This week is the final week for ous Span class. It’s kind of bittersweet since there’s no more lessons to come but thankful now that I can concentrate on my thesis.

This week we just learned and practiced the Preterito Indefinido. For me this is the trickiest tense I have encountered yet, as I had some difficulty in applying it correctly. There are a lot of irregular cases and some of them don’t even have patterns.

On other news, this week I started to listen and am currently hooked to Spanish songs. It’s so fun when I can understand some lyrics of the songs, plus, I also like the melody and voice of spanish singers. Some of my favorite tracks include Ya te Olvide, Te Fuiste de Aqui, Noviembre Sin Ti and Corre! Corre!

Wow, it has taken me this far in learning and appreciating the Spanish language! It has been fun and it would be fun if I can be fluent in it. I am thankful to my professor for sharing her expertise in the language and my classmates for being fun and kind. Adios!

For the first week we learned about comparing using adjectives and I saw that the ‘word particles’ are different for equal and inequality i.e. for equality you say ‘tan + adjective + como’ which literally translates to ‘as *adjective* like/as’; on the other hand, ‘mas/menos + adjective + que’ translates to ‘more/less *adjective* than’. It is quite confusing when you’ve already associated que with ‘what’ but when I looked on it in the dictionary it is actually the accented que that means what while que without the accent means ‘than’. (Although when you hear it you probably can’t distinguish the two).

The long list of pronouns was made even longer as the direct object pronouns were added to it. Good thing, it is not so difficult to memorize. It is just like the pronouns used for reflexive verbs and gustar only that for the 3^rd person, lo/la and los/las are used.Those too is not tricky to memorize cause you’re just essentially transferring the definite articles los/la/las before the verb. Example: Bebes los vasos de agua = Los bebes. Leo la instruccion = La leo. Easy. There are just some rules that I should keep in mind, like for negation, the pronouns can be attached at the end of the verb, and that objects with indefinite articles (un,una,unos,unas) can also substituted.

Another grammar was also introduced which is the present progressive, or actions currently happenning. I think it is important to learn this because there are some things that you cannot say in the simple present tense. And those are the things that are currently happenning. Yet of course it doesn’t go without our friendly irregular verbs: they come in three flavors: the E-> I / IE (decir, mentir) the double vower → vowel+y (leer, construir) and the O->U (dormir, poder). The rest are already regular. One thing though, like in preterito perfecto, working with reflexive verbs can either be heaven or hell depending on your mastery of the reflexive pronouns (me,te,se,nos,os,se) → sometimes I forget using the first person and just keep the reflexive verb in its infinitive form (eg. Estoy banandose instead of Estoy banandome.)

I also noticed, as usual, that I have to improve my listening skill. I don’t know if it’s just me or the utterances we were listening to are really partly-unintelligible. It’s just a relief that there’s no listening test for Span 11.

This week there was no more flood, and (un)fortunately back to being students. We started the week right (oh yeah!) by studying about fines de sema. To review myself for the exam, I wrote my usual weekend routine, and it goes like this: (cue: moves like jagger)

Pues yo hago productivos actividades muchos fines de semana por que soy ocupado. Los sabados siempre voy a la iglesia y voy a la al trabajo. Normalmente estudio mis lecciones y a menudo hago deberes. A veces paseo salir salgo como ver la cine ir de compras, comer fuera con algún amigos amigo. Nunca ir de copas por que es prohibido en por nuestra iglesia.

Okay, of course there were a lot of erasures, some editings to make the composition as good as possible (but still noob). So hopefully when I have to rewrite it or recite it for the exams, I won’t make the same mistakes again.

This is the last part of Span 10 and hopefully I won´t have to write a journal again about this (hopefully I am done with Span 10 that’s what I mean please don’t insult my composition skills I am an engineering major)

¡Ciao!

It’s really funny how that meme suddenly pictures in my mind whenever I hear gusta or gustan. Oh well, it seems like I had to deal with it for it is actually part of Span 10.

With the help of every student’s friend, Google, I found out that there is no umbrella term for verbs like gustar, and those verbs are just called “verbs like gustar.” LOL.

We also studied reflexive verbs, a very odd, sometimes confusing, part of Spanish grammar (and probably other Romance language) which means to do something to oneself.

Now the confusing part would be the reflexive pronouns and indirect pronouns. Well the usages are clearly distinct, but the pronouns are almost similar except for nosotros and vosotros. I just worry that I might interchange them one time (le for se) but hopefully I won’t. The other set, possessive pronouns are in a league of their own. Mixing them up with the other two sets would be an embarrassment.

To see how I can apply what I learned, I tried writing a composition which is “mi dia normal”:

Todos los dias me levanto a las ocho y media de la mañana. Me Desayuno a las nueve y luego voy a la escuela. Mis clases empiezo empieza  Empiezo las clases a las diez de la mañana y terminas termina a las cuatro de la tarde. Como a las dose de la mañana, cena a las siete de la tarde. Vuelvo en casa a las ocho. Me^ Acuesto a las dose de la noche normalmente.

Obviously, I still got a long way to go for verb conjugation. I also have to be watchful of the need for reflexive pronouns, and to think that if you are doing the verb to a part of your body (me gusta jajaja) then it is supposed to be reflexive (of course, give that the verb has a reflexive form).

Bueno, ¡Hasta la vista!

For the third week of class, I felt like I was getting more and more acquainted with Spanish language. Having said that, it seems that I keep committing mistakes on conjugating verbs(as shown by my homework scores). Actually, the trouble comes from overlooking the number agreement. But still I think I have to be mindful of gender agreement, and remember that we are using Spanish and not English (i.e. the case of solo/sola)

Vocabulary. Oh my laurd (misspelling intended). I hate memorizing. But as we’ve been forewarned, we have no choice. So I will just write here words that I might forget but I’m supposed to know: ducha(shower), lavabo(sink) – not lababo or lavavo, the wonderfully-long aproximadamente, piso(floor, contrary to popular interpretation that is coin) plus the ordinal numbers sexton, septimo, octavo, noveno(why does it sound religious to me? XD)and decimo. And I should take note an extraordinary words that it had to be freaking exception to the freaking rule: el sofa. Tricky prof might trick us with this question in the exam, like the case of el mapa.

This week we also discussed irregular verbs, which are really not difficult…

VERY DIFFICULT!

So I am not continuing this journal entry any further for I have to prepare index cards for me to be able to memorize the irregular verbs given to us by our professor.

¡Adios!

Pues yo hago productivos actividades muchos fines de semana por que soy ocupado. Los sabados siempre voy a la iglesia y voy al trabajo. Normalmente estudio mis lecciones y a menudo hago deberes. A veces salgo como ir de compras, comer fuera con algún amigo. Nunca ir de copas por que es prohibido por nuestra iglesia.

Todos los dias me levanto a las ocho y media de la mañana. Desayuno a las nueve y luego voy a la escuela. Mis clases empiezan a las diez de la mañana y termina a las cuatro de la tarde. Como a las dose de la mañana, cena a las siete de la tarde. Vuelvo en casa a las ocho. Me acuesto a las dose de la noche normalmente.

iHola! Soy Wilson otra vez.

Just like elementary students, we were thought how to count again, (IN SPANISH) which I thought would be easy considering that we’re using it in our daily lives such as paying the jeepney fare and playing the bingo.

So why is it here? Bueno, come se dice <98567> en español? Es noventa y ocho mil quinientos sesenta y siete. Take note, you have to spell it corretly and say it properly! Well I think I have to be careful here as there are some tricky number evolutions, which I wrote in my notes:

7 = siete; 70 = setenta; 700 = setecientos

5 = cinco; 15 = quince; 50 = cincuenta; 500 = quinientos

9 = nueve; 90 = noventa; 900 = novecientos

And now as the exam draws near, I have to review the very important verbs SER and ESTAR, which I find now confusing >.< (Lo siento, profesora) because of the addition of este/estes/esta/estas (this,these,this(f),these(f)) and the direction este (east). I should also know memorize the adjetivos comunes that Maam Jen gave us, because we can’t ask them in our exam, as well as the words we used in telling the location of things. (Why do they have to be very different from the Tagalog equivalent?!)

Anyway, it’s been almost a month of learning Spanish and I should say that I have a love-hate relationship with it.

Well, it’s satisfying that I am learning another language and hopefully it will follow the claim that it will help increase my IQ, but I’m kind of frustrated because upon stepping out of the classroom all I learned stays in that classroom. Ergo, I don’t find the practicality of learning the language, as compared to when I was learning Korean in which I get to use it everyday when I’m speaking to Koreans.

¡Hola! Me llamo Wilson. Soy estudiante y estudio inginieria en universidad de las Filipinas. Tengo 21 años. Soy Filipino, de Quezon City.

So that’s how I introduce myself in Spanish. I constructed half of that paragraph without the use of google translate and for the other half, well, let’s just say I’m just a beginner so I still need google’s help.

Alright so since my teacher wants me to write about only the difficulties I’ve encountered in learning Span, I’ll not write much…

not. Haha.

Well, let me just say that Spanish is really similar to Filipino. But the first and a major difference is their alphabets. Spanish has different rules in pronouncing c,z,g,h,j,v, which are different from Filipino, which you have to remember, which you have to follow when reading a Spanish text, which you have to watch out for when listening to a Spanish speech.

For example, in a listening homework, the utterance is eme-ruith-arroba-ole-punto-es. The difficult part is that if you don’t know the pronunciation rules, you’re going to write it like that instead of the correct transcription which is mruiz@ole.es.

Another one, which I actually would like to master, is the correct placing of accent. Yes there are stress labels in some syllables but when there are none then it is quite confusing where to put the accent (though we’re thought by Maam June that normally the stress should be at the second to the last syllable)

And lastly, one confusing part, which I have to watch out for, is what we call adjetivos de nacionalidad. The masculine and feminine forms of brazileño and español are simple. As well as their plural form. But some nasty exemptions are marroqui (which is morrocan) and irani which have the plural form marroquies and iranies (contrary to the popular answer, marroquis and iranis) and I should remember that I should call a male Belgian (person, not chocolate) as belga, without suspecting that he is gay or something.

I think this is pretty long for a blog post so till my second post of rants comments!

Hasta luego!