Hola, my Spanish-speaking amigos...

[minkydog]

I'm taking Spanish 101 at a local college and this class is kicking my butt. I'm 53 and I've never taken any language (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth we didn't take languages--I guess we thought we'd never meet anyone who didn't speak English--oops) I am so in over my head here.

So, I have a presentation to do this week to teach the class the verb "asistir". I've figured out the conjugation (with the help of my DD16s Mexican BF), but I can't for the life of me think of a short, fun way to teach it. It has to be something I can do in about 3-4 minutes using very basic Spanish and some English. I've been working on this homework for about 5 hours now and so far I have made flashcards, had a crying jag, copied all my numbers twice, conjugated 15 verbs, re-conjugated 4 verbs that were wrong, cried a little more, and got the BF confused enough he had to call HIS mother to straighten me out. *sigh* This is not going well... what was I thinking...

 

[a1tinkfans]

Presente
yo asisto
tú asistas
él asista
nosotros asistamos
vosotros asistáis
ellos asistan


Don't be so hard on yourself...its is not an easy task but you CAN do it.......


I think that flashcards are a great way to teach the verb!
I have not taken Spanish in years, though I had 4 years of it, UGH then Italian for the next four...sad to say, I can read it much better than speak it though.....I find them similar..........
Just want to wish you the very best of luck in the class. If you really feel over your head with all the memorization, speak to the professor, who may be able to help you with some suggestions to make it more managable.
Again, Good Luck to You!!!!! Heres some PIXIE dust...............sorry to hear you're having a hard time.

 

[RitaZ.]

Presente
yo asisto
tú asistas
él asista
nosotros asistamos
vosotros asistáis
ellos asistan

It's not asistas. It is tu asistes, el/ella asiste, nosotros asistimos, ellos/ellas asisten.

 

[Mskanga]

It's not asistas. It is tu asistes, el/ella asiste, nosotros asistimos, ellos/ellas asisten.

Take this from a spaniard ( me ) :
Yo asisto
Tu asistes
El asiste

Nosotros asistimos
Vosotros asistis ( or in mexican spanish they would say Ustedes asisten )
Ellos asisten.

Good luck!

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

Why not make little cartoons/pictures showing people assisting in the pictures with the speech bubbles blank and you can teach the verb forms and have pre-written cards to tape into the speech bubbles with the conjugated verbs.

For example, a picture of a boy helping a lady cross the street. He could be saying "I assist" and she could be saying "he assists". Two people could be helping someone fix a car. You would have the ellos form of the verb for the speech bubble for the person looking at them, and the nosotros form for the people helping fix the car.

Then, either play a variation on charades or do little skits to show people assisting in various scenarios. Depending on who is doing the assisting, the class would have to figure out which form of the verb to use.

 

[worm761]

Not that this will help you at all on this project. But you should check out livemocha.com. It is free online language classes. The extra lessons might help you understand better.

 

[minkydog]

Why not make little cartoons/pictures showing people assisting in the pictures with the speech bubbles blank and you can teach the verb forms and have pre-written cards to tape into the speech bubbles with the conjugated verbs.

For example, a picture of a boy helping a lady cross the street. He could be saying "I assist" and she could be saying "he assists". Two people could be helping someone fix a car. You would have the ellos form of the verb for the speech bubble for the person looking at them, and the nosotros form for the people helping fix the car.

Then, either play a variation on charades or do little skits to show people assisting in various scenarios. Depending on who is doing the assisting, the class would have to figure out which form of the verb to use.

You may be onto something there...asistir means "to attend", like a meeting or a concert.I think ayudar is the word for "to help" (don't quote me on that!) But I could take your idea and morph it into people attending various things (church, party, wedding, class, etc.)

 

[Hollywoodhaha]

You may be onto something there...asistir means "to attend", like a meeting or a concert.I think ayudar is the word for "to help" (don't quote me on that!) But I could take your idea and morph it into people attending various things (church, party, wedding, class, etc.)

Yes, ayudar means help. I took spanish for the past 2 years. My spanish teacher made big flash cards and laminated them. They had pictures and had little subtitles.

 

[kaytieeldr]

I'm taking Spanish 101 at a local college and this class is kicking my butt. I'm 53 and I've never taken any language (back when dinosaurs roamed the earth we didn't take languages--I guess we thought we'd never meet anyone who didn't speak English--oops)

Really? I'm 53 as well, and we started learning French in fourth grade - from puppets on PBS! Seven years of French and two years of Spanish - and I can understand about four phrases in each language.

Let me rephrase that... we were taught French starting in fourth grade; I can't claim that I learned it all that well

 

[minkydog]

Really? I'm 53 as well, and we started learning French in fourth grade - from puppets on PBS! Seven years of French and two years of Spanish - and I can understand about four phrases in each language.

Let me rephrase that... we were taught French starting in fourth grade; I can't claim that I learned it all that well

I grew up in very rural South Alabama--if you've ever seen Forrest Gump and his shrimp boat, well, I lived about 8 miles from there. The schools down there were so poor they barely had English. Foreign language wasn't even a glint in their eyes. At the time there was not one single family living in the area that spoke anything other than English. Now, however, there is a huge Vietnamese and Laotian community, and some from Central America. So I guess the United Nations is coming to South Alabama, just like the rest of the world.

 

[maelstrom]

Spanish has always kicked my butt. I'm 23 now and I've been taking it since 8th grade and I still don't have a firm grasp of the basics.

 

[minkydog]

Spanish has always kicked my butt. I'm 23 now and I've been taking it since 8th grade and I still don't have a firm grasp of the basics.

Well, that makes me feel better. Maybe I'm *not* just dumb.

 

[JR6ooo4]

sorry, all the spanish I know is from watching "Jaws" on telemundo.

"Vamos de agua! Rapido!" hehehehehee

Mikeeee

 

[WebmasterMaryJo]

Take this from a spaniard ( me ) :
Yo asisto
Tu asistes
El asiste

Nosotros asistimos
Vosotros asistis ( or in mexican spanish they would say Ustedes asisten )
Ellos asisten.

Good luck!

Hey there.

Just double checking vosotros. I thought it was asistéis, not asistis. (I speak it a lot with my Spanish cousins, and this is how I've been pronouncing it - if I'm wrong I'd like to know. The less they have to laugh at me about the better. )

 

[tennvalgirl]

"Please stand clear of the doors!"

Very important Spanish everyone needs to learn.

 

[olena]

Hey Minky, if you need a tutor, my friend has openings for new students. She takes clients all over the Atlanta area, if you need her. She was a Spanish major in college and is fluent and experienced. PM me for more.

 

[Where'sPiglet?]

You may be onto something there...asistir means "to attend", like a meeting or a concert.I think ayudar is the word for "to help" (don't quote me on that!) But I could take your idea and morph it into people attending various things (church, party, wedding, class, etc.)

Oops! I knew that...at one point...clearly not anymore! It's been since 2001 that I was in Spanish and it was also 101!

Yes, you could morph the idea to attending something.

 

[minkydog]

Okay, here's what I came up with. First I'm going to compare the verb asistir to other -ir words we've already had. Then, after going over the conjugation I'll pass out papers with pictures of various events on them. Each student gets one picture. They have to give either the correct form of the verb, based on the pronoun or noun(s) or they have to give the correct pronoun or noun for the verb form. Like, "Yo _______ a (circus.)" or "________ asistimos a (football game.)" They don't have to come up with the spanish translation for the event, unless they know it. About 3/4 of the class took Spanish in HS, and one or two have spent time in Spain or Mexico, so some of them are pretty fluent.

I think this will be fun. I cut out pictures of some good things, like a circus, a magic show, a wedding, an ATV competition, a weight lifter milking a cow , a turtle & rabbit race, a pie-eating contest, a mud-wrestling contest, a picnic, a pirate festival.

 

[LadyZolt]

I like your idea! And I'm 47 and just taking Spanish myself this year! I think one other fun thing you could do is say something like "Asistimos a esta clase de español juntos" or whatever you can say along the lines of "We attend this Spanish class." Makes it personal for the class and fun, and if you can think of anything fun you do in class together, that might be fun, too!

I hope your presentation goes well! ¡Buena suerte!

-Dorothy (o "Dorothea" en español )

 

[bumbershoot]

"livemocha.com"

Thanks for that!


Isn't it funny, in 8th grade we were told that NO ONE uses the vosotros form, and not to learn it...guess the teacher was wrong! I grew up in San Jose CA and probably half of the kids in the class were from Mexican-born families (or Cuban) and no one corrected the teacher...) Never learned it in the next 3 years of Spanish either, taught by a Guatemalan born teacher. Weird.