La Vita è Bella Life is Beautiful. La Vita es Bonita. 美麗人生　

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L2.2 is scheduled to publish at 1am of Apr. 1st, after proofread.

In fact, L2.1 were proofread and corrected accordingly few days ago.

And all the series of 2, 3, & 4 but the last lesson 4.15 were published here already.

I like to learn language and pay attn to it. I used to take many courses as well, after graduated from college, I used to take Japanese, Italian and French (in different time). Italian was the one I intended to have learnt back in college, but the one I studied did not have such a course, therefore I turned to Spanish. I was biz-majored, and a salesperson, no teacher or the sort. If you read more, you will learn more.

In these 2 years, LHC, ALMA highlighted on news, which just reminded me of my interests in science. After being a bystander to science for more than a quarter century, I decided to pick it up again on the day that ALMA inaugurated. So, lately I have been reading quantum mechanics & chemistry, & before that it was drama, Shakespeare's & Aristophanes' to be exact, I studied. You may find I put Lysistrata's Chinese transcript here but have not yet finished the proof-read and annotation. The transcript was taken from Chinese website in simplified Chinese characters, then converted and modified names of personas into ones familiar to Taiwanese people. It's irresponsible to put unfinished works here, but after told the story of Lysistrata in some New Year gatherings, friends asked me to find them something to read. So I was compelled to produce one hastily.

As to learning Spanish, I have no idea, either. But you just started to learn it. I believe you should have some textbook, then just stick to it. For sure, it's hard to but it's something you must do. Well, learning English is easy in Taiwan. There are more than 30 channels running English programs or movies, internet...etc. My advice is to read more, read whatever interests you, novel, drama, news, movies, people, celebrities, ...even porn.

learning Spanish: 4 semesters in college, 2 decades ago.
finishing SpanishDict course: 5 to 6 wk but I think it took me 10 times of time doing those transcripts.

Oral language and phonetics influence each other. What is correct today may very likely obsolete in the future. As peoples use alphabet system to write their languages mostly do not care so much about phonetics, that's why you cannot read English & French like you read Spanish. Though English and French adopted Latin alphabets to spell out their languages in the very beginning, after hundreds of years, one needs another phonetic system to read out these 2 languages.

Besides, language is about oral expression, so it contains certain musical nature. Chinese language sacrifices this trait to articulation. This might explain why Confucious preferred percussion music to orchestral one. It's very difficult to understand Chinese lyrics of a song unless you know it beforehand. Because each Chinese word is precisely articulated. After listening to a Chinese song, and try to use the phonetic system to spell the lyrics out, then you will find the lyrics turns out to be very different than what they are supposed to be. Such difference is much smaller in the language which is written in alphabet system in the first place.

1. setting of this message board
I might just accidentally set it invisible. It seemed a "added on" function, then I was asked to set my preference someday; it was annoying to me, I just chose whatever.

2. The Pronunciation of B/P
There was a typo, it should be "B/V" rather than "B/P". The famous "b de burro, v de vaca", I can hardly tell the difference. Apparently many Spanish have difficulty telling, too. Otherwise, there wouldn't be such an expression. Besides, it's not easy to tell the difference between b/p to me. The "problem" here is Spanish pronounce their consonants very softly. To solve this kind of problem, I think you either live in Spanish-speaking country for certain period of time or build up larger vocabulary.

3. r & l in a word
Paralee's pronunciation is, to great extent, Americanized (US), I feel. You can find plenty of explanation on this on internet.

4. Spanish learning
You mentioned if you can consult me with "learning problem", therefore I tried to give you solution. When I first read you mentioned "learning problem", I thought you asked the wrong person. "El problema es masculino, la solución es femenina.¨ my teacher mentioned several times in the class. Well, of course, it was a she-teacher said that with a satisfactory smile. Then I read your message of "problem", son preguntas, no es problema. But I reply as they were problems.

The time I learnt Spanish there was internet on campus only, HiNet was not yet born. It was not as convenient for learning a foreign language. I'm not qualified to answer you questions though I started to study Spanish much earlier. I believe you can easily google to find the answer to your questions.

5. SpanishDict Lesson
L2.1 published without proofread, there might be typos; if you find any, pls jot it/them down and let me know. I will correct them accordingly. L2.2 will be published in these few days, most likely without proofread, too. But even I did the proofread, it's still E.&O.E.

The intention of posting those transcripts is being a good Samaritan. If anyone could benefit from it, then that's good. If not, it would just be another electronic junk message on internet.

Regarding login or not, it's a logic problem nothing to do with me. Yahoo's blog does not even allow anyone to leave any message without login, which made me think PChome friendly. Privacy is usually granted with consideration.

2. The pronunciation of B /P & D/T.

This is even more difficult. I do not know your background, but if you grew up in Taiwan, then you would be pursuing "standard" pronunciation. In reality, there is no standard pronunciation of any kind of language, but "popular" ones. If you watch some old movies, Chinese or English alike, you would find that only few people nowadays speak in that way nor pronounce the words as they did mostly. Some might think it's the same in Mandarin, but they are not actually; no matter in Taipei or Beijing, people speak the same language but use wording & pronounce differently than 50yr ago. To some, that is nuance and should be ignored. But if you were a linguist and understood the language phonetically, then you would have spelled many words differently than what your predecessors did. The same Catellano, it was pronounced differently in Spain, too. I used to travel in Spain for more than 40 days, in some areas, people constantly omitted "s" and "z" sound in their speaking. The famous "Por que no te callas" said the King Carlos, I listened to it many many times, I never heard "s". Just stick to the rules of pronunciation you learnt, Castellano was pronounced differently in Iberia Peninsula let alone huge continent from Tierra del Fuego to California & Texas US. I myself think listening comprehension is largely based on one's vocabulary.

3. SpanishDict Lesson 2.1 & 2.2
I have the transcripts of these 2 lessons, I am not sure if I published them on this blog. Let me check it later; if not, I will publish them.

I see. Then are you able to read this message alright? I deleted the messages you left, but I accidentally deleted the one that I have not answered. So, I would just reply as far as I remember, if anything missed, then you just pose me again.

1. The pronunciation of R in the initial of a word or RR in a word.

It was very difficult for me to pronounce it as well. I asked many people of the tips about how to. The fact is that it took me 5 years to acquire the technique of pronouncing this kind of "alveolar trill". In that 5 years, I tried to pronounce it whenever I could, on the way to the school (on the bus, riding a bike, or walking), watching TV, .... one night on the duty of sentry, I got it. I was not sure how, but I just got it. I was overwhelmingly happy, on the way back to the base camp, I hummed, ... the rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain...rosa, perro, Roma, arroyo... I finally got it! Well, I thank everyone who provided me with tips, but I am not sure which one works. I just google it, and found plenty of tips available on internet, so I think you can get many good tips and listen to it repeatedly. I do not think the way I acquired that technique good, otherwise it would not take me 5 yr.

I exceeded the limit of this column allowed, so I removed the rest but leave the first part here.

Now I remembered why I did not post other SpanishDict lessons that I already made the transcripts of, because it did not (and still does not) allow me to embed the video of SpanishDict which makes use of "http://blip.tv/", I encountered the same problem when I tried to post those lessons you asked me of. I need to study on this to see if any solution.