Wednesday, July 21, 2010

Update

I added a page! :) I love it you can add pages on blogspot now, it was the only thing that was missing really, but now it's better than wordpress I think.

So, what's going on? Since I have summer holidays, I have lots of time for languages. When I started this blog my plan was actually to start learning a new language in January and try to be fluent in a year... but I couldn't resist it and started learning Swedish! Tight schedules are really not for me. Well, to make sure I do actually do something, these are my goals for the end of the year:

1. Become conversational in Spanish. I can already easily have conversations in Spanish, but I keep constantly using google translate, and I cant say what I want to say.. and although I don't need to be fluent yet, I want to be at a level where I can make talking with friends my daily Spanish practice.

2. Learn German grammar and be able to have conversations. When I see German friends chatting on irc, or their facebook, etc, I understand pretty much everything. But when I try to speak some German - nothing! I don't know how to conjugate verbs, I don't know a lot of basic grammar rules, and I don't know a lot of basic words! So, I'm gonna find out what exactly is still keeping me from speaking German and then just speak it.

3. Learn some more Swedish, say... level A2. I'm trying to learn as little grammar as possible and figure things out by myself, and it's really much easier than I thought! When I've learned enough to form my own sentences and when I'm getting really curious, I'll buy a book and see how well I really did.

Oh and also, I'm gonna go to France in september! And although I won't be speaking French a lot there (I'm going with school) I'm definitely gonna take every chance I get! In September, I will have had no French class for 2 months (well, it's not like, I learn a lot in French class :P), so I'll try to learn some French on LingQ.

All of this sounds really fun to me actually! ^^

Friday, July 16, 2010

Dutch verbs (part 1?)

This is for Arty <3

Present
Step 1: remove –en from the infinitive (werken)
Step 2: add the right ending
That’s how easy it is :)
ik
jij, u, hij, zij, het
wij, jullie, zij
werk
werkt
werken

Some rules for the stem:
·         Long vowel infinitives require long vowel stems  (praten -> praat)
·         A stem never ends in two identical consonants (stoppen -> stop)
·         A stem never ends in v or z (schrijven -> schrijf, lezen -> lees)
·         The stem of an '-iën verb' ends in ie (also zien -> zie)

Irregular

ik
jij, u
hij, zij, het
wij, jullie, zij
zijn (to be)
ben
bent
is
zijn
hebben (to have)
heb
hebt
heeft
hebben
gaan (to go)
ga
gaat
gaat
gaan

Past
Weak verbs
Step 1:remove –en from the infinitive to get the stem
Step 2:check if the last letter is t, k, f, s, ch, p
Step 3:add the right ending to the ik-form of the verb (not the stem!)
ik
jij, u, hij, zij, het
wij, jullie, zij
werkte
werkte
werkten
leerde
leerde
leerden

So, when do you use –te(n) and when do you use –de(n)? You use –te(n) when the last letter of the stem is t, k, f, s, ch (only this combination, not c or h), and p. There’s a word to remember this:

t kofschip

Only use the consonants! The word is a little hard to remember if you don’t speak Dutch I guess.

Strong verbs

Strong verbs are, unfotunately, a little harder. You can’t add –ed to every verb in English, and the same goes for Dutch. Strong verbs change a vowel in the past tense. For example, in English it’s: I drink -> I drank. In Dutch it’s: ik drink -> ik dronk.
You’ll just need to learn what verbs are strong and what they change to. Some examples:


singular
plural
lopen (to walk)
liep
liepen
eten (to eat)
at
aten
blijven (to stay)
bleef
bleven
liegen (to lie)
loog
logen
Irregular (although there are a lot of verbs that are irregular and don’t just change a vowel, these are the common ones, irregular in the present too)

singular
plural
zijn (to be)
was
waren
hebben (to have)
had
hadden
gaan (to go)
ging
gingen

To be continued I guess! And I know this is incredibly boring, I don't know who is actually interested in this.... o_o

Thursday, July 15, 2010

Regular Spanish verbs

I couldn't find a good, short, easy explanation about regular Spanish verbs. And as I never really took the time to learn them (after almost a year of learning Spanish xD) I decided to make a quick chart to study, and some pinpoints for when to use them.

Present
Preterite
habl o
habl as
habl a
habl amos
habl áis
habl an
com o
com es
com e
com emos
com éis
com en
viv o
viv es
viv e
viv imos
viv ís
viv e
habl é
habl aste
habl ó
habl amos
habl asteis
habl aron
com í
com iste
com ió
com imos
com isteis
com ieron
viv í
viv iste
viv ió
viv imos
viv isteis
viv ieron
Imperfect
Future
habl aba
habl abas
habl aba
habl ábamos
habl abais
habl aban
com ía
com ías
com ía
com íamos
com íais
com ían
viv ía
viv ías
viv ía
viv íamos
viv íais
viv ían
hablar é
hablar ás
hablar á
hablar emos
hablar éis
hablar án
comer é
comer ás
comer á
comer emos
comer éis
comer én
vivir é
vivir ás
vivir á
vivir emos
vivir éis
vivir én
Conditional
Subjunctive
hablar ía
hablar ías
hablar ía
hablar íamos
hablar íais
hablar ían
comer ía
comer ías
comer ía
comer íamos
comer íais
comer ían
vivir ía
vivir ías
vivir ía
vivir íamos
vivir íais
vivir ían
habl e
habl es
habl e
habl emos
habl éis
habl en
com a
com as
com a
com amos
com áis
com an
viv a
viv as
viv a
viv amos
viv áis
viv an
Gerund
Past participle
habl ando
com iendo
viv iendo
habl ado
com ido
viv ido

Present
Pretty obvious when to use this, same as in English

Preterite
Past tense.  You use this one when:
-          Something occurred at a fixed point in time
-          Something was done a specific number of times
-          Describing a chain of events
-          Something occurred in a specific enclosed period of time
-          Describing a sudden change of mood
(…in the past)
So, generally, you use the preterite when you know exactly when something happened.

Imperfect
Another past tense. This is used:
-          When talking about actions that occurred repeatedly
-          When something occurred over an extended period of time
-          To start off something you describe, like ‘we were going home when… ‘
-          When describing feelings and mental actions
(of course,  in the past)

Future
You use this when usually in English you would use will or shall. For things in the near future it’s usually better to use ‘ir a’, for things further in the future, use the future tense. It’s also used to express wonder or probability in the present tense (‘who could she be?’).
Note that in the future tense, the endings get added to the complete verb and not tot the stem.

Conditional
This is a very easy one as all you need to do is add the endings of the imperfect (in –er and –ir) to the complete verb (like in the future). This makes it basically a future in the past.
It’s often used wonder or probability in the past (‘who could she have been?’), but also just to describe the future from the perspecrtive of the past.

Subjunctive
The subjunctive is usually used to express doubt, hope, a wish, an opinion.. anything that’s not objective or a fact. It can be quite tricky. It is NOT used with these expression:

creer que ...
to believe that ...
no dudar que ...
to not doubt that ...
es cierto que ...
it is certain that ...
es claro que ...
it is clear that ...
es evidente que ...
it is certain that ...
es obvio que ...
it is obvious that ...
estar seguro que ...
to be sure that ...
es verdad que ...
it is true that ...
no cabe duda que ...
there's no doubt that ...
no es dudoso que ...
it is not doubtful that ...
no hay duda que ...
there is no doubt that ...

Credit goes to Study Spanish. All I did was make a summary.

First post!

So, I really suck at keeping a blog, especially one where I have to write. I am VERY bad at writing. Seriously. You’ll see. But as I’m trying to actually stick to a schedule and everything, language-wise, I think this could really help me stay motivated and organized. I’ll write about my progress here, and about useful tips and links. I doubt I’ve got anything new to tell about languages… But I’ll try ^^
I’ve never seen a 16 year old who likes languages as much as me, so that’s something ‘new’ already I guess. Thanks for reading, even though no one is reading yet!