Question:
I am teaching myself Spanish. I was wondering if anyone can recommend a
good resource on the web, or if people would take grammar questions in
either of these groups (or if there is a more relevant website dealing
with the Spanish language.)
The books I am using are from Barron's "Spanish Now!" series. The
problem is that it's fairly conversationally oriented, but I like to see
the how the grammar all fits together. What I've done is outlined my
old English grammar textbook, and I'm mapping the grammar that I get
from these Spanish textbooks onto the outline from my English textbook.
That way, I get the conversational aspect from the books and tapes, but
still have a nice outline to refer to to piece it all together.
The grammar in these textbooks is somewhat piecemeal. For example, I
haven't seen anything about the progressive and emphatic forms: (I am
speaking; I do speak). All they say is that the regular form in Spanish
(Hablo) covers both of these forms. I don't know if this means that
Spanish has no progressive or emphatic form, or if it's done differently
and they are simply not showing me how in this chapter
Answer:
May I suggest alt.usage.spanish? There's a good-natured crew there,
comprising both native-speakers (from several Spanish-speaking
countries) and learners at several levels. All are very helpful.
That's not a bad approach -- English grammar and Spanish grammar are
fundamentally very similar. At some point, though, you will want a
better Spanish textbook, one that approaches fundamentals more than
just "Which way to the airport?" tips. If you're in PacBell
territory, you can't be far from a good bookstore.
They're simplifying. "Hablo" does mean both "I speak" and "I am
speaking", but "Estoy hablando" focusses on the progressive aspect of
"I am speaking".
Spanish uses the simple present ("hablo") more, while we in the U.S.
tend to use the progressive.
>Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.
Again, check out alt.usage.spanish. Their FAQs have references to
some online resources that might be helpful to you, and, as I say, the
people there are very willing to help. Both English and Spanish are
commonly used there.
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