes on TV one afternoon.  That one's in Spanish (Argentina).  I had seen it before and found myself all caught up in it - crime dramas tend to drag me in like that.  I really never pass up a chance to see a foreign movie, and it's not because I want people to think I'm *so* cultured (far from it.)  It's simply because the movies are good and just happen to not be in English.

Mujer = Girl?

I got a letter from the girl in Nicaragua I sponsor, and was struck by this sentence: "Soy la unica mujer en mi familia ya que tengo 2 hermanos." I have to say, I've never seen mujer translated to mean 'girl.' I wonder if this is a Nicaraguan Spanish thing, or maybe a mistake? I just thought it was interesting, and perhaps am proving I live under a rock, because for all I know, mujer is quite commonly used to mean 'girl' in certain parts of the Spanish-speaking world.

Foreign Correspondence

I've totally been neglecting this blog. I don't want each update to be the same ol' boring, "Today I studied Portuguese object pronouns," so unless I have something useful to say, I refrain from posting. As a blogger, I don't know which is worse: talking about boring things or not talking at all.

At least this time I have something a little more interesting to post. In January of this year, I began sponsoring a girl from Haiti through Compassion International. It was sort of by accident, because I had originally expected to sponsor a girl from the Dominican Republic, but at the time they apparently didn't have any urgent need for a sponsor in any of their programs there, so the info I got ended up being for a girl from Haiti. A few months later, I began sponsoring a girl from Brazil and another girl from Nicaragua.

I don't know Haitian Creole at all, so have been writing and will continue to write in English with perhaps a sprinkling of Creole thrown in for good measure. For example, she turned ten yesterday, so I sent her a quick email to wish her a happy birthday and included a short Bible verse in Creole.

I do, however, know enough Spanish and Portuguese to be able to write simple letters to an eight- and six-year old girl. The problem is that I don't know if I should. I don't want to cause any hassles or confusion. That said, in the letter writing section of their FAQs, they do say it's perfectly fine to write in the child's native language, because the translation staff will go over the letters no matter what, so either way, it's gonna be looked at and perhaps modified where appropriate. I guess it's pretty obvious I'm leaning toward writing in Portuguese and Spanish, though if I do, I think the best thing is to be consistent and commit to sticking with whatever language I initially write in.

BTW, if you'd like to hear or try to read Creole, check out VOA.

Portuguese Pronunciation (and Dominican Spanish)

Hi all, glad to say it's the second year of this blog, and my motivation for making serious progress in the languages I'm learning is higher than it's been for a while. The only thing I need to do is check my enthusiasm, so I don't get ahead of myself, which is always my downfall.

I know I kept mentioning I would discuss my pronunciation of Portuguese, and will keep it brief by simply saying that when listening to the two BP accents recorded here, I was better able to match the second female contributor (mistakenly placed under the EP text) when speaking along.

Switching to espanhol, here's a little info about Dominincan Spanish you may find interesting...

 
(The link where I got the following is dead, but wanted to keep the info)...

Dominicans speak a Spanish that they describe as "morcha'o", or cut off.

There is the tendency to simplify certain consonant combinations, especially -ado, and to level c, z, and s such that cazar, casar and cacer might sound similar.

Unlike Mexican Spanish, for instance, Dominicans emphasize the vowel sounds.

Dominicans truncate or aspirate their final s es such that "Vamos a las dos o a las tres" sounds like "vamo a las doh o a lah treh."

Like our Puerto Rican and Cuban neighbors, the /r/ final may be flattened into an /l/. In fact the pronunciation of the final r is indicative of regionalism: people from the Cibao speak with the "ai," the south with rolled /~r/, and the east with the flattened /l/.  The Cibao ai is a uniquely identifying linguistic habit. Mujer sounds like mujeai, and "algunos" would be pronounced "aiigunos."

The Dominican Republic is a tuteo country, which is to say that the form of the familiar second person is "tu."

Grammar en Español

I've been reviewing my Spanish over the last couple of days using my Side-by-Side Spanish & English Grammar book. I edited the notes I took, and realized how little I had decided to keep from what I had scribbled down. That's a good thing though, because that means I remembered a lot.

I'm not obsessed with grammar, but since I primarily concentrate on reading and writing, it's kind of hard not to have a certain amount of focus on it.

Random

The University of Iowa's Department of Spanish and Portuguese has an interesting and interactive dialect page here. Unfortunately, not all countries listed have examples. Transcriptions are available, so one can follow along - good practice for beginner's.

Vocabulario

I've been reviewing my Spanish by making vocabulary cards. I started teaching myself Spanish when I was 16, so I have a pretty good grasp of Spanish vocab, but it's always good to review.