Tuesday, August 3, 2021

20 Preguntas

For today's homework we were back to Dreaming Spanish YouTube channel. Anouska got me started on his Let's Play Games Series. In this one he teaches his friend how to play the classic '20 Questions' game. Though he does stray from the traditional yes/no answers to give his friend a hand. It's a great game to play when you're practicing with people learning the same language or even exchanging languages. I've used this in an intercambio breakout room once or twice. Plus it doesn't require any technology!

Last night I reviewed Language Transfer Tracks #39 and #40. Every day I try to do the assigned tracks plus review two tracks from a day or two before. It seems to help lock in the concepts a little better. In these tracks he reviews prepositions or Mihalis pronounces them PRE-positions as Joyce pointed out in her blog. I'm not sure if that's on purpose either. 

  • with - con
  • for - para
  • of, from - de
He comments that prepositions are used more often in English than in Spanish and in time, we will eventually drop them from our Spanish.

Another interesting point is the change in the uses of prepositions in different languages. 

  • I think about you - Pienso en ti, (I think in you)
  • I fall in love with you - Me enamoro de ti (I fall in love of you)
He's said more than once that "Language is permitting and requiring us to perceive and express the world in a certain way" Which I guess is his way of saying thinking about what might have been going on to cause the differences between languages. He's an interesting guy, don't you think?


7 comments:

  1. I do think! And I wonder how much language affects our perception. I also enjoy learning about how the language developed...the ma from Greek influencing Spanish words to be masculine not feminine. I was talking to some friends who speak Hindi and it was interesting to hear how poetic their everyday phraseology was and the impact it has on the listener.

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  2. I found the Greek "ma" influence interesting also. Now the gender of a noun in Spanish no longer seems so random. I love that!

    I do love the singing quality of some languages. I don't have very much experience listening to Hindi, but I can imagine it would be pretty to hear.

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  3. Came across the word cama today when looking at pronouns. Thought Ah, ends in ma so masculine! But of course not - still feminine...lol

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  4. Great posts! Sorry I wasn’t with it yesterday….
    I also enjoy the origin of words….
    I was once explaining (with great excitement) how cumpleaños means to “complete a year” when I noticed my listener’s eyes had glazed over!
    I took a class on imperotivos today and was thinking…it would be so much easier to remember… if he pointed out the patterns in the verb ending, rather than just show us the charts!!

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    Replies
    1. I've seen that glazed over look, my friend actually told me 'don't take this the wrong way, but this is extremely dry' I was explaining the 'alveolar tap' when pronouncing the Spanish 'D'. I guess it is pretty dry.

      And yes, I agree, seeing the patterns is a much better way to internalize the information.

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  5. Cumpleaños - didn´t realise that one!
    Not an origin per se but an interesting English language fact
    Question Answer
    What That
    Where There
    When Then
    Just change the w to a t for the answer! How many years I have I been speaking English and never noticed this!! Think this was from the language transfer - though can´t quite remember!

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