A beginner's best friend: a Spanish-English dictionary. Image: ::d::/Flickr
Spanish is a marvellous, satisfying language — once you get to grips with it.
Everyone has their own, particular struggles with a new language, but it’s also good to know you’re in the same boat as many others.
This guest post is by Will Peach, who is currently living in Granada, Spain and learning Spanish, and is well placed to reflect on the difficulties of grappling with Spanish as a beginner:
Learning a new language comes with a whole host of challenges. Not being born into it is usually where the problems start for a learner. Spanish, on the other hand, is one of those languages described by students as “relatively easy” to pick up. Yet is there any truth to that?
Identifying and appreciating the challenges of Spanish are the only way we can answer this question. Mastery? Not quite! Here’s a list 8 things that have stood – and still continue to stand — in my way.
Spanish is one of those languages described by students as ’relatively easy’ to pick up. Yet is there any truth to that?
Nouns
If you view Spanish nouns purely in terms of gender, either male or female, you’re likely to screw up. Native English language speakers aren’t likely to get these ‘categorisations’ at first and it certainly takes some practice. Yet there is a trick to distinguish masculine from feminine. Remember that, for the most part, the feminine nouns end in ‘a’ and you’ll generally be fine!
Pronunciation in Spanish can be tricky. Image: AdamNF/Flickr
Articles
The articles el and la help identify the gender of the noun. But learners must also learn that the termination of the words in either ‘o’ for masculine and ‘a’ for feminine does not always apply. For instance, the noun ‘hand’, la mano, is feminine, yet it ends in an ‘o’. Likewise there are nouns like ‘day’, el dia, which is masculine yet ends in ‘a’.
Pronunciation
The other great source of difficulty for native English speakers learning Spanish arises from the pronunciation. Spanish is littered with sounds that can be quite challenging for learners, especially sounds like ‘J’, commonly known as jota, and the rolled ‘R’ sounds. It’s hard to believe that intricate details like the positioning of the tongue matter when pronouncing the words, yet they really do!
Intonation
Another difficulty as far as pronunciation is concerned is intonation. Spanish has a highly regular intonation of words, something that English speakers are likely to struggle with. Do yourself a favour and try and leave out English intonations when using Spanish words.
Register is important in Spanish when talking to the old folks. Image: Greg Robbins/Flickr
Verbs
Spanish verbs can create a great deal of difficulty. As ‘to be’ has two verbs: ser and estar, this often leads to non-natives running for the hills. Without a proper understanding of the use of both, the learner will undoubtedly make grammatical mistakes. Remember that ser is used to refer to the permanent state of being and estar for the temporary state of objects and their physical location, and you can’t go far wrong. An in-depth understanding of these two verbs comes with time so have patience!
Register
When a situation calls for politeness in Spanish difficulties might arise. You have to consider the age factor of the person you’re addressing to try and prevent this. The verb form tu is regarded as informal and therefore can be used when addressing peers or younger people. The form usted, however, is used in formal settings and especially when addressing older people. This form of courtesy needn’t be so crucial but it’s nice to know.
Will Peach in Granada, about to inflict some Spanish on the locals. Image: Will Peach
Conjugation
The conjugation of verbs in Spanish is vastly different from that in English. Spanish verbs can be used with different endings, with some object pronouns switching from front to back almost seamlessly. The type of ending of a verb is heavily dependent on factors such as the mood of the person, the tense and the subject of the action. Mastering Spanish conjugation patterns takes a good bit of time to master.
Pronouns
Other linguistic modifiers like pronouns can also cause quite the headache. Verbs in a statement usually give hints on the best pronoun to use in the sentence. However, Spanish often dispenses with subject pronouns altogether, so watch out!
Spanish is derived in a large part from Latin. It is a Romance language just like Italian and Portuguese and is similar to both. Thanks to English borrowing heavily from Latin, keen learners will easily be able to pick out words and similarities between the two languages. Just remember that everyone makes mistakes and the most important thing is to keep going!
Will Peach is the site editor at GapDaemon.com, a gap year travel site for young independent travellers. He also heads up a Spain travel blog and TravelSexLife.com, a site dedicated to love and sex abroad. He currently lives in Granada, Spain.
Image credits: ::d::, AdamNF, Greg Robbins
