Oye Board...una preguntica! I don't know about our British friends across the pond, but most American's have only a fair usage of the English language (in terms of correct grammar), to such an extent that, in most circles, grammar "mispeakes" aren't noticed and really don't affect ones ability to function reasonably well in the U.S. - in most fields (hell, look at our buddy George Bush). I have a B.S., a Masters and teachers for parents and my english is not a finely tuned instrument but I can get decent jobs and make it through college without much hassle. (yeah, yeah..there's a question in here...be patient..I like to see myself type )

The question posed to those of you that would readily notice grammatical errors spoken by Spaniards, do you find that they make errors in their everday speech as we do in Gringolandia? I.E., confusing Por y Para sometimes or genders and nouns and verb conjugation?

I too would be interested in any responses to this question. All I know is that Spanish degree students over here have been correcting the grammar of English students essays - in English! Very embarrassing! Karenanne

quote:

... most American's have only a fair usage of the English language (in terms of correct grammar),...

Hey, I am American and will have you know that I speak English good :jeje:

Well, it depends, those Spaniards who study English seriously here (ie. those who major in English philology at university) will have a much better handle on grammar than the average Spaniard who takes a few English classes here and there just to learn a bit. The latter will make a LOT of grammatical mistakes.

Saludos,
jer...

He Jer'...but what about your daily interactions with the Spaniard that isn't a high school or college Spanish teacher? Do you find that they are about as likely as most Americans to commit grammatical errors and that a certain amount of errors are overlooked? How many Americans do you know that use double negatives or hanging participles (like I know what one of those might be...I think Viagra is used to correct the error) - even we overeducated types have imperfect english. Here's the "why" of my question. I can be considered conversationly very very fluent but I am trying to move into the "academically" fluent category in preperation for my relocation to Spain. To that end, I am spending "gobs" of hours on grammar drills but am expecting ABSOLUTE perfection. But, if Spaniards tend to be like we Yanquis, then confusing "por" and "para" from time to time really might not be such an achilles heel for someone operating in a professional business environment.

quote:

...do you find that they make errors in their everday speech as we do in Gringolandia? I.E., confusing Por y Para sometimes or genders and nouns and verb conjugation?

Such as using I.E. when you should be using E.G. ?

Sorry couldn't resist

Seriously though, I was taking a senior undergraduate technical writing course back in 1989 at the University of Maryland when a student asked me to help him proofread one of his papers.

I was aghast to find basic spelling mistakes (e.g. "rughfly 20% of all peeple" and "its only naturul") and very clumsy sentence structures. I'm sure it was a bit embarrassing for him to see all the corrections I made.

I have definitely developed some pet peeves when it comes to certain English phrases. Every time I hear "I could care less" I'm reminded of the scene in Back to Future II...

Young Biff: Now, why don't you make like a tree and get outta here.
Old Biff: It's LEAVE, you idiot! "Make like a tree and leave!" You sound like a damn fool when you say it wrong.

So remember, it's "I couldn't care less."

- Roland
"That's about as funny as a screen door on a battleship"

I understand the question that TJGuy is asking, I think...

He is asking if Spaniards make grammatical errors speaking Spanish as English speakers (yes, our British cousins too) make when speaking English.

I will say yes to this one, but it isn�t the "por y para" confusion. Those words are confusing for an English speaker because we use one word, "for" , to express the concepts that "por" and "para" express in Spanish. Just as the word "en" in Spanish is expressed as "in","at", or "on" depending on the situation in English. That makes learning the usage of those three prepositions difficult for Spanish speakers.

I have heard Spaniards make mix ups on the subjunctive (no surprise there) and occasional the subject/verb agreement. However, I do believe the mistakes come from speaking quickly (before thinking) rather than lack of grammar knowledge.

What I have been aghast at is the amount of spelling errors I have seen Spaniards make! YIKES!!

tjguy, I know exactly what you are talking about. I have wondered the same thing, since we make grammatical mistakes in English, do other languages do the same? Is it possible, as in, once the language is mastered, would the speaker make a mistake? Do we make the mistake because of being educated improperly, or is it laziness, or what? I have asked my boyfriend the same question because he is completely fluent in both languages. His Spanish is excellent, and you would never guess that he was raised in California, especially compared to the different levels of Spanish spoken here . However, I do know that Spaniards (at least some, not all) do make one grammatical error. It is using "la" instead of "le" as a pronoun (it is a pronoun, being used as an indirect object, right?) Now, my grammar in Spanish isn't the best, so if I am completely wrong someone please correct me. Instead of saying "dile", I have heard it said "dila". My dialectology profesor and my linguistics profesor pointed this out and that it is an error that Spaniards tend to make. I guess each Spanish-speaking culture has their own quirks. Once again, if that is grammatically wrong, please correct me. I can't remember the correct name for it, I want to say laison, but now I may be confusing it with my highschool french. :jeje:

yet again, multimadrid puts my worried mind to ease. Even the SPANIARDS get those subject pronouns mixed up!

These days I am utterly overwhelmed by the Spanish language, feeling like I will NEVER construct a solid spoken sentence! I believe much of this is due to a very imperfect understanding of grammar, starting with my own native English. I use language professionally (I'm a writer...don't try this at home!) and thus never felt the need to know WHY words flow just that way. Until I started studying Spanish. Oh my.
I am going to throw myself on the mercy of those Spanish-speakers around me, once I get to Spain, and hope someday the much-vaunted "language center" in my brain can somehow sort it out for me.
I am doomed to forever be a foreigner, no matter where I go.

Reb.

This thread reminds of something that I have thought about many times over the years, and is a subject that I have not had the opportunity to discuss with anyone in the know, such as language teachers, etc.

One question that I would like to ask is, how much Spanish or any language does somebody have to or need to learn, to be resident in a country where virtually only one language is spoken, be it Spanish, French, Italian, etc?

I mean how much has one got to learn, to what level of proficiency does somebody need to be able to communicate, to be able to live in, and/or work in a country like Spain?

Because it seems to me that many people have got one of two ideas about it, and that is, some think you have to be almost a graduate of linguistics or modern languages, specialising in the highest possible levels of literacy and literature, just to be able to get a half way decent job.

Then there are just as many who seem to think that you can just pack a suitcase and turn up in Spain somewhere, without even the remotest idea about the language, and everybody will speak English anyway, and I really don�t know where some of these people get the idea from, but it seems to have been something that has been done increasingly by many over the years, and I don�t know how some of them get away with it really, because there are times when I have been there, and come across people who could not even go into a small shop, (Alimentaciones) and ask for simple basic things, or directions etc. and I have had to step in and ask for them, which is annoying, because they were living there, and I was just a visitor, my Spanish is good enough to go where I want, get what I need etc, but theirs was non-existent, one guy even asked me, why do people keep saying barley to me? I said you mean �Vale� and it means okay, all right. The fool didn�t have a clue.

And another instance was at a shop called Konica, Plaza de Espa�a�Madrid, I was buying my goods, and a guy walked in, and in his best English accent said to the woman, and I quote here,
�is dare a chemist round ear� and she not knowing a word of English looked at him like he had just escaped from somewhere. I looked at him, and really felt like saying �you idiot� do you really expect to come in here and ask a Spanish woman something like that? But instead, I just politely informed him that she is Spanish, and does not understand, and that what you are in fact asking for is una farmacia, a pharmacy in English, and told him where he could find one, and the prick even left without saying thank you to me.

But going back to the main point & question now, and that is how much of the language is enough? How much of another language does someone really need? Or does it really just depend on what the person is doing in the country, like for example, to work for their existing employer in a new office or factory that has been set up by his/her employer, or those who just want to retire there permanently, or those who really love so much about the country and want to live & work there and learn the language to a higher level of fluency than they already have, and so intend to take classes in order to make living there much easier, and of course to be able to do a wider variety of jobs, thus increasing their chances of staying employed at all times, which is really fundamentally important to anyone, not only native speakers, but especially immigrants. But when is enough, enough? How far has somebody got to go in there quest to speak the second language, before they can stop taking classes and exams, and just get back to their life and start living again, and use & enjoy what they have?

Me personally, I don�t know what the answer is going to be for me, and wont be able to know that until I have lived and worked there for at least several years, and at the moment, I am not studying the language really very much, unfortunately, because of other more serious issues that have prevailed in my life for a number of years now, also because of a massive career change, which meant a hell of a lot of re-thinking and re-assessing of everything that I was capable of doing for a living, and have been totally embroiled in my new job/occupation/profession/career etc, with many months of hard training, testing to the nth degree, and so I have had to put on the back burner my great ambition to speak Spanish fluently, at least up to a basic level of light conversation, although I can at least say that although I am not conversant fluently, I am pretty amazing at getting around in Spain, and because I read & understand so much of it, I rarely need to ask anyone about things, and when I do need to, I can ask perfectly well. And so for me things are not so bad, I get by in Spanish really well, so long as nobody starts throwing big handfuls of sentences at me, at full speed. I don�t get any practice hear in London at all, and I am only in Madrid or Barcelona 4 to 5 times a year, and so it has been a bit difficult for me over the last few years, and I need to start studying again, vocabulary, the verbs, etc etc etc.

The big difference is, for me I suppose, that I do it because I like to, I am fascinated by the language �Castellano� always have been really, and tried on & off to get on with it, and develop it up to some kind of fluency, but have for too many years been hampered by life problems, and sometimes bouts of unemployment & poverty, which meant the only thing I was studying were the cards in the jobcentre, and keeping my head above water.

Well anyway, lets hear from you all, your thoughts on the subject of learning another language like Spanish, and why you do it, and why to such a high level, if you don�t really need it, and if you don�t speak it all that fluently, tell us how you manage, how you get by, how did you get started over there, with only minimal knowledge of the language, and that one is specifically directed at those who did not study the language in a Spanish or American university beforehand. And here�s another question for you, is it really necessary for anyone who wants to learn a language like Spanish to indulge in things like dialectology, and other forms of linguistic science?

Why should it be so necessary for someone to get so deeply in to the linguistic machinery and Science of the language, just to be able to learn of that language what they need to, and communicate basically and get by, pay the bills, rent etc, and live as close to a normal existence as possible?
Do people, foreigners, immigrants in Spain now need a degree in linguistics & Spanish literature, to get a job?

I have a friend here from Andalucia, who came here almost ten years ago now, and couldn�t even say hello, how much is this, where is that, nothing whatsoever, and has only had ESOL classes to a basic level of fluency, no degrees, and very few conversational classes indeed. She struggled like hell for more than 5 years to get a job in travel & tourism, and this year finally made it into a big U.K. company doing ticketing etc. She spent more time studying Tourism, ticketing & other associated aspects of that business than she has ever done for English, but she is capable of working in that kind of company just with what she has got at her level of fluency, and I have been quiet amazed at times over the last 5 years that I have known her, with the type of and level of complex conversations that we have been able to have, although it is a fact that I have had to stop her many times and correct her pronunciation & grammar & help her with her home work, but apart from some basic errors she has improved dramatically her level of conversational fluency, and without studying literature or linguistics, which she has absolutely no interest whatsoever.
Anyway, I�m getting dry now, so I�m off to boil water for some coffee, and I look forward to reading your thoughts on the subject sometime later perhaps.

Saludos

But if you listen carefully to anyone speaking outside formal situations, you�ll find lots of hesitations, changes in direction, self-correction and errors. You could try taping a few minutes and then transcribing it.

I read this somewhere. Think about all of the sentences you�ll speak in your whole life in natural conversation. Some of them will be standard or formulaic. But most of the rest are unique (you�ll only say them once). Stephen

Ha Honning....that is a great example...that of la and le!! I learned in the streets of Madrid and I slaughter le/lo/la pronoun usage...I am horrible...in part because I never picked up a grammar book while in Spain and the street shouldn't be the only place to learn the language (God...can you imagine someone learning English in the Bronx...? :ks: ) I know that making the mistake you mention is considered as very very bad form outside of central Spain. So...that is the kind of feedback I was trying to get...someone else also said that they notice a lot of "change of direction" when a Spaniard is speaking quickly - which might also be loose grammar. In general, do the people that have posted here believe Spaniards are more or less lazy than Brits and Americans in grammar usage? (Interesting point though, but perhaps an isolated example..I have heard Americans and Brits correcting other people's grammar for years but cannot remember one Spaniard doing it to another Spaniard....anyone else notice this?)

Hey Rebrites! don't you hate that you had to go back and learn English grammar all over again in order to improve your Spanish? I am always having to go back to an old college English textbook to understand what the #$#% the Spanish textbook is trying to tell me...."..a subjective what?..."

I have a monolingual (english) five year old and I can hear her trying to form her phrases and I think to myself, "God...do I sound that bad when I get into complicated sentence structure in Spanish..."

Hey Roland

Such as using I.E. when you should be using E.G. ?

Sorry couldn't resist

You make my point exactly....very few people would have picked up on the E.G. thing..hell...i have no idea what you are talking about to be honest. In the U.S., that kind of mistake would not even be noticed in the vast majority of office or professional settings.

Thanks for that post! And Thanks to Jer' for this awesome forum..too bad he cannot figure out a way to can it and sell it at the grocery store. He could buy Marbella

I think the Spanish (and Mexicans, too) are wonderfully tolerant of 'la lingua estudiante.' You wanna meet intolerance, just try speaking up in Germany, in German --it's a language I've spoken from childhood. The Germans stop you halfway through a sentence, laugh in your face, then practically pull out a blackboard to diagram the sentence for you... and that's just the cab driver, when you've told him where you want to go!

They probably mean well, But God, is it infuriating after a while! (I try to stick to speaking to children and Turkish gastarbeiters, who are much kinder to strange foreign ladies.)

But my "knowledge" of German has helped me immensely in getting around Spain, even the tiny backwaters in Extremadura and Asturias. No matter where I go, a German has been there before, and spent big money!

Reb.

I get a Spanish-language audio magazine called Puerta del Sol. It has stories on different subjects as well as interviews. The magazine part of it is a transcript and there is a glossary in the back to describe different terms and things.

One thing that happens fairly often is that in the glossary the editor will point out the speaker's grammatical errors and tell you what the person should have said. So I get the impression that it happens quite a bit. Most of the time they are agreement issues or incorrect use of subjunctive and things like that.

Anne