Taquigrafía Gregg en español

Hi people:
I’m a new member of this wonderful group.
My name is Osvaldo Castro, I live in Iquique (Chile – South America) and I have learned shorthand (almost) by myself.
I can write Pitman and Gregg shorthand (I haven’t decided yet what system to use).
First, I learned with a Series 90 book, because there were plenty of them in bookstores.
Two years ago, I began to look for shorthand books, and I found in some fleas markets this:  one book of Simplified Gregg Shorthand in English, the same version in Spanish, and a dictionary (with 11.000 entries) of Gregg words based on the shorthand system printed in 1923 (I guess it could be the Anniversary version).  Later, I got a Diamond Jubilee book and a manual for doing shorthand classes.
In these days, I’m trying to improve my speed and to build a site about Spanish shorthand.
Congratulation for this group, and Merry Christmas for everyone!
Osvaldo Castro G.

a.k.a. SIROE(by valo1969 for everyone)

 


Previous post:
Next post:
9 comments Add yours
  1. That's great, Osvaldo. When I learned shorthand, I learned both English and Spanish: Anniversary Gregg for English, and Pre-Anniversary for Spanish. I was surprised when I saw that the Spanish versions in the 80s (most likely System 90, I guess) had changed some of the strokes for the letters. For example, the "J" sound was represented by the dot, instead of the downward "J" stroke as pre-anniv or anniv used to do — using the dot would make the name "Jorge" a little strange to write. The pre-anniversary Spanish has the 'll' and 'y' sounds represented by the 'th' stroke — another oddity. That was kind of strange too.

    In my opinion, the best adaptation of Spanish Gregg Shorthand was made by Ana M. O'Neill (who was a teacher of shorthand in one of the biggest commercial schools in Puerto Rico — some of her students won in the shorthand contests sponsored by Gregg). She wrote a book in the 1930's, and subsequent revisions were made. The book is long gone out of print, though. While this version looks awfully similar to the pre-anniv and anniv Gregg, she made some adaptations, especially for fast phrase writing. For example, the 'll' and 'y' sounds are represented by an 'l' stroke with a small vertical line underneath (similar to the 'rr' stroke); the 'ia' diphthong is the vowel 'a' with the same small vertical line (instead of the vowel 'a' with the dot inside). The small vertical line imparts speed — everytime you put a dot, you stop the hand movement and can slow you down. The phrases "del …" and "de la" are not written, instead these are represented by writing the words closer together. There are other adaptations which made it easier to write.

    If you want to correspond in Spanish, let me know. My info is in the Penpals section.

  2. Hi Psetus,   Well, the sound "J" in Spanish is not similar to the "H" English sound, maybe, in the Spanish spoken in Central America, but in South America is stronger, and in Spain is much stronger.  The problem could appear in people who learn shorthand in both languages, but in my own experience that doesn't affect in the moment you write.   Cheers,   Osvaldo

  3. Hi Chuck, Thank you for your answer! You talk about a Spanish version when the "J" stroke was changed by a dot.  I checked my books (Simplified, Diamond and Series90) and none of them has that alteration… maybe it could be the Centennial version.   I don't remember to have read about Ana M. O'Neill before.  I would be nice to have her adaptation.   I consider myself as a Simplified Gregg shorthand writer, but I have taken some elements from another versions, for instance, the suffix "GRAFÍA", that doesn't appear in the Simplified book, because I think it's more logical to use an "F" with a diphthong, instead of two vowels like in Anniversary system ("oi").  I like to write "determine" with the short form as in Anniversary version [ e m-n].   The problems, I see, in Gregg in Spanish, are that the words more used in a speech consist of two, three, four and more syllables, in comparison with English, when mostly the words are of one syllable.  Besides, you have to use more vowel strokes than in English.  So, it's necessary for improving speed to have (for instance) suffix, prefix and more brief forms.  Especially, for long sentences used in congress or courts.   Just another comment:  In Pitman, we count the words one by one, so the word "the" is one word, as "stenography" is just one word.  How words are counted in Gregg?   Please, explain to me that about PenPal, surely, I would like it.   Regards,     Osvaldo Castro      

  4. Wow…bilingual Gregg. That's impressive. The first and only stenographer I met about three months ago (that works in my Army's next-door-neighbor company) wrote Spanish and English Gregg. I can't remember the exact numbers but I'm fairly certain she said that when she went to college and worked as a secretary, her speeds peaked at over 200 for both, and now since she doesn't practice, she writes both in the high one hundreds. It was nice to finally meet someone that actually wrote Gregg…I've already met lots of people that used to (ie one quarter of highschool Gregg in 1935) or know someone that knows someone whos mailman's daughter's piano teacher writes Gregg. Anyways, just out of uneducated curiousity…why is the J being written as a dot unusual? That seems to me the best route as isn't the J pronounced H? As in Julio being "hoo-lee-oh?" ./[tyler]

  5. The problem with using a dot for "J" in Spanish is especially obvious when you are learning both English and Spanish shorthand, which in most secretarial schools is the norm — you want to make sure that there is some correspondence between the versions, because you don't want to unlearn something that you have already learned. It would be strange, for example, to write the name "Juan" as j – underscored a – n in English, and then as [dot] – u hook – a – n in Spanish. I'm glad the other versions kept the J. So most likely I saw a Centennial book then. There is also the consideration of ethymology. Spanish is the only romance language that pronounces "J" as and "h". The closest to the English "J" sound is the "ll" or the "y" sound, but both of these are much softer in Spanish (like most all consonants).

    Indeed, you are right about the number of brief forms in Spanish. The version that I learned had 307 brief forms. Plus, lots of special phrases, word beginnings and endings, and many vowel combinations. Definitely, it is heavily abbreviated!

    In O'Neill's adaptation, the endings "egrafía" and "igrafia" are a disjoined oval next to the end of the word, "égrafo" and "ígrafo" is a disjoined small e circle, "egráfico" and "igráfico" is e circle – k, "gráficamente" is e – k – m. (If you think about it, it makes more sense to use the oval instead of the o – e, because the raised oval is the prefix "agr-".) She reserved the disjoined o at the end for "ógrafo", o – e for "ografía" and o – e – m for "ográficamente". Neat, eh? That way, there is no confusion.

    I like to write "determine" as reversed r – m – n. If you want to write "determinar" the same way, you can confuse it with "hermano". For that reason, Dr. O'Neill changed "determinar" to "fused dt" – reversed e.

    The Penpal menu option of the group is for people that want to correspond, other than in the MSN group setting. You can communicate with any of the Penpals by e-mail or snail mail. My e-mail is there too.

  6. Oh, phew! I was trying to picture a reversed R, and it just wasn't working. I had the same thought as Tyler. Gregg is primarily a phoentic alphabet, so shouldn't "Juan", which is pronounced (Hwahn), not (Jwahn) be spelled with an H, instead of a J? I agree, Chuck, that it would be strange to write the word differently in two languages; if spelled phoenetically, it seems to me that an H would be used in both cases.

    The only Spanish speakers I know are Central American, so maybe I don't have the whole picture, but being a John, I'm pretty sure they call me (Hwan).

    ________________
    Shorthand: isn't it about time?

  7. I would absolutely love to see a resource online on Taquigrafía Gregg. It sounds like a great extension of knowledge since I know both Spanish and English Gregg Shorthand.

Leave a Reply