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You say you live in Barcelona right? Barcelona region of Catalunya is an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Spain, kind like how Scotland is in Great Britain. Spain like Great Britain is made of Kingdoms or realms which keeps the area unified. Let me stop with the Spanish history for a bit which Spanish history is very intriguing. Especially since Barcelona got its name for the Greeks meaning boat or ship, Greek Barco Barca or Varco Varco meaning ship or boat, like in Spanish el barco.
But with that said. In Barcelona the people speak Catalan. Catalan is a language spoken from Barcelona Spain, all the way the Marseille in South France. Catalan is phonetically like Spanish, but the grammar looks like French. In Spain, do you also speak Catalan do to the fact Catalan is the dominant language in that particular region?
I understand Catalan but only speak a few words. Foreigners get two free Catalan classes in Catalonia. However keep in mind Barcelona has a lot of foreigners, so Spanish is the dominant language by far in Barcelona. In the smaller towns of Catalonia, Catalan is more important and if I lived in a smaller town I'd be using Catalan a lot more. Still sometimes signs are up in Catalan, and you'll need to be able to read Catalan sometimes (signs, directions, etc).
I have no dog in this fight but as a professional translator anytime someone says "I'm fluent in...." my ears prick up and my bull****-o-meter pings like crazy. It takes years to be actually fluent, with careful, measured study.
Not really. Living in the society for long periods of time is how you get fluent. You cannot get fluent from STUDYING a language because the SPOKEN language is nothing like what you will learn in school.
The only way to get good at a language is to live in the country or live in that society (say in an immigrant neighborhood in NYC).
Word choice in spoken Spanish varies dramatically for example depending on what region of Spain you're in, and obviously there's considerable differences between different types of Latin American Spanish. You cannot get good by "study".
These days, one must be careful what you say. Folks are worried about what private citizens says to other private folks which my get them fired, loose rental agreements or kicked out of college. In this video, one of the Port Authority Police commissioners used feminist white privilege, classism and elitism in order not to have her children detained by the police. This woman also tried to get the two officers fired from their jobs. She made an excuse that her kids go to MIT and Yale, both elite schools, and thus should not be detained or stopped. This one had two options, either get fired from the Port Authority, or resign from her position. Just be careful these days.
You didn't make mistakes in word choice. That could be understandable. You literally committed errors that Spanish speaking children do not even commit. They were really basic errors in grammatical constructs that would be stamped out in a Spanish 101 course.
And you do learn a language to fluency by careful study. Do you think UN interpreters don't have to study the languages they speak at a very high level? Do you think that someone would become truly fluent and able to read a book by, say, Shakespeare in English without actually studying English?
Conversational and truly fluent are two completely different linguistic concepts. You can absolutely become conversational and capable by living in the language in which your target foreign language speaks. But to be truly fluent you must be able to speak, read, and write seamlessly at all levels of speech from the very lowbrow to the very high.
Are you kidding me? A "textbook" Spanish speaker has difficulty in a Spanish speaking country? So knowing how to conjugate verbs and correctly pluralize nouns means someone all of a sudden won't be understood in a Spanish speaking country? Tell that to Gabriel García Márquez or Pablo Neruda or the Real Academia Española, lolololololol. Literacy is bad, mmmkay.
What you just said is like saying "Beaches is nice." Like a five year old. In Spanish. Some high level speaking going on there! Watch out! lol
I'm sure it's sufficient to live in Spain but don't come on here and act like you're Miguel de Cervantes.
Yes, a textbook Spanish speaker would have difficulty in a Spanish speaking country. Native Spanish speakers tend to be extremely critical of accents, and you cannot improve your accent with study alone.
As for me saying very simple sentences, yes, I did and I explained why. We're not supposed to post in other languages on the forum and if I made full posts in Spanish not only would it be a violation of forum rules it would be unfair to those who cannot read Spanish.
I have never claimed to be Miguel de Cervantes and quite frankly I have no interest in him. I have no interest in the Real Academia either. People in Spanish speaking countries don't give a crap about that stuff, and often don't know it exists as it does not pertain to them or effect their daily lives.
Back to REAL Spanish, it is full of expressions and colloquialisms that you WILL NOT learn in class (because these expressions are so different from region to region, even within the same country).
Not really. Living in the society for long periods of time is how you get fluent. You cannot get fluent from STUDYING a language because the SPOKEN language is nothing like what you will learn in school.
The only way to get good at a language is to live in the country or live in that society (say in an immigrant neighborhood in NYC).
Word choice in spoken Spanish varies dramatically for example depending on what region of Spain you're in, and obviously there's considerable differences between different types of Latin American Spanish. You cannot get good by "study".
A lot of things you simply learn by doing.
I learned a lot of Spanish from school, I would be completely lost without it. I think it's good for providing a base knowledge of vocabulary and proper grammar, while you might need to immerse yourself to learn certain nuances.
You didn't make mistakes in word choice. That could be understandable. You literally committed errors that Spanish speaking children do not even commit. They were really basic errors in grammatical constructs that would be stamped out in a Spanish 101 course.
And you do learn a language to fluency by careful study. Do you think UN interpreters don't have to study the languages they speak at a very high level? Do you think that someone would become truly fluent and able to read a book by, say, Shakespeare in English without actually studying English?
Conversational and truly fluent are two completely different linguistic concepts.
You do not learn languages by careful study.
Languages are spoken. You learn them by listening and speaking. Children are fluent in languages.
Everyone on this forum, myself included makes grammatical errors in ENGLISH, our Native language.
So what?
The bottom line is I am STILL a LEGAL resident in Spain Mr. Grammar nerd, while you aren't. So stuff your translations where the sun don't rise and the moon don't shine.
Who cares?
Really nobody really should care anything about me or what I am doing, but I realize some of you have no real lives and no real ability to do anything new, so you nitpick and the silliest things when the real problem is your jealousy and bitterness. My Spanish language skills serve me well here, I am having a good time, and there's no problem. But yeah, if screaming like a nutcase over my sentences makes you jerk off, knock yourself off. But you can leave me out of your masturbation exercise.
Vivia en Barcelona para seis meses ya. Me gusta las playas aqui. No hablo much Catalan, pero no es necessario para hablar Catalan para vivir en Catalonia. Hablo castellano a un nivel muy alto.
I could say a lot more in Spanish, but that would be against forum rules and unfair to people here who can't read Spanish.
But suffice to say my Spanish is very good.
You obviously can't write it though. It's missing the "tildes" with several errors.
For the record, most Americans don't read Shakespeare these days and a person who wants to live in an English speaking country does not have to read Shakespeare to become a citizen of that country.
You're purporting to be fluent in a language when you are not. That's all we're saying. I'm sure you have a wonderful time in Spain and can be understood but you are deluding yourself if you think you speak Spanish at a "high level." Your Spanish grammatical errors were so bad they're not even typical of a Spanish speaking child.
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