Spanish Novela's

[nickdisipio]

Hi everyone, My name is nick I just joined this site.. I have been learning spanish for the last few year's and I started to watch the spanish novela's to give me a feel for the language.. Is this a common way the spanish people speak because I hear alot of words I dont normally hear in the spanish community around me.. By the way the spanish novela that I watch is called "madre luna".

[aleCcowaN]

I've read your post and made a little research, and "Madre Luna" is an American soap opera with actors from everywhere, some of them born in USA. I watched some minutes on Youtube and they speak with a tv accent in order to neutralize differences, and the topics and words are quite neutral Spanish, what's usual with this kind of play. It's not a good source of Spanish but surely it's better than that Spanish you may hear in the USA. At least, nobody "te llamará para atrás", a horrible common phrase in the USA that is quite literal translation of "will call you back", and an absurdity in Spanish.

[nickdisipio]

thanks so much for your advice.. What kind of tv would you suggest watching to train my ear for spanish? for example, the new's, talk show's ect... Also would you be kind enough to explain to me how to say "I should have" in spanish, I know they use the conditional for example.. I should have called.. but I alway's get 2 different way's... one is "habria llamado" and the other is "hubiera llamado" what is the difference?

[aleCcowaN]

"CNN en español" is a good choice. You may also watch some American TV series dubbed into Spanish. Both have pretty neutral accent and careful choice of language. I think an American talk show in Spanish could be the worst option; I've watched a few minutes of that kind of shows and I had troubles to understand what these people were saying, both language and motivation.

About grammar, "I should have called" is translated as "debiera haber llamado" o "debería haber llamado". The rule is you should use conditional (debería), but speaking about imaginary or hypothetical facts in the past, is widely used in America (The Americas) imperfect subjunctive (debiera or debiese) with -ra ending, which is also grammatically correct. About using "habría llamado" or "hubiera llamado", this is a hard nut to crack, because it is subjunctive mood, a mood almost vanished in English [the remaining cases are considered just expressions: "if I were you" (not "was"), "God save the Queen" (not "saves"), and often replaced by structures containing modal verbs (should, may, etc.),]

[hugocar]

Hi, Nick. It's good to know that you've been studying Spanish for a couple of years. You'll find a lot of help in English-Spanish Forum. May I suggest you register for a quick course in English, since "Spanish novela's" should be written without the apostrophe, since it's only a plural. Good luck to you.

[Veronica]

I suggest The Simpsons dubbed to Spanish, it's neutral and fun, and not too hard to understand.
And you can always watch the English episode if you missed something, hahahah!

[nickdisipio]

Originally Posted by hugocar

Hi, Nick. It's good to know that you've been studying Spanish for a couple of years. You'll find a lot of help in English-Spanish Forum. May I suggest you register for a quick course in English, since "Spanish novela's" should be written without the apostrophe, since it's only a plural. Good luck to you.

haha, your right my english grammer is horrible, by the way, Is there a test anywere I could take to "test" my spanish level online?

[Moni]

Originally Posted by nickdisipio

Is there a test anywere I could take to "test" my spanish level online?

Just type "spanish test" in the Google bar and you'll find lots of test.

Regards.

[SandraT]

If you like cooking (or not) I would suggest some shows related. They speak slowly so the audience can understand and copy what they are saying, they use many verbs and it's also fun!! this, apart from the news or any other you may watch cause life is not only about cooking, of course!!!

[lylek]

I would suggest watching movies over TV shows, personally. I have noticed that with Telemundo and similar programs, epecially on the news segments, they speak incredibly rapidly and unless you are familiar with the dialect they are speaking, it might be difficult to increase your oral communication skills by watching them. Movies allow for some amount of selection (accents, etc.) and can be paused, rewound, etc. I would also suggest downloading actual episodes of TV programs from other countries. I agree with the Simpsons suggestion; If you have already watched a show in English, it might help you to compare what you know the characters are saying to what you're hearing. I did this with "Friends," "The Simpsons," "Futurama," and "Family Guy" while I lived in Spain and found it relatively helpful.

Sorry for writing so much; hope this is helpful!

Un saludo,