Interact with Words in Newspapers

If you love learning new words, try reading newspapers in Spanish. Here's a site from the internet to help you get started.


http://libguides.mit.edu/content.php?pid=146063&sid=1247903


Find words in the passages and try to guess their meaning from the context of the passage or the words surrounding the word you single out. Really interact with the word. Sound it out. Pronounce it. If you can't guess the meaning, it's okay at first.

Ascertain if the word has a positive or a negative connotation. Does it sound as if it has a positive or a negative meaning? What image does it bring up inside your mind?

Does it sound similar to an English word or another word you know? How close or far is the meaning to that word?

Do the syllable sounds make the word easy to pronounce or difficult?

There are many things you can do to come close to the word and interact with it. Try to guess in what domain the word may or may not surface. Would a lawyer use it? A teacher? A police officer? When would you use the word?

Tie an association to the word or words. Try to determine when or what groups of people would use the word.

This site lists plenty of newspapers that are online and ready for you to peruse.

Have fun with words and really make them your friends in daily usage!

Here's a writer that recommends listening to Spanish radio to learn Spanish pronunciation. I think that's a great idea!

http://learnspanishlearnspanish.com/pronunciation/



I recommended songs also previously, but what you need is a way to discern the sounds coming from other speakers or people enunciating the words.

Hearing another language allows you to place it in your own range of hearing, and you start to process how much of it was filtered within the brain. Or did it go out one ear and another?

At first, you may feel awkward about saying what you heard. You may not even know that you translated the words in the process. You'll never know unless you try it yourself. Don't be alarmed or nervous at the speed or rapidity of the speakers' tongues.

Go with it! Stick with the hearing of the sounds and pronunciations repeatedly.

Spanish is alive and kicking. So, there isn't a dearth of hearing it, and you'll have ample opportunities to practice listening to its sounds.

Good luck with Spanish radio!

Newsletters!

If learning Spanish is becoming easier and you want to transmit what you are learning at home with others, why not create a newsletter for family and friends? That way your network is yours and an original one where you can share your new - found skills with others.

The newsletter doesn't need to be an advanced one or difficult. It may just involve your family or close friends. It will detail a bit of your self - study experiences and interest others in joining you in studying Spanish.

The thing of it is that friends love to join you in common interests. It may even become a fun hobby for all of you. Since you are the one in charge of the newsletter, it may allow you to arrange the materials or any get - togethers you may want to start.

Don't try it with strangers first, however, because you may want to be at a slightly more advanced level when you want to do that.

Newsletters are fun, because they are similar to mail. Whether it is by snail mail or an email in your inbox, you look forward to receiving them.

What you can achieve is develop more skills and talents for this venture.

Ask around and see if your family or friends would like to receive a newsletter from you. Start them out with words or phrases. You can also use digital media, clip art, drawings, or other fun material to stimulate interest.

If you like, you may start a STUDY BUDDY group with the people each time the newsletter comes out. Include your friend or family's suggestions as well each month or time of email, depending on how often you run it. Once a month is suggested, but you never know! You might have friends that like weekly emails.

For now, start thinking about this idea. How feasible is it?

Will it detract from self - study? You can also use it as an outlet to get you to
work and garner even more experience in Spanish.

Best wishes with the venture if you like it!

Remember, self - study works, and you will have other motivated individuals by your side.

Have fun studying and writing!!!

Practice Conjugation of Words

Practice using Spanish words here.




http://www.123teachme.com/spanish_verb_conjugation

The Present, the Past, and the Future

     Here are charts that will make it easier for you to refer to the tenses.

     Start with the Present tense.  Then after, work on the past, and then the future tense.

     For the first person, you don't need to use "yo" the entire time.

     You can add an "o" to the end of the verb. For example, instead of stating, "Yo hablo," you can say, "Hablo."

Ar Words

http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/learning_module/verbs_ar.htm

Er Words

http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/learning_module/verbs_er.htm

Ir Words

http://www.learnspanishtoday.com/learning_module/verbs_ir.htm

Words are Transactions!

In day to day life, we use words and phrases all the time. We use sentences.

Do we take that for granted?

What if we looked at words as if they were jewels in time?

Would we use them too much or just enough? Would we never use them?

In Spanish, use words to make sentences.

This site enables you to have fun with words in Spanish.

It shows you examples of how you can use words of your choosing in sentences.

Next time, you stumble or if you get a block in considering words in Spanish, try this
site.

http://www.123teachme.com/translated_sentences/sp/
It will challenge you to think of your own as well.

Consider words as jewels that you string together to make a necklace.

The sentences, themselves, are the necklaces that you share with others or a thread
of thought, associations, transactions in time.

If you have ever shared a greeting, a transaction of words, then you will find creating Spanish
sentences fun and well worth the effort.

After you have tried the site, choose your own words and form sentences.

They will be as garlands to your neighbour or a new friend.

The words you choose open doors to you out in the world.

Use them well!

Ten Words a Week

Visual literacy in any learning process is an important way to adjust thinking to what is tangible. You attain a level that is manageable, and you acquire satisfaction, because you now have a grasp of what is understandable and what is holding you up.

For a week, try to collect ten new Spanish words in your notebook. Select words from magazines, newspapers, and other such places and jot them down. Note what it was about the word that appealed to you. Write down what it is that makes you feel that word engenders positive value to you. If it doesn't appeal to you, note it down. Is it difficult? Is it negative, because it isn't easy to remember, or easy to pronounce? Does it remind you of negative images, because it sounds a certain way, looks a certain way?

You don't need to define the words right away, but when you have enough of a grasp of why you don't like or you like the words, you may want to use them more, interact with them more, and finally get to the point where you begin to converse.

I'll give you an example of something I know about my learning experience with words. I don't usually like words that sound loud and abrasive. In fact, I tend to avoid words with consonant sounds that are guttural and intimidating. I love words that have softer sounds and are welcoming and meaningful. I can usually tell that very mean people use guttural sounds, and nicer people use kinder or gentler words.

So, when I choose a language for self - study, I choose words with an aesthetic feel about them and words or phrases that are jewels to an economy, not words that are used by cons or stealers that wish to steal your gems away.

You can usually tell by the words that people use that show if they are cons, if they lie, and if they are genuine or authentic people are or aren't. I also shy away from louder people that use jarring sounds and growl at people. These days, they just grab, bump, push, bite, pinch, and scratch with hands as well as words.

Interaction requires words. Cons don't need interaction. All they have to do is offer you products or persuade you to buy without legitimate interaction.

Cons rush in and out of places without interaction and rush sales without knowledge of another. Try to learn a language to dialogue, never to market to or take advantage of others. It is a truer learning process.

Authentic living takes words, language, conversing, interacting, and proper methods to meet a person to exchange with in daily life. If a person, for example, doesn't know you, why do they want you to rush your money to them?

Does that make sense?

Making mistakes is the key to learning. As long as you aren't driving or texting while you are learning! (NOTE: Do not drive and learn. Keep your mind focused and free.)

When your brain (in cooperation with hands or fingers and your eyes) makes a mistake, it is for your good. It now becomes a challenging problem to solve. I tend to stop and stare at my paper or interface and ask, "Now, why did I just do that?"
Why did I make the same mistake for the umpteenth time?

If you have ever been in school, and a teacher handed papers back, you'll know how this feels. Someone next to you got that problem, but you didn't. It was fascinating to me why I never understood at the time, but days later, it was so clear. Your brain starts to give you clues. Now, how did that happen? How did I get so stumped? What happened to me? I tried very hard at studying and learning this subject matter.

If you're making mistakes in Spanish, stop and ask. Am I going to give up? Am I not cut out for this? Well, I am telling you this page and blog (blog supplement) is perfect for you. THE MORE MISTAKES you make, the MORE YOU LEARN!

Nobody gets this. Sales people, marketers, or other tutors do not get this! They sell everything to you in a super - fast speed, and say you will improve faster than with this person or that person, this company or that company. WHAT THEY FAIL TO SEE is that each company or person EXISTS. They exist to SERVE a particular group or component, and so hurrying learning without MAKING MISTAKES IS WHAT SLOWS DOWN THE LEARNING PROCESS. Men are used to this, more than women.

I am the kind of person that wants to move at a pace with individuals at my level. The more mistakes or errors a class makes or an individual makes is WHAT clues me into WHERE OR WHEN they became stymied in the learning process. ROTE TEACHING and demanding effort is NIL when it comes to self - study or a correspondence process. WE LEARN BEST when We move along our own pace and not at a PACE of a MARKETER or a PACKAGE. WHEN YOU DECIDE TO BUY THOSE MATERIALS, set aside a TIME TO LEARN and to WORK WITH THEM. Do not RUSH THROUGH MATERIALS!

I'll give you an example. Once at the library, I saw a method of learning language ORALLY. I thought to myself, this might be the way to get that language to digest within my system. INSTEAD, it slowed me down and I felt PETRIFIED about listening to the CDs. WHAT HAPPENED is that my brain said to me. THEY ARE TALKING TOO FAST. THEY ARE NOT ALLOWING ME TO SEE THE WORDS. THEY ARE NOT GIVING ME TIME TO SEE THE WORD, and the PRONUNCIATION. IT FEELS like a guy trying to teach me or RUSHING ME TO DRIVE on an expressway WHEN I WOULD PREFER DRIVING in my own backyard.

I allowed the CDS to stay at my place, even renewed them. STILL NOTHING!

Years later, I found similar materials, but this time, there were books and tapes together. I was able to follow along, view the words, their spelling and placement, and assemble the parts that way. The problem with that language I chose was that the sounds of the words seemed very far away. I could not relate to them. Even in print, the words, their sounds, and spelling had no meaning to me. The spelling had nothing to do with the pronunciation. I worked slowly instead on a book with a pronunciation guide. In this manner, I was able to figure out why the words were slurred and did not match the spelling from left to right.

You may guess which language I was trying to teach myself from the clues. If not, that's okay. English may feel this way to foreign students, and so I am aware of the mental confusion from day one. In fact, I decided to undertake learning of that language, because I wanted to know what primary learners or foreign students went through WHEN confronted by something so strange to them. Take the word, "enough" or the word, "cough." How would you explain that to students whose teachers demanded effort and hard work? How would you explain that to students whose teachers demanded perfect scores and rushed through all activities, the only benefit being they improved them in the fastest time and covered more ground in that instance?

Think about this as a student in a class. Are you at a good match with the instructor or coaches? If they rush you, do you learn? Do you need pressure to learn? Be rushed more? Be pressured more? A heavier hand?

What if you never made a mistake, because they were that good? Then what? What if they timed you in speed and speediness of thought and activity? Is that what the course was for in the long run? Check to see whose method is faster?

That sounds like sales and marketing, not learning at first.

Be careful of that if someone decides to try a product on you without figuring out who you are first, your level, and if you can afford a package? Well, if you like marketed products, there are many. Go there first! Try them out.

I am very curious, for instance, about "Rosetta Stone." I still remember going to Downtown Chicago to teach Spanish to an individual, and he had Rosetta Stone on his desk. He allowed me to view some tracks. It was fascinating! The problem was that while I thought We were making headway, someone had started to tutor him jointly, someone that I once saw in my inbox of my computer.

WHAT A SMALL WORLD!

I enjoy making mistakes by myself. I enjoy that process. I gage my progress that way. As I said, as long as no one else is copying you while you make mistakes, or if you aren't texting or driving while learning, life can be very grand!

I decided to resurrect this self - study idea, because I found other tutors were rushing my clients. I still don't know how they did this, but yes, they got them to fly all over the world, very soon, very fast, and very proficient so that they were able to work in other countries and use their businesses outside the states. That wasn't what I wanted to do with my students.

Anyway, I think effort and speed are good for certain methods or personalities, but you never get to read between the lines, and decide why the language appealed to you in the first place. Did you really want to learn it? Why did you want to learn it? Did you achieve your objectives by using that method or tool for learning? You have to match those things with your personal learning levels.

So, if you do like making mistakes and learning from them, join the club! Learn at your pace, and make more so you can wonder what an extraordinary thinker you are. You are different from your classmates. You fit in. You stumbled at the right places, and now, you understand why others do also.

Language learning places you in an empathetic construct next to a person. You begin to see why people that are native speakers or are of that homeland stumble and make errors as well. It gives you peace in a space with a stranger. You no longer view them as a competitor. You can learn something in a space of time that they may not have to learn, but you see them for who they are instead of a person that rushed through all of life and got to a place where they never were supposed to be, meaning that wasn't their original objective in a way.

Language learning is fun! It allows you to identify with others and their mistakes in life. For example, have you ever seen a person speed through life while driving a car? They never slow, pause or stop. IMAGINE their homeland without stop signs, traffic signals, and the fact that they have blinders on when they come to the states. They have selective vision? They just don't see signs and symbols on the road. Would you report them if they were a stranger? Would you report them if they were driving erratically? WHAT IF they just didn't know they had to stop or slow down for speed limits? What would you do if they spoke their own languages but could not read English, and they were driving all over the world, with accident - prone streaks and tendencies?

Would you think they were doing this on purpose? Language slows us down to think, plan, engage with others in a similar setting. What if all people could drive that way? Take RULES OF THE ROAD and SIGNS AND SYMBOLS along with practice seriously?
There would be fewer mistakes, and the mistakes they learned from would be through practice, and not DRIVING FASTER at an earlier age. IT WOULD be their corrective measures. Driving would be as breathing is, natural and graceful, timed to your own needs and gaged well according to others you see on a given plane in time.

Think in English going to Spanish in America first. Try to, if you are a Spanish speaker first. Try to do both, if you're good at both at once. If you're an English speaker, you'll benefit from making mistakes in Spanish. Remember that! If you're a Spanish speaker and you want to teach students the art of conversation and colloquialism, then bravo for you. Devise your tools and use your own time and leisure to help people.

This site is primarily for English speakers that wish to go their own pace with Spanish, make mistakes, and learn from them. Do not RUSH as on a road. Do not ELEVATE YOUR SPEED if you are worried about securing positions in another country. GO WHERE your pace is. Select instructors that fit your pace and learning needs. If you are a Spanish speaker and you're trying to learn English here or learning Spanish, contact me today at writeinspire@yahoo.com (Ask for Ms.A!)

We can tailor something for you!

*****Don't forget to write in your journals and keep them dated! You can visually ascertain your level that way as time goes by.

I'm glad you stumbled upon my page today!

Here's a site you may want to visit. http://www.funnelbrain.com/sid-67-spanish.html

TRANSLATION Do you think in Spanish yet? Do you translate from Spanish to English in your thinking? Can you translate from English to Spanish as well? If not, wait for one or either to occur. I find that I started thinking in Spanish to English when I started to listen to telenovelas and music on the radio in Spanish. The air personalities use Spanish between songs, news, or other reporting. You don't need to get all of it at once and immediately, but work with the information you have processed. Do you translate word for word literally? Or is it partially understood? You can note what is going on inside you in that notebook I suggested as well. If it's not too much work, write down things you understand partially...for example phrases. If an air personality or someone outside in your neighbourhoods states: "Hasta luego" or another phrase, even a simple one such as "Adios," write it down as processed information. You need to think in Spanish to English and English to Spanish in this day and age and in technology. The whole world is a majority speaker of Latin again, and so you must be prepared to gage the new understanding, the new dialogue, and the new ways that people translate other languages to English. If you attended a Catholic school or university, chances are that you took a Latin - based tongue for your language requirement. If you haven't, that means you came to the country after school - age as an adult, or you attended a public school where there weren't mandatory language requirements. Most Americans or foreigners do have a reasonable amount of credits in a foreign language, however, and this is necessary in the day to day work world of today. You will need to update your knowledge of Spanish at any rate. Remember this is the supplemental version to the other blog I write, "Spanish Spire." Use "Solitaire" to practice Spanish on your own! Thank you and have a great day!

eHOW site: http://www.ehow.com/how_7723658_learn-spanish-chicago.html Do not forget to write in Spanish in your notebooks. Keep it separate at the back or in a separate notebook. Date the work you do and then correct later in time. Don't correct it all at once. Wait until you have enough words, phrases, or passages. If it is always the same mistake(s), note it in time. You may be suffering from a lack of vocabulary as well. A notebook will allow you to realise your level, your mistakes, and obviously your successes. This may take time, but try working with Spanish when you have the time. Cheers! Happy writing!