- habla español -

i was in the midst of completing my first major technical document when i was gripped with the need to learn spanish ... i know, it's weird ... what's weirder still is the fact that i am in taiwan and i've been berated for my lack of mandarin skills and here i am ... trying to learn spanish ... in fairness to me ... i come from a country conquered by spain for like 300 years ... and so my native language is not so far from spanish ... ergo, it's easier to learn spanish than mandarin ... blah .... i'm making excuses ...

in my pursuit to learn spanish, i downloaded a 2-hr mp3 called "learn to speak spanish" ... and i think i've learned a lot ... in less than 2 hours ... i didn't get to finish the audio book yet ... here are some samples of what i got ...

es - it is
no - not, negation
porque - why, because
para mi - for me
para usted - for you
*ible - read as eee-ble (possible to po-sib-le)
*able - read as ab-le (probable to pro-bab-le)

es aceptable para mi - it's acceptable for me / no es aceptable para mi - it's not acceptable for me
es posible para usted - it's possible for you / no es posible para usted - it's not possible for you
*if you need to make a question, just change the inflection at the end ... just like english*

porque no es aceptable para usted - why isn't it acceptable for you? *inflection may or may not be needed because porque is a question word*

no es aceptable para mi asi - it is not acceptable for me that way

i told jeni about this new interest ... we agreed that we'll both learn it and then we'll converse in spanish ... exciting!!!