Pronoun Pressure

Hi. I'm slowly and somewhat painfully making my way through the pronoun sections (5.6, 5.7, 5.8) of Level 1.

This new material is astronomically more difficult than anything which came before! It would be so nice if this seemingly dramatic and unexpected uptick in difficulty could be specifically addressed, forewarned, mitigated or maybe even avoided (e.g. by spreading the material out a bit). I do realize a couple of bland comments are made regarding potential difficulties…. but…please…hold my hand, I'm about to cry!

HI Ely-z

Don't cry, just leave it for a bit. I have felt like that so many times. Overwhelmed by just the sheer volume of it all. Sometimes they just pack to much grammar into one lesson. Have also had a few rants about it. Their grammar lesson suck at times. I can't tell you how many times I have gone back to Direct and indirect pronouns in Italian. I am still going back! I do have aha moments too.  Sometimes walking away for a bit helps. 

At the end of the day I always do go back, but use other sources for grammar too. even that doesn't always stick though. Just to encourage you, if you are learning Spanish for general conversation it doesn't really matter. If you are going into translating then it does matter. My aim when I am learning any language is to be able to communicate even if it is not always correct. I want to understand and be understood. I have said this before. I speak Portuguese not quite fluent, but close, but my grammar is wonky at times, but I can understand a lot and converse freely and it doesn't really matter to me if it is not 100% correct.

Well that is my take on it at any rate. Hope this helps 

Maxie

Thank you for responding Maxie, I  very much appreciate your kind support… and your suggestions! 

Ely-Z, I agree the pronouns are challenging and I am well into Level 2!  I eventually did exactly what Maxie advised - just moved on and tried to get more and more comfortable as examples came up. I am now at the point when I read something with a pronoun, I know right away what it means. If I hear it, I need a pause to put it right in my mind. When I speak it, I almost always forget the pronoun until i say the verb, then realize I needed a pronoun in front. But at least I know that and now I just need to make it second nature. Fortunatley sometimes I can just tack the pronoun on the end of the verb!

Good luck and keep at it!

¡Hola a todos!

Direct and indirect object pronouns are definitely one of the areas that tend to give Spanish learners the most trouble. Not only do these pronouns work very differently from their English counterparts, but using them also requires you to understand the difference between direct and indirect objects - and that alone can be quite tricky!

When you feel yourself getting bogged down in a topic like this and you find you're just not making progress, Ely-Z, I'd recommend doing exactly as Maxie and Scott_C have said: take a break and move on for a bit. This will allow your brain to disconnect itself from the problem and will also help you to feel a lot less frustrated when you do come back to it. You may even find that when you look at things again when fresh eyes, it all makes a lot more sense! 

It may also help to use these lessons as a guide or a kind of “cheat sheet" as you move forward: the next time you come across a sentence with a direct or indirect object pronoun in it and you don't know what it means or why it's there, you can pull up the pronoun lessons and use them to figure out what's going on in your sentence. 

Although it may not feel like it now, it will start to click eventually! And in the meantime, don't forget that the forum is here to help: you can post any specific questions you have and your fellow learners and Rocket tutors will be here to take you through it and explain what's going on!

¡Ánimo!

Liss
 

I haven't got to the Rocket pronouns lessons yet, but I remember finding them very confusing during the Pimsleur lessons. I did an Web search and found this chart of personal pronouns that helped me a lot:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220119145505/https://users.pfw.edu/jehle/courses/PRONOUNS.HTM

I printed it out for easy reference.

There's also a summary in non-chart form:

https://web.archive.org/web/20220119131057/https://users.pfw.edu/jehle/courses/PRONOUN1.HTM