Talk:Spanish/Lesson 1

Error
I believe that I found an error. In the second dialogue of the first lesson, there is an accent missing over the first o in cómo. I have changed...

Señora Pérez: 	Me llamo Ana Pérez. ¿Y usted? ¿Como se llama?

to

Señora Pérez: 	Me llamo Ana Pérez. ¿Y usted? ¿Cómo se llama?

If I have erred, just let me know and I'll change it back, or someone else can. -- Phreq 02:57, 3 August 2005 (UTC)

The first dialogue is losing control. We have an audio file listed that does not match the dialogue. We have acquired three new audio files that only cover three specific lines in the dialogue (and seem to be of poor quality - it could be my software, but the volume on the three files is really low and the sound quality seems low).

I suggest that the three mini files be removed (because downloading three separate files is inconvenient) and that the errant dialogue be replaced by one that matches the existing dialogue. -- FyreWolfe 03:54, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)


 * Hello, I uploaded these 3 audio files in Commons. They are the first ones I recorded so it is quite possible that their quality could be improved. Honestly I tell you that it was my mistake to record them because I didn't realize that there was another audio file with the whole dialogue recorded. About their volume, i thought that their quality were good enough to be uploaded but i didn't realised that my loudspeakers are very powerful. Therefore, i wouldn´t mind and i'll understand if it's decided to erase the audio files I created, I'll try to do it better next time :), but then we have to ask for it in Commons. --Javier Carro 08:27, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Hey this looks great, I'm a Spanish speaker and especially excited to see this textbook started .. -- Karl Wick

The sound files that are now on the web pages are spoken by Mariela, a friend of mine who founded a SpanishForForeigners group at yahoo. She is currently having some trouble with her internet connection and asked me to upload the files for her. -- Thomas Strohmann


 * I was reading the lesson and I think some of the phrases sound somewhat funny: "¿Cómo se llama usted?" (lit. How are you called?) and "¿Hay algo nuevo para contar?" (Is there anything new to say?). I think no native spanish speaker speaks like that. In the question: "¿Cómo se llama usted?" the word "usted" is redundant, because the context already implies it. I think it's better to remove the word and to explain to the reader the use of the verb conjugation to establish the context. As for the question "¿Hay algo nuevo para contar?", even when it is completely valid spanish, it's simply never used in the real world. Actually, spanish speaking persons rarely ask questions like that. Some "more natural" alternatives are "¿Qué ha pasado?" or even better, "¿Qué hay de nuevo?" or "¿Cómo te va?".


 * Other instances of redundance are: "¿Y tú, cómo estás?": "¿Y tú?" is enough. "¿Y usted, cómo se llama?": "¿Y usted?" will do.


 * OASO (Octavio Salguero)


 * OASO, I've made the changes you suggested. Thanks so much for all the useful comments (since I'm just starting to learn Spanish I'm not yet confident in writing well stylistically). Thomas Strohmann


 * Perhaps including a note that 'hasta' literally translates to 'until', making it easier later on when it is given other uses in normal conversation.

Hello. I think there are to much information for a newbie. I suggest to split the lesson into two parts Lesson 1, A and Lesson 1, B. Then, there would be in lesson 1, A : Dialogue 1, vocab of dialogue 1, pronouns seen in lesson 1.

There is also a lot of information on verbs. I suggest to introduce ser, estar in lesson 2 or later, beacause it is a complicated topic.

The verbe cantar has been introduced in lesson 1. I suggest to add examples of sentences with -ar verbes in lesson 1, B. Trabajar, hablar seems to be verbs that newbies use soon.

What do you think about my comments ? --Oualmakran Youssef 14:30, 24 Apr 2004 (UTC)


 * I think your comments make a lot of sense. Please take the initiative and do what you suggest and if it gets all messed up (which I don't think will happen) I'll help straighten things up. Some of those simple "-ar" verbs make much more sense to introduce first and we don't want to overwhelm anyone with too much information to bite off in one piece .. - Karl Wick

I just noticed the audio file doesn't correspond exactly with the written text in example dialog one. Should the text be changed? Lbs6380 18:14, 12 May 2004 (UTC)

audio files.
What should I use to listen to the audio files? Neither real player nor window media player seem to work.

Any suggestions on what to use in the Mac world? I have tried Quicktime, RealPlayer, iTunes, and MPlayer OS X--this last one produces something really garbled and static-y sounding but is the only thing close to sounding like speech.

Answer
I manged to listen to the audio files ending in .ogg with Goldwave, a free program, but it is not really designed for that - Goldwave is really a sound file editing and recording program, and the text files sound a little too funny and a bit fast. Maybe someone else can tell us what program is supposed to work with .ogg - and where to get a free version of it... Yes, I can tell you: Winamp will do (free download for Windows). Found while looking at the possibillities of .ogg files (linux)

Vowel pronounciation
Why are there two tables for vowel pronounciation? I think both are really confusing. For example: E="Eh" as in "Day". I know what you mean but it would be better to use a vowel between two consonants such as in the word "bed".

In the second set of vowel examples we have "A" = A in "father". It just isn't. I don't know anyone who pronounces "que pasa?" using the "a" from father. It's more like the "a" from "dad" or "fat". Shouldn't we use IPA to be clear? Or just use better examples from the English?

82.213.248.138 17:27, 7 November 2005 (UTC) El Choco

OK, I have rewritten the Vowel Pronounciations as I suggested above and also moved the section to underneath the Consonant Pronounciation because it makes more sense there. I have moved the section on "Diacrital use over the vowel u" to be with the other pronounciation changes of u.

I also extended the stress rules so they are correct.

82.213.248.138 21:02, 7 November 2005 (UTC) El Choco

Consonant pronunciation
Why do the vowel and semivowel sections have IPA, but the consonant section only the vague approximations? Isn't |j| pronounced /x/ (at least in some dialects?), not really /h/ ("like the h in hotel")? Or should it say in which dialects |j| is /x/ and which dialects have /h/? --Jim Henry 23:05, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

¿Cómo te llamas?
I believe that it is also correct in certain places to say "¿Qué es tu nombre?" instead of "¿Cómo te llamas?". If I am right, would somebody like to put this in somewhere? --222.153.151.94 08:33, 22 December 2005 (UTC)

I don't know if they really use it some places, but it wouldn't be "¿Qué es tu nombre?". It'll be "¿Cuál es tu nombre?" (200.126.201.17 05:30, 25 February 2006 (UTC))

Semi-Vowels
Here in Argentina, we don't pronounce Oyo with the "y" as in "yet", we do it like a "sh" as in "shake". So maybe there could be a better example, like "rey", that it is pronounced the same everywhere (with the y as in "yet"). (200.126.201.17 05:38, 25 February 2006 (UTC))

Side to side
Maybe the words in spanish (for the people talking examples) should have the english version right next to it, for better translation. I would do this, but I'm trying to learn spanish.

Audio copyright?
I am interested in using the audio on this page, but I want to know the usage rights.

I see at the bottom of the page (emphasis on "Text" is mine): Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License

Reading elsewhere on this site, I get the impression that ALL the content on this site (text, audio, images) is Creative Commons, but the statement at the bottom of this page implies that the non-text parts of the page have a different licence.

I suspect that this is just an accident of description, but maybe it's intentional.

Anybody can help clarify?

--Rugops (discuss • contribs) 16:41, 2 February 2018 (UTC)