(January 13, 2023 at 11:53 am)arewethereyet Wrote:(January 13, 2023 at 11:35 am)Jackalope Wrote: I'm a native English speaker, I am leaning Spanish by osmosis living abroad. I can read fairly well within the limits of my vocabulary, I only infrequently need to use a translation app to get by. I find conversational Spanish more difficult as the language as it is spoken here is not exactly "by the book". Writing also has its challenges.
Several of the employees in the company where I work are Spanish speakers. There are times when I have to try to translate their messages and get the craziest stuff. They are writing in conversational Spanish so things are often lost on me when I try to figure out what they are trying to say. Some of the translations I get are pretty funny though.
Idiomatic language aside, have found that attempting understand written Spanish by translating word-for-word doesn't really work well either. I find I have to stop thinking about what a phrase's English equivalent would be, and instead try to think in Spanish.
