Thread: ¡hola a todos!

[quote=uno]Pues, Conoc

Originally Posted by jjolly

Las cucarachas fritas? Que mierda! Claro que no las sirven!!!
(A proposito, estoy desayunando en este momento. Gracias, amigo! )

No fue mi deseo molestarte De todoas maneras, Cuando me vaya a Rusia, tenemos cenarnos aqu

Originally Posted by uno

No fue mi deseo molestarte

Ha-ha No tiene importancia!
En verdad, rusos no temen cucarachas.

[quote=uno]De todoas maneras, Cuando me vaya a Rusia, tendr

Originally Posted by jjolly

Te deseo lo mismo
A proposito, de donde eres? Espanol es tu idioma natal?

No soy de EE.UU. donde tememos mucho las cucarachas. El ingl

I ate at La Cucaracha in Petersburg once. Can't remember a damn thing about the food or service, other than that the cheese was really gross; I was lamentably drunk at the time of my visit.

[quote=uno]

Originally Posted by jjolly

Te deseo lo mismo
A proposito, de donde eres? Espanol es tu idioma natal?

No soy de EE.UU. donde tememos mucho las cucarachas. El ingl

Originally Posted by Линдзи

I ate at La Cucaracha in Petersburg once. Can't remember a damn thing about the food or service, other than that the cheese was really gross; I was lamentably drunk at the time of my visit.

Ha-ha I'm not sure if it's the best place to eat, but among the other such places in here it's rather decent.
Once I gave them a special order, I named it "Tequila rusa" A big glass, filled up to its edges with "Tequila Blanco", and a huge entire lemon with it.
By that moment I had been rather drunk, but swallowed the whole glass at one shot, bit the lemon, and then I didn't remember anything, I was completely lost in oblivion

It is funny Russians only know two words in Spanish Cucaracha and adios.

La Cucaracha is a famous Mexican song from the times of the Revolution in 1910, back then trains were the mean of transportation for the soldiers and revolutionaries. The song describes a train which cannot move, called La Cucaracha and the reason is because it has no more marijuana to smoke...

I wonder if they also know Acapulco? There is a restaurant by this name in Moscow.

I know tequila is very expensive in Russia. Is that true?

Hi monichka,

What's the weather like in Mexico? It seems to me, you always have good weather. There is everything under snow here now where I live. I am really pissed off to sweep snow out from my car every morning

Originally Posted by monichka

It is funny Russians only know two words in Spanish Cucaracha and adios.

La Cucaracha is a famous Mexican song from the times of the Revolution in 1910, back then trains were the mean of transportation for the soldiers and revolutionaries. The song describes a train which cannot move, called La Cucaracha and the reason is because it has no more marijuana to smoke...

I wonder if they also know Acapulco? There is a restaurant by this name in Moscow.

I know tequila is very expensive in Russia. Is that true?

Yes, I have heard that history about the train. But I'm sure that most of Russians can't even translate "cucaracha". It's just a set of sounds meaning nothing I've just asked my mother-in-low what "Acapulco" means, and she replyed that it's probably a city in the south of Russia
You get the picture

By the way, how do you know about that restaurant in Moscow? Have you ever been to Russia?

Tequila costs about 70$ for a bottle, it's more expensive than vodka of good quality. That's one of the reasons I don't drink it anymore I used to like "tequila blanco" (don't remember what brand it was), but that time it was free of charge for me - thanks to all my former friends from Latin America )
How much does it cost in Mexico?

Hi jjoly:

Right now we hava wonderful weather in Mexico City, the south and southeast, it is sunny, not very hot, it is the best time to visit our beaches.

Did you know many people in Mexico haven

Originally Posted by jjolly

My native language is Russian, I was born here, in St. Petersburg, and I have never been abroad except (if it makes sense to be mentioned) Lithuania and the Ukraine, they both had been parts of the USSR for quite a long time.
I'm almost fluent in English as I have been studing it since my childhood.
On the contrary, Spanish (IMHO, the easiest language from 3 I can speak) hasn't played any important part in my life. As you rightly noticed, the Russians aren't interested in this language. But I do like it When I met the first person from Latin America, heard their music, I immediatly liked it. It's a pity a have no reason (I mean, I don't need it at my work and I have no friends who speak it) to carry on studying the language
You wrote you didn't know many Russians who speak Spanish. So, you have Russian friends in the USA, don't you?

But if you speak Spanish and Russian and English, you can pretty much tour Europe! With Spanish, you can definitely pick up functional Portuguese in a week, Italian in maybe a month of light study. Most of Northern Europe speaks English, and in Eastern Europe they either speak English or Russian.

Hablo un poco de espanol, soy funcional pero no soy fluente. Yo querria aprender mas, necesito que buscar mis libros y leerlos. Ahora estoy estudiando el ruso por audio. Es muy interestante, los similaridades de las dos lenguas. Palabras como "servilleta" y "салфетка", "bastante" y "достаточно", "dar" y "дать", "y" y "и". ?Unas influencias del Latin?

Originally Posted by Anonymous

With Spanish, you can definitely pick up functional Portuguese in a week, Italian in maybe a month of light study.

eso es falso. De hecho para un espa

This story isn't of a fluent speaker, but of one who can converse in Spanish.
Mi hermano vivia un ano en Chile. Cuando el visitaba Brazil, el no comprendia un palabra. El podia.
Mi frances me da el ayuda con mi escuchar en espanol si lo hablaba lentamente. Pero, no para mi hablaba y escribia.

My brother live in Chile for a year. When he visited Brazil, he was lost, because he couldn't understand a word.

My French helps me pick up the jist of Spanish conversations. If you speak two related languages, the third one becomes easy to learn. (Not that I've learnt Spanish yet. It will be obvious to a Spanish speaker that I'd be using a dictionary to stumble my way through the Spanish part of my post. Though occassionally it 'clicks' and I can do without and make small talk).

Please feel free to correct my Spanish. Por favor esta en libertad corrigir mi espanol. IF YOU DARE! Gracias.

Corrections:

Mi hermano vivi

Hi monichka,

It's very interesting to know about Mexico what you have posted above.
Sometimes I'm very busy and can't visit this forum often enough to take part in discussing interesting topics around here.
If you want to keep your Russian up and have a chat with me in Russian or sometimes maybe just to drop me a couple of lines about how you are doing there , feel free to write to me at azh2002/at\mail/dot\ru

I wish I could be there and visit your beaches!
You know, we almost have had no snow for last month, and it's very unusual for this place. But anyway it's goddamn wet and cold, and everybody is dying for good spring weather

Originally Posted by monichka

Hi jjoly:

Right now we hava wonderful weather in Mexico City, the south and southeast, it is sunny, not very hot, it is the best time to visit our beaches.

Did you know many people in Mexico haven?t touched or felt snow. We don?t have fabulous climate all the time, sometimes the temperature drops and a little snow falls in the mountains, lots of people drive all the way to make snowmen on top of their cars and bring them down to the city.

I have been to Russia twice, I love your country, very much, it is so beautiful. In Moscow a friend of mine told me about "Acapulco" but actually I didn?t go, I would have liked to know if it is real Mexican Cuisine and if Russian people enjoy it.

I know very little Russian, and all my Russian speaking friends have all gone back to their countries, so I don?t get to practice or learn more from them. It is nice to know someone from Russia like you.

A good bottle of tequila in Mexico costs around $45 dollars, it depends on the quality and the range goes from $15 to $100. I wish I could send you a bottle!

Very funny the response of your mother in law!

Your are very nice jjolly! I will write as soon as possible.

I read that this has been the warmest winter in many years for Russia. It seems a current from the equator somehow arrived and everything was melting! Such bad news for snowmen!

Let me tell you that a few days lafter my last post, the weather changed and a a cold current has brought terrible low temperatures to Mexico City! So maybe right now we have the same temperature as in Moscow!

But the beaches have very nice weather, so, you can visit anytime soon!

Sorry for the english, it's easier for me:

My opinion, correct me if I[m wrong:

When looking at Portuguese, although it at first sounds different, it's pretty close to a straight conversion from Spanish, correct?? Sure, you can't understand a word if you haven't worked on it, but it's pretty close to a one-to-one conversion of sounds. If you have "ll", substitute "ch". If it ends in "un", use "um". Things like that. Spend a week or a month practicing the conversions, and you're good to go, right? I mean, there are *very* few lexical differences, once those conversions are used.

Here's a link on that:

http://alfarrabio.um.geira.pt/spl/rules.html

I look over a few basic portuguese lessons, and they're totally understandable, almost all the words are the same or close. I'd think if a spanish speaker spent a week iof study on it, they'd be in good shape. With *no* study, yeah, I'd bet there's problems.

Italian *sounds* more like spanish, but there are more lexical differences, I think? More *different* words and different usages. Easy to read and pronounce, but more vocabulary to learn.

As for Portugese speakers understanding spanish, I'm not surprised. There are many more spanish speakers, I'd think they maybe had some exposure to Spanish tv, etc., and were more comfortable with the conversion.

As for French speakers catching on to some spanish: French drops a LOT of consonants, or mutes them, making it a bit harder for others to learn. But spanish says them all (except h), and so spoken spanish might be more intelligible to french speakers than vice versa. Just guessing on this one.

I agree, Aaa, with pretty much everything you said. I mentioned that my French helped my Spanish. But, so did my English. If you combine English and French, you have both the French/Spanish grammatical/lexical similarity covered, AND with English you've already gotten used to the pronunciation. Because we (English speakers) have almost all the same letters and sounds as Spanish. Accent allowing, of course. Only the 'j', 'g' and 'double L' are different. And a very minor difference, the 'z' in Spanish is like 's'. But English uses 's' and 'z' sounds for its letter 'S' , so that's not too much of a leap of faith for an English speaker to get used to the Spanish 'z' being pronounced that way. Maybe it'd take a bit of practice saying Spain's spanish 'c' and TH. But still, it's pretty minor. So, Portuguese and Spanish speakers must find each others language a quick step, so long as they pay it some attention.

just one thing..

the sound Z is not like S!!. To pronounce "Z" you have to put your tongue betwwen your teeth , which is something you don't do when pronouncing "s". is the same sound of "c" when found before "e" or "i", as in "Cien (a hundred, and not "sien", which is a part of the body) As you say, it is like english "th", as in "thunder"

Another sound that is strange for foreign speakers is "rr" as in "carro". Only russian people seem to be able to pronounce it corectly, but that is because they have a strong "r" sound. French people can NEVER pronounce it

see ya...

Originally Posted by brett

I agree, Aaa, with pretty much everything you said. I mentioned that my French helped my Spanish. But, so did my English. If you combine English and French, you have both the French/Spanish grammatical/lexical similarity covered, AND with English you've already gotten used to the pronunciation. Because we (English speakers) have almost all the same letters and sounds as Spanish. Accent allowing, of course. Only the 'j', 'g' and 'double L' are different. And a very minor difference, the 'z' in Spanish is like 's'. But English uses 's' and 'z' sounds for its letter 'S' , so that's not too much of a leap of faith for an English speaker to get used to the Spanish 'z' being pronounced that way. Maybe it'd take a bit of practice saying Spain's spanish 'c' and TH. But still, it's pretty minor. So, Portuguese and Spanish speakers must find each others language a quick step, so long as they pay it some attention.

I know two people trying Pimsleur for Spanish, they both think "muy" is hard to say.

I told them that you can say "moy", or "mwee", or anything in between, and you'll be intelligible, and there will be some native speaker in some local dialect who says it the same way.