Any spanish speakers out there?

I'm learning Spanish with the A Beka Academy video class.
Upon further reflection, I suppose those contractions could just be dialectal thing - that is to say, speakers in one area make the contraction, speakers in another don't. (Perhaps like the alright versus all right dichotomy!) On the other hand, I've found several sources that also say it's mandatory:

http://www.studyspanish.com/lessons/contr.htm
http://www.spanishdict.com/topics/show/11
http://www.spanish.cl/grammar-rules/contractions-al-del.htm

I hope it doesn't seem like I'm going back on what I said about not picking on people who don't contract them… Because I'm not trying to! :)

Oh, okay, that makes sense.
Cool! I wish I could have a Spanish tutor!

All right. :)

Could someone please explain the difference between tu (which means "you") and usted (which also means "you"). Thanks!

My Spanish is very rusty, but I think I can satisfactorily answer your question. :) The word "tu" is an informal word, used when speaking to a friend. "Usted" is used in formal settings, or when speaking to a person in a position of authority over the speaker. Does this help? :)

Hey! The resident Spanish helper just answered my question! Thanks Nicolas =) Yes that helps! I've really gotten a lot more serious about learning Spanish recently, and will be looking forward to the day when I can read my Spanish Bible!

@His Servant I

That's wonderful! I also read a Spanish Bible sometimes. :) How much do you know?

Sorry about that, Bethany! Yes, Nicolas is right. How is your Spanish coming? The hardest part for me is actually speaking it. I can read it and write it pretty well, but speaking it is another matter. :P :)

@Jhwa - Not as much as I would like. It's a goal of mine to be able to read/speak/write Spanish pretty fluently by the end of the year. I can flip to any page and be able to read phrases here and there, but it's not near as well as I would like. :(

@Courtney - I'm making progress, and have been really motivated to work on it more.

That's great!

Google translate is one of best translators available but If you want to see how good Google translate is then first have it translate English into Spanish. Then do a copy and paste and translate it back into English. Sometimes it may look pretty good and other times it won't make any sense at all. Just try it. I have 1 year of Spanish which is only a good start in learning Spanish.

I don't understand why Spanish people use tu when speaking to God. Evidently it is because of the closeness of the relationship. I would have supposed that usted which shows respect would have been correct. In the past 10 years I have never heard a Spanish person use usted while talking to God.

Estoy aprendiendo español. AND I'M SO EXCITED!

Welcome to the forums, En-Cristo-La-Roca-Sólida-Que-Me-Coloco! I have approved your first post; all future posts will be automatically approved.

Yo estoy aprendiendo español también! Me gustaría mucho! :)

No puedo hablar español, pero puedo escribirlo, gracias a mi amigo impresionante, el traductor en línea.

Nosotros bebemos nuestra leche.

That is the example. ^^ And I don't understand. Isn't nosotros like masculine form? Or, just for a group of people. Why, all of a sudden, does "nuestra" have to be used in the feminine form?

Or, does it have to do with the word milk? Because that's a feminine word…?

Nosotros is the standard personal pronoun for "we." It's sort of like how "mankind" or "guys" can be words that mean "all people, whether male or female." We just use the masculine form because it's recognized as the dominant gender in most cultures.

Nuestra is a possessive pronoun, and those ones definitely have gender. Plus, it's being used as an adjective, and all adjectives employ gender. So you have to match the adjective to the gender and count (singular or plural) of the word it's modifying.

Ooooo. That makes a lot of sense. Good to know. Thanks!

Nosotros bebemos nuestra leche. That is the example. ^^ And I don't understand. Isn't nosotros like masculine form? Or, just for a group of people. Why, all of a sudden, does "nuestra" have to be used in the feminine form? Or, does it have to do with the word milk? Because that's a feminine word...?

Spanish adjectives always change their "gender" based on the word which they modify. So the femininity of "nuestra" has nothing to do with "nosotros," but with "leche," as you guessed. :)

Thank you. Good to know for the future. =)

Beat me to it. :P

Sorry, I didn't know until afterwards that it was a question directed toward you.

Technically, it was directed to anyone who could help me. =p And he's answered a lot of Spanish questions for me in the past, so that's why I mentioned it. But I had forgotten that you had also taken Spanish in high-school… so it doesn't really matter. =)

Apparently, there are two Spanish words for "but" - pero and sino? How am I supposed to know which one to use?

Hi. :)

Pero is "but" in normal context, however "sino" is "but" in a negative context.

Such as Me gustaría salir, pero no puedo. (I would like to leave, but I can't.) The first part of the sentence isn't negative so pero is used.

No he venido a ser servido sino a servir. (I haven't come to be served but to serve, but I have come to serve.)

The first part is in a negative context.

Hope that helps a bit, it is pretty confusing!

Blessings!

Thanks! I think that makes sense…

Another question - Why does the translation of "her coat" have to be "El abrigo de ella" instead of something like "su abrigo"?

:) It is quite confusing!

Well, it could be "su abrigo" also, but to us English speaks "el abrigo de ella" is a lot clearer. "Su" according to my Spanish book can refer to his, yours, (formal) and hers. However if we are talking to someone and we say "su abrigo" they might think we are trying to say "your coat" and not "her coat." I hope that made some sense!

How's your Spanish coming? I know a few pages back on this forum you hoped to be speaking/reading fairly fluently by the end of this year. I hope that goes well for you! :)

In Christ,

Thank you!

Well, considering that I took off 5 months for studying for the Bible Bee, it's going well! Just yesterday, a little sign popped up while I was studying that said "Congratulations! You can know read 32.6 percent of all Spanish text". So, I'm making progress, but not as quick as I would like. ;) But, it's being a lot of fun!

Cool! What program do you use?

Duolingo. I don't think it should probably be relied on solely to learn the language, unless the person has an extreme motivation to learn pronunciations for words. I think it teach excellently on the topic of vocabulary and writing Spanish. You probably could learn how to speak Spanish with that site, but since it's not geared toward that, I don't think, it is a lot harder, on that regards.

Thanks, that's nice to know. I use quizlet and memrise, but I think I may try all three. I am really trying to learn more Spanish! :) Blessings,

Are there two meanings for the word que? First I was told "what", and now I'm told "than".

Perhaps this is what you were going to ask me on Duolingo? Indeed que does have several meanings. Here are some examples:

That: Yo sé que usted piensa. I know that you are thinking.
What: Yo sé lo que usted pensaba. I know what you were thinking. (Note the preceding "lo".)
Than: Tengo menos que usted. I have less than you.

Then, of course, there's qué, with an accent, meaning what(?) .
¿Qué comía usted? What were you eating?

Do note that I didn't consult anything more than my brain to write the above (though I did use a translator to verify that I wasn't making any silly conjugation mistakes). If anyone else here has corrections, I'd trust them. :)

And this sentence "Yo veo a un hombre y a una mujer" is supposed to mean what…?

utterly confused

Couldn't it just be "Yo veo a hombre y a mujer"? Or something like that? Or am I missing something? Because "I see a a man and a a woman" sounds quite confusing… all I can make is that "hombre" and "mujer" have to have the gender word thing in front of them. Though I'm positive that I've used those two words before without those…

Perhaps your confusion is in a misunderstanding of the Spanish word "a"? In Spanish, the letter "a" as a word does not denote the English word "a." "Un" and "una" in Spanish mean "a" in English; that is correct. But "a" means "to" or "at," or several other things depending on the context.

This sentence does not repeat "a" twice; only the "un" and the "una" mean "a." My Spanish is getting more and more rusty as the years go by, but I think the Spanish word "a," used twice in this sentence, means something else. Unfortunately though, I am not certain what.

It's something that doesn't translate very well into English.

It's as if the sentence says, "I see at a man and at a woman." That's just the way the Spanish language works. Even if it made sense to say, "I see at," we still feel like we should be able to just say, "I see at a man and a woman." But because of the way that particular Spanish verb works, as well as the way some Spanish verbs interact with direct objects, it's necessary to include the a twice.

and @Nicolas

It accepted my answer of "I see a man and a woman"… that's why I was wondering.

Well, that's what it means. If you were translating Spanish to English, "Yo veo a un hombre y a una mujer" would translate as "I see a man and a woman."

But if you wanted to translate every word, which is not recommended, since most languages cannot be translated word-for-word into another language and still make sense, the English equivalent would be something like, "I see at a man and at a woman." But that's not how a Spanish person would understand it. They would understand it the same as an English person would understand "I see a man and a woman." That's why it's translated that way.

kicks self for being so slow at getting this Makes sense now. Don't know why it had to take three comments though.

That's just how you areeee. I'm used to it now. ;) And I'm glad to go to as much effort as is necessary to help you understand something. ;)

Thanks so much!

Tengo algunos libros de inglés = I have some English books.

Tengo algunos gatos blancos (is that correct?) = I have some white cats.

Why, in some sentences, do I have to use "de" to describe with an adjective, but in other places, I can just put the adjective at the end? Or am I missing something? Is the second sentence used as an example even correct?

Beats me. That's just another thing where Spanish has rules we can't ever truly understand, since it's not our first language. English has scores of those kinds of rules, but we don't realize it, because we've spoken it all our lives.

You just have to kind of figure out the exceptions to rules as you go. That's the best you can do.

Can someone please explain this direct object concept to me?

Do you want an explanation of direct objects in general or how they're used in general? If the latter, I'd need a more specific question; but I can give the former a try.

A direct object is the noun to which a transitive verb in a sentence is pointing. Now, you can have a sentence with an intransitive verb, like, "I slept." You don't sleep something. You don't sleep someone. You just sleep. Same with "He plays." No direct object needs to follow the verbs in those sentences, so the verbs are intransitive. But when you have a transitive verb, it must be followed by a direct object (at a minimum – there are often other things as well).

Consider the following sentences: "I had pizza for dinner"; "Johnny hit the ball." The direct objects in those sentences are pizza and ball, respectively. The verbs are transitive, meaning they aren't meant to stand alone. (You wouldn't say "I had" or "Johnny hit." You need that extra noun on the end to complete the thought.) In these types of sentences, the direct object is easy to identify.

However, you get into harder territory when indirect objects enter the picture. Consider the following sentence: "I gave Sally a gift." What is the direct object there? You might be initially tempted to answer Sally, because it's closest to the verb. But look at the verb: what is being given? The gift. That's the direct object. Because if you reduce the sentence to "I gave a gift," it still makes sense. But it doesn't work the other way: "I gave Sally" by itself does not communicate the core of the intended information. Sally is therefore known as the indirect object – still just as important for the sentence as a whole, but not the direct object required by the verb.

Now, I know that all of this works itself out in interesting ways in Spanish, but I haven't studied that portion of Spanish grammar for a good while now, so I wouldn't feel comfortable giving a primer on that like I did here for English. I'd have to review it a bit first. So if that's what you originally wanted, then let me know and I'll see what I can do. ;)

P.S. This is a perfect example of why it's a good idea to have a really good grasp of grammar and usage in your own language before you try to translate that over to learning a new language. So if you feel like any of these concepts are still rusty, it may be a good idea to step back for a while and make sure you have the concepts down in English, your first language, first, before you go on getting yourself more confused by looking at it in a totally different language. ;) Not saying that's the case with you here, but just making a point in general. =)

And yeah, that's a really good rule to have. I just don't always know what parts of grammar I'm rusty on to be able to step back and review them. ;) But thanks for the reminder!

Yeah, I do remember it being something like that in Spanish – the direct object preceding the verb in most instances. Which does make it quite confusing, since it's so different in English. And from what I remember, it only gets worse when you introduce indirect objects in Spanish. xP

I will definitely see if I can offer you some more insight when I reach those lessons. =]

Got to ask lots of Spanish questions to one of the ladies in our church who speaks it!! Man, I don't think I'll ever get the hang of the language…there are so many rules and changes it seems like.

snorts Just be glad you're not learning English as your second language. :P