Did Lesson 5.8 in Level 1 drive anyone else crazy?

Seemed like an awfully dense lesson to me.  They packed a lot in and didn't miss the chance to throw in some new vocabulary to boot. Direct and indirect pronouns, some occasionally changing to “se,” which wasn't really listed as a distinct pronoun of its own; the changing gender of the pronouns; the grammatically correct placement of them; compounding them onto infinitives and -ndo words of the present continuing tense . . . and more.  It has taken me several days to work myself up to this lesson. As far as the flash cards, I could make those translations only by first typing out the verbs and then going back to place the pronouns and other words in the sentence. Not knowing the new vocabulary words didn't help either.  And I don't suppose there was any way to make it clear whether they want those pronouns attached to the end of an infinitive or at the start of the verb or verb phrase except by remembering how it was originally presented in the lesson.  
 

Still, ever so slowly I am wrapping my mind around  it.  Ever . . .  so . . .  slowly. 

Hi FredH4 

I am doing Italian German and now Spanish and although I do the grammar lessons I just find them totally overwhelming at times. Often have that ??? Moment and had one yesterday in German. 

 It just is what it is and I try and use other resources to get clarity. 

It still is a good course overall, but for methe grammar sucks!

Maxie 

I've thought about German, which I understand is a difficult language to learn, but for now Spanish is more than enough for me.  I give it only so much of my time and some days none at all. 

Hi FredH8

Just seen I got your name wrong. I am South African, so speak Afrikaans does help with the German, but not the grammar, as Afrikaans has a very simple grammar structure.I also speak Portuguese as in not Brazilian Portuguese, so Spanish seems quite familiar too. The problem with that is that I get the 2 confused and want to use Portuguese instead. Am right at the beginning of Spanish and taking it slowly. I use Coffee Break Podcasts. Those are free. They now have 3 seasons. I use the podcasts for the Spanish. Subscription includes notes and bonus, but there is no recording your stuff, but still find it useful. use it when I am busy in the garden or doing chores, as I can just listen. ou may find it helpful too. 

 Hasta pronto

Maxie

Coffee Break Postcasts?  Not familiar with it, but I just Googled it and found podcasts on the Apple.com.  Since I just switched to an iPhone, maybe I'll give it a try.  Not sure how to handle podcasts on phone, but I'll figure it out. Thanks for the info. 

Update:  Just noticed that it seems to be Iberian Spanish (is that Catalan?). I'm hoping to learn Spanish as it is spoken in Mexico because Mexico is the closest to me. When I listen to people from Spain, I can't figure out what they are saying as well. They seem to ingore their S's or something.  Not sure what it is.  There are other differences too, and I'm just not far enough along with with I've learned yet to be able to describe the differences.  Still, the podcasts may be helpful so I'll try to download some.  

Hi Fred

Closed the window by mistake and have to type this again.  Podcsts are only available on a computer. You need to search for Coffee Break Languages and once in the site click on podcasts. Languages and levels are there. They have introduced a new “Club” a monthly subscribtion and available on phone and Apple Tv as well.  

Www.languagetransfer.org is also an interesting site, just listening, but I enjoy that for German and Italian, not tried the Spanish. 

Yes, it is Catalan Spanish, but although there are differences not that different according to some. Dialects do play a role and in some ways there is a snob value to European countries. I know that is the case with some Portuguese. Even French from Europe is different to the French in Canada. (i'm in Canada) and Quebeqois is different, but I could understand them and they could understand my French. 

Happy learning

Maxie

¡Hola FredH8 y Maxie!
 

The grammar side of languages can certainly seem like a lot at times, and every language learner knows the struggle of trying to wrap their brain around something that just doesn't seem to want to compute! But with time and perserverance, things will eventually klick into place. If you feel that you're starting to get frustrated with a lesson or concept, it can be very helpful to give yourself a little brain break - maybe go out for a walk, work on something with your hands, or even just take the rest of the day off. Once you come back to the things that are giving you trouble, they'll often seem much easier to digest.
 

Lesson 5.8 in particular can indeed seem like it's dealing with a lot on its own! As a result, it's a very good idea to start off with the two preceding lessons first, if you haven't already: Lesson 5.6 and Lesson 5.7. These two lessons take you through the basic rules of object pronouns first, and then Lesson 5.8 is designed to show you how to combine what you've learned in 5.6 and 5.7. These are very tricky topics that Spanish learners often struggle with at the start, so it may be helpful to really take each section one at a time and make sure that you've got each lesson down before you move on to the the next one.
 

As for the trouble that you're having with the activities, FredH8, there is a trick that you can use: for all sentences that have the pronouns tacked on after the infinitive or after the -ndo form, we provide a literal translation to try to illustrate this. For example, here is a sentence in the Know It! activity from Lesson 5.8:
 

If you mouse over the “Lit.” notation, you'll see this:

This is intended to show you that the pronouns for “to you” and “it” should be attached on the end of the infinitive for “to give” (i.e. te and lo should be stuck on the end of dar): Voy a dártelo.

I hope some of this is helpful! If there's anything else that I can help with or if you have any specific questions, just let me know!

Saludos,

Liss
 

Maxie, I have noticed the “snob” appeal of Spanish on the continent.  I suppose everyone looks down on Mexico and points south. In some of my past travels I also noticed a strange kind of rivalry, a oneupmanship of sorts, between various members of the European union.  The Potuguese, for example (at least in Madiera), really seem to hate the Spanish. The British take umbrage at the French, and the French seem to feel superior to absolutely everybody. When it comes to Germans, they seem to hold France's ill regard of them in a kind of glib disdain. 

So I dunno.  I've lived on the coast of NC most of my life. There was absolutely no one within driving distance of my home who spoke anything but  English, so in those days we saw no point in trying to master a lanaguage spoken in some far-flung place that we'd probably never even visit. 

If you know French and are now working on German and Italian, you are far more ambitious than I. One language at a time, please, and given my age I have little hope of mastering even that one. I just won't have the time for it.  :-)  I will be visiting Guadalajara next month, so I'm looking forward to that. I'll try some Spanish there maybe, though I have little hope of understanding them when they respond in Spanish.    

Liss, thanks for your response.  I did go through the lessons in order, covering 5.6 and 5.7 before attempting 5.8, but 5.8 still seemed a tad overwhelming. I will go back and review them because maybe I just didn't remember those lessons. Usually I understand things pretty quickly, but I couldn't even finish the exercises in 5.8.  I know it goes indirect, direct, then verb (or verb phrase), but sometimes the pronouns seem to go immediately before a lot more than that.  Plus, one must memorize the singular and plural forms of those pronouns.  Spanish is complex! and involves a great many moving parts, all of which must be taken into consideration simultaneously. I feel my brain shrinking. 

AI22, I'm going to see if I can find that lesson on YouTube's Spanish with Paul. He's got a lot of lessons there. I had no idea there were so many places to learn Spanish on the Internet, and apparently quite a few of them are totally free!  But I'm not going to complain about what I paid for Rocket Languages' Spanish. So far I think it's an excellent course and I've learned quite a bit, especially considering how little time I actually spend on the lessons. I already had some vocabulary under my hat when I started, so I suppose that helped move things a long a little more quickly. I think the people who designed this course are brilliant.  It's just a shame that I'm not.  :-) 

Thanks for the tip!

 

And thanks again, AI22!  I was going back over the Level 1, lesson 5.6, and remain perplexed.  I read that those pronouns should go in front of the verb, so I don't understand it when phrases like “Quiero la enviar” isn't correct but “La quiero enviar” is.  In that sentence, “La” is the direct object of eviar, not of quiero, but the pronoun gets placed in front of quiero at the start of that very short sentence. Then, in just a few more phrases, you see that “Estela lo tiene” is correct but not “Lo Estela tiene.”  (I know Estela is a noun.) 

Why is “Te busco” not correct but “Estoy mirándolo is”? Doesn't “busco” mean to search or look for?  

I've heard one should not try to overthink Spanish because, well, Spanish is Spanish and English is English.  

I'll check out the lesson provided by Juan and see if he can get it through my thick skull.   For now I've moved on to the next level where where dialogue between Amy and Mauricio introduces a  phrase in the past tense and a couple of other newbies.  I do love the dialogue lessons but realize when I'm listening to them without reading along that I'm not always understanding that's being said.  I guess I need a practice partner but have failed to find one locally. As of now, I can understand what I read much better than what I hear. I suspect that is normal. 

AI22, we are clearly at very different places in learning the Spanish language! And I definitely do not have a photographic memory.  In recent days my efforts to learn Spanish have come nearly to a standstill. I need to find my motivation again because my experience with direct and indirect pronouns has been quite disheartening. Some of the problem now is that I've forgotten the specific vocabulary in the lessons where I'm trying to apply the pronouns, so I have to go back and review the entire lesson.  Sadly, there are just so many hours in a day.

 Just FYI, I did go to Juan's lecture on pronouns, but the entire thing was in Spanish and I simply could not follow it.  I'm not convinced that the whole "learn my immersion" theory holds much water when that "immersion" occurs exclusively online. As a child in the crib or as a visitor living in a country where the language is spoken, one experiences smell, touch, gesticulation, facial expressions, comprehensible context, visual and auditory cues, and one can sense the mood and tone of communications. Online experiences simply cannot replicate all that. They can replicate very little of it, in fact––all of which means I am highly skeptical of those who propose learning a language by immersion completely online because the online experience simply is not an immersive one.  Caveat:  I confess that I was persuaded to pay for a LingQ subscription, but that, at least, comes with both the spoken word, the written word, and on demand the written word's translation. Have I learned anything from it?  I truly can't say. I can read much more than I can speak, but in that regard I don't know that LingQ is any more effective than Rocket Spanish. 

Re: Flashcards.  I agree with you. I also have a flashcard app on my phone that allows me to import Excel files of Spanish words and phrases and translations. The app can present either the Spanish or the English first and uses a method similar to the one you mentioned in Memrise of spaced repetition. It's a useful app but it requires the work of copying and pasting those sentences and words into Excel. 

Regarding your comment, "The something in it could be someone wanting to learn english, but that's a waste of time unless both parties already know enough of each other's language to at the very least minimally communicate combined with mutual reciprocity," I have tried to find a native speaker locally who shares my goal of learning each other's language and simply could not find anyone. 

Baselang? You just taught me something else! Again, thank you. BTW, is English your native tongue or are you becoming or possibly already have become a polyglot? 

¡Hola a todos!

I'll just hop in to address the questions that came up about pronoun placement - I've divided this up into sections below.

1. La quiero enviar / Quiero enviarla

You're on the right track to think that the pronoun should go in front of the verb, FredH8; however, the key is actually that it needs to go in front of the conjugated (i.e. changed) verb (just as you suspected, Al22!). So when we have two verbs working together like in the phrase quiero enviar “(I) want to send,” we need to put the pronoun la “it” in front of quiero - this is the conjugated verb. It can't go in front of enviar, (so we can't say “quiero la enviar”) because enviar is an infinitive (i.e. unchanged) verb. 

Now, La quiero enviar is one way to say “(I) want to send it”; however, since pronouns can also be tacked onto the ends of infinitives, we could also say Quiero enviarla if we wanted to. Both are right.

If you're looking for further practice, you can find the explanation about pronouns going in front of conjugated verbs (plus accompanying examples) in Lesson 5.6 (under the pronoun table) and in Lesson 5.7 (in the subsection “Indirect Object Pronouns in Use”). 

2. Estela lo tiene

When we say that the pronoun needs to go in front of the conjugated verb, we need to keep in mind that this means directly in front of the verb. This is why we can say Estela lo tiene “Estela has it” (with the pronoun lo right in front of the verb tiene), but we can't say “Lo Estela tiene” (with the pronoun separated from the verb by Estela).

3. Te busco

There actually isn't anything wrong with saying Te busco “(I) look for you” - this is correct pronoun placement, because the pronoun te “you” comes right in front of our conjugated verb, busco “(I) look.” So this one's fine! 

As you say, though, Al22, “Buscote” would be incorrect: generally speaking, we can only plug pronouns onto the ends of present participles (i.e. -ndo forms) and infinitives; we can't plug them onto the ends of one-word conjugated verbs (i.e. verbs in simple tenses). (There is an exception to this rule, though - see below!)

4. ¡Apúrate! (etc.)

The one time that we do add pronouns onto the ends of verbs that are conjugated in a simple tense is in the imperative (i.e. the command mood). This is why you've heard things like ¡Apúrate! “Hurry up!” in person or in movies, Al22: this is a positive command, and pronouns just get tacked onto the end of these.

The imperative can get complicated, so we have divided the topic into three lessons:
- Lesson 12.6 "Telling People What to Do" (introduction to positive tú commands)
- Lesson 17.5 "Getting Bossy (Informally)" (positive and negative tú commands,
- Lesson 17.6 "Getting Bossy (Formally and in Groups)" (positive and negative usted / ustedes / nosotros / nosotras commands)

I hope that these explanations help to clear things up! Don't hesitate to ask if you have more questions!

Saludos,

Liss

AI22, 
You're interested in the history and evolution of languages? That's a quite a topic! I've never really tried to peer into the subject. English is my only language, and I never took very seriously the idea of learning another one.  Well, I did in college many, many years ago. I had two or three semesters of Spanish (don't remember how many now) and managed to hold onto only small fragments of it.

Sounds like we might not be too many years apart. My first excursion out of the US was to Cancun in the early to mid '80s. For $300 we were able to snag a charter flight out of BWI and a hotel for a week.  The hotel was at the place where the hotel zone began.  At the hotel's restaurant the first morning there, I had my first (and only) plate of huevos rancheros.  I didn't know what I was ordering. Eggs, right? Well, I hate tomatoes in combination with eggs, so while it was a memorable breakfast it wasn't a good one.  After that breakfast, everything else went swimmingly. In the 90's I took two or three more trips to Cancun and loved it. By then I was scuba diving. The exchange rate was ten pesos to the dollar. From what I gather, everything between Cancun and Tulum is now carpeted with hotels and condos. 

Until two weeks from now when I visit Guadalajara, that was the grand sum total of my experience with Mexico.  IOW, I've probably had no Mexican experience at all. Looking forward to Guadalajara. 

So exactly how were you so connected to Mexico by events and people?  Did you live there or maybe in one of the border states? I've spent my entire life in eastern North Carolina. Only in recent years have we developed a noticeable Latin American presence, and it's still a small one in evidence mostly at the local WalMart.  While nearly everyone around here assumes that Spanish speakers are Mexican, my limited experience suggests that most of these folks come from countries further south. There is little appreciation for the hardships they endured to get here or for the horrific conditions that drove them to flee from their homeland. Or for the fact that so many of them are working at jobs that you simply can't get Americans to do. 

Regarding the whole immigration issue, I don't know what to think. I just don't have enough of a grasp of the issue to have an informed opinion. I'm sure an answer lies somewhere between the two extremes. 

Like you, I have no compelling reason to learn Spanish other than the fact that I'm retired and now have time to do it. Plus, I want to do more traveling to locations south of the border (but also Spain) and don't want to be totally ignorant of the language when I get there. I also know that most people in most other Western countries are taught a second language––often English––beginning in grammar school, and I feel rather embarrassed by America's comparative stupidity in this regard.  Why isn't learning a second language more important to us? 

Am I feeling stuck right now?  Decidedly so. But I've decided to take the advice of some polyglots whose views I've listened to Youtube: move on. I'll continue learning other things and maybe eventually all those pronouns will fall in place. 

hi Fred and Al22

I find languages facinating and the more you do, one sees a connection and I love that. Also very good for our brains. It is a known fact that people that survive a stroke, recover speech more easily if they speak more than one language. 

I have battled with direct and indirect objects in Italian, and just keep on going back to them and finally it is becoming easier.

Was watching some YouTube videos on Spanish. “The Language Tutor” Just watched the first ones and they seemed to be logical and well set out. Have not got to the more complicated grammar bits, yet.

We immigrated to Canada in 2008, with 4 children. All young adults. Believe me it is not easy, even with jobs etc. Regardless one misses ones homeland, no matter how bad it is. I miss South Africa and the lifestyle a lot. That said I do enjoy a cold and sometimes snowy Christmas. Many, like us immigrate to give our children a better future. Even if you come with lots of resources, people still struggle emotionally. I have not met anyone that didn't feel this way. Support and kindness goes a long way to help immigrants settle in.

Maxie

As a teacher, this is one of my biggest gripes, & a problem in both Rocket German & Spanish.  If the primary focus of a lesson is to introduce a new grammar concept, DON'T throw in a lot of new vocabulary or use tenses/cases you haven't explained yet.  The student will grasp the concept better if you use known vocabulary.  In fact, if you were really being clever, this is a great opportunity to go back & refresh the student's memory on vocabulary introduced several lessons back, but not used in recent lessons.

Similarly, if the focus is new vocabulary, don't do it using unexplained grammar examples.  E.G., quit using reflexive examples when you haven't explained that concept.  Yes, I realize you want to introduce common phrases early on that use unexplained grammar concepts, but at least acknowledge that, e.g., “This is a common phrase you need to know; we'll explain its construction later.”

But don't obscure your primary teaching focus with other concepts you haven't yet explained.

¡Hola a todos!

Thank you very much for your feedback, RobertD50! I will pass your comments on to our Development Team. 

Saludos,

Liss