How's Your Catalan?

To me Catalan, which I understand is spoken in the Barcelona area of Spain, sounds like Spanish and looks like a combination of French and Italian.  The word for thank you, for chrissakes, is 'Merci.'  And it uses very Italianate words like 'parla' and 'molto.' 

I've heard that even though practically everyone speaks Spanish in Barcelona, if you really want to feel welcome, it's not a bad idea to bone up on your Catalan.  Other examples:  'Si us plau' is a dead ringer for the French 's'il vous plaît,' now isn't it?  and 'Adéu' is not that far off from 'Adieu.'  Man, those French dudes were all over the place. 

Here's a little Catalon for your listening pleasure:

¿Tú eres romantico?

For your listening pleasure, another incurable romantic sings about how sometimes it seems that everybody is in love and we're the only people in the world who doesn't have a date tonight.  It's a very short vid that's used by one of the sites I'm using to learn Spanish to  teach words like 'conmigo' and exclamatory expressions like '¡Qué linda!'  I have a feeling, though, that this chico lindo tiene muichas novias. 

Speak! Write! Read! It's all good stuff.

I really like this video called "Learning Languages on Your Own."  The speaker, a professor of languages in Sweden, has mastered several languages and shares his methods and recommendations for learning languages independently.  Though the information he provides is very useful, I was most impressed by how well he spoke English.  I believe he said that he grew up in Russia and Russian was his native language.  He speaks English better than most of the Americans I know.  With the hint of a British accent, he uses colloquialisms and slang perfectly naturally, and I did not even detect the slight errors in word order or word choices that I so often hear from non-native English speakers.  It is nothing short of miraculous that someone can learn to speak English so well.  I also like the fact that his ''revelation'' is simply that we should discard our fear of making a fool of ourselves when we attempt to use a new language.  We should be proud of our progress and anyone who is making fun  of our sincere attempt to speak their language should be ashamed of themselves.  There are few things more satisfying than to speak to someone in their own tongue and be understood. 

A la proxima...

Write it Right?

I've been trying to write regularly in a journal that I keep on the language practice site Lang-8.  It works this way:  the user writes a brief post in the language he's learning and other members of the site who speak that language edit the text.  I sometimes correct the English of other contributors. 

By and large, this is a good venue for practicing Spanish.  I think it's best for bolstering grammar skills and vocabulary.  It's important, though, not to let the (often very intensive) editing of one's text intimidate too much.  As we've discussed many times, writing is not speaking and written Spanish usually needs to adhere to syntax and word order rules much more tightly than conversational Spanish requires.  This is why that when I correct others' English texts, I don't overdo it.  Getting a text back that has every sentence completely ripped apart can be demoralizing for a language learner, who is probably already frustrated by his seeming lack of progress. 

I'm not a scaredy-cat, so I don't mind it when a reader edits my work thoroughly.  But it's really not my goal right now to write grammatically perfect Spanish sentences.  I'm working toward fluency in speaking and oral comprehension.  Still, it's a good exercise to attempt to form concepts and express oneself in Spanish and to present my attempts to people who use the language every day.  There's always a better way to write a sentence, but at this point in my Spanish studies, I just need to be able to produce decent, quite simple sentences that get my point across and allow me to be understood. 

A la proxima....

The Versatility of Spanish

For quite some time now, I've been trying to determine which of the big three (Italian, French, and Spanish) is the easiest for English speakers to gain at least a minimum fluency.  I think I'm definitely leaning toward Spanish.  ¿Por qué? Because it seems to be more flexible.  When I get French and Italian texts returned and corrected it looks as if there's been a car wreck:  red all over the place.  Words switched around.  Long explanations of why a phrase or sentence is incorrect.  All very discouraging for a novice language learner.  But when I get my Spanish reviewed and corrected, the damage is not nearly as critical.  I may get a few suggestions for improving the grammatical structure of a sentence or an occasional recommendation for a better vocabulary word, but all in all, Spanish seems more forgiving.  It allows for several constructions, whereas Italian and French seem to require a certain amount of precision.  Either the sentence is correct or it's a total failure. 

Having cast my vote for Spanish, though, I will say that Italian is the easiest as far as listening to it is concerned.  In Spanish, especially in peninsular Spanish, the sounds are often vague and run-together.  Italian isolates and clearly enunciates every word, every syllable.  In Spanish even a seemingly easy sound like 'g' presents difficulties.  Often in a word such as 'agua,' the 'g' is so softly uttered that it's barely there.  I hear 'awa' more than 'agwah.'  This takes some getting used to.  And then there are endings that are clipped off such as 'Usted' often sounds more like Usteh. 

My goal has always been to attempt to speak, read, write, and listen to a foreign language with average fluency.  Perhaps Spanish is a good place to start.  Then I can tackle Italian. 

What's So Funny?

I've been making a concerted effort to use the site Lang-8 to get some written feedback about my Spanish and my French.  Even though I'm much more comfy with French than with Spanish, I get way more 'This sentence is perfect' markings for my Spanish entries than I do for my French attempts.  I'm not sure why that is; perhaps Spanish is a little more flexible?  A little more forgiving of grammar mistakes? 

Though I don't want to generalize, it also seems that it's easier to use irony when writing in French than it is to use it in Spanish.  When I try to use a bit of humor in my Spanish on Lang-8, it falls flat.  Usually I have to spend several sentences trying to explain what I meant.  When I'm writing in French, on the other hand, the irony and humor just seem to flow.  I'm sure a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm just more advanced with my French studies.  I am able to develop more complex ideas and thoughts because I have the requisite vocabulary and knowledge of structure. 

At any rate, the site has been helpful to me and I feel I've made a bit of progress in both languages.  It's also very satisfying to be able to return the favor of someone correcting my entries by in turn correcting theirs.  The most helpful editors are those who don't just mark the mistakes and add the correct version, but those who take the time to explain their corrections.  I try to do this also when I edit others' work. 

Hula-dancing with Hulu

If you're looking for films and TV shows in Spanish to watch for free online, then look no further.  The streaming video site Hulu has an entire Spanish (Latino) language category that offers such quality TV shows as Gran Hotel and Los Hombres de Paco.  It doesn't offer every season of these shows, but there is a good sampling.  And, the best part, it's totally free.  This is not the Hulu Premium version, just regular Hulu.  Many offer close-captioning in Spanish (and I think a few also have English subtitles).  There is also a good sampling of movies, including Pedro Almodovar's Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down, which I believe was his first huge international hit. I think there may be some ads, but still for free it's not bad. 

I just finished watching the entire series Gran Hotel (not on Hulu, but on NetFlix, which has the entire run).  I have to admit that the plot line ranged from the unlikely to the ridiculous, but for the 40+ episodes, it did keep me entertained for several weeks and I sort of hated to see it end.  It was in Castillian Spanish with English subtitles.  The acting was very good.  Poor Andres--at least he finally got his well-deserved reward at the end.

Smile, When You Dub That, Partner

Perhaps I'm just reading things into it that really aren't there, but it often seems to me that Spanish is sometimes very forceful sounding when spoken.  When I practicing speaking French, I usually feel, well, polite and somewhat dignified.  When I speak Italian, I feel as if I'm reciting.  Now, that doesn't mean that Spanish can't sound dignified--indeed it often does sound quite elegant and sophisticated.  It's just that I feel more in charge somehow, when I'm attempting to express something in Spanish.  Maybe it's those trilled r's.  In European Spanish, it's perhaps the frequent th sound of some of the c's.  I've definitely noticed it when I watch western TV shows, such as Bonanza or The Wild Wild West dubbed in Spanish.  Those shows often use dialogue that is delivered with vigor and sometimes anger or other strong emotion.  These shows are very difficult to find in French or Italian, and when you do find them, the dubbed language seems incongruent and artificial. 

On the other hand, romantic comedies and dramas seem tailor-made for French.  Of course it's all just Hollywood and the way it's associated traits with certain cultures that probably are not really valid.  Still, there are times when I feel good speaking Spanish; it's as though it makes me feel more self-assured and assertive.  All this is good.  Now, if I could just learn to speak it right :)

Destino: Fluidez en español

I re-discovered a good video series for learning Spanish yesterday.  It was only after I started watching the first episode that I realized I had visited the site several years ago.  It's called Destinos and was apparently at one time only available to licensed schools. 

Here's a sample:  Destinos

It sort of reminds me of the BBC Spanish series Mi Vida Loca, which is also very good.  Destinos consists of 52 videos, which use an international setting to tell an intriguing mystery story about a dying patriarch and a mysterious letter.  One of the most valuable aspects of the series is that you can turn on Spanish subtitles (or turn them off once you get the Spanish down pat).  There are exercises and another nice thing is that after the story is acted out, a narrator sums up the action--repetition is crucial in learning a language.

And of course it's fantastic that it's completely free.  No emails asking for money.  And the plot-line really is interesting and suspenseful, with good direction and fine acting.  In the first episode viewers are introduced to the main characters in the story--a large extended family who are currently residing in Spain, Mexico, and Puerto Rico.  The scenery is nice and it's a little like getting to visit those places.  Anyway, the first lesson is mostly about vocabulary related to the family.  We learn the words for father, wife, son, uncle, etc.  And it's all free of vocabulary lists that demand to be memorized and artificial sounding dialogue.  I really like the method.  I hope to be able to watch it first with Spanish subtitles and then several times without them.  Since there are over 50 episodes, this should keep me busy for quite some time.

Hasta pronto...

Passive Resistance

Since I've read that 'passive listening' has for the most part been proven to have little value in learning a language, I've been trying to focus more on the audio of the Spanish TV shows and movies I've tried to tune into every day.  It's very easy to just watch and let the words and their meanings just glide by without having understood a word of the dialogue. 

Since I've made a concerted effort to more actively engage in my listening exercises, I really do think I've seen some improvement in my comprehension.  I try to watch mostly programs that are dubbed into Spanish from English, because it seems that the speech is just a tad slower and less slurred than original Spanish dialogue.  I'm finding that I'm grasping individual words and even entire phrases and sentences at times.  Some learners abandon the visual aspect completely, preferring to listen only to MP3's, CDs, or other purely audio media.  I also do this sometimes, but I've found that the visuals in Spanish TV and film actually help some with comprehension.  If an actor is discussing, say, peaches, and I see him clutching one of those fruits as he speaks, then I can easily pick out the word for 'peach' (melocotón).  

If on the other hand, I don't concentrate on the audio and just watch the action, it all just becomes background chatter that the brain easily tunes out.  I think this practice will also be helpful when I get the nerve to speak one-on-one with a Spanish speaker.  I'll be able to concentrate on what she's saying more intensely, instead of the fear and embarrassment I'll be feeling.  

Hasta pronto...

Here's another Spanish tune (with lyrics):

 

Verb First, Then subject? Ugh, I'll Never Get This!

A lot of the Spanish language instruction books insist that word order in Spanish sentences is not that different from that of English.  I wonder.  It seems that when I read an extended selection of Spanish, such as a chapter of a novel, the words are not exactly where I'd expect them to be.  And when I try to compose in Spanish, a necessity for keeping up with correspondence with my pen-pals, I find that a great deal of the corrections my Spanish friends make in my written Spanish have to do with word order.  That's just not quite the way they'd say it.  I've experienced the same problem when they write to me in English.  They've written a sentence with all the requisite vocabulary, but it's just not the way it would be expressed in English.

And though there are a few grammar and usage rules for this, it seems to me that it's only through repeated exposure and practice that one would get the hang of it.  Often, it's very difficult for me to explain to my pen-pals exactly why a sentence they have written is not quite correct.  The 'to' needs to be left off the infinitive, or a preposition needs to be added here and taken away from there.  All these things just seem intuitive and automatic for someone who uses the language every day. 

This tells me that I'm on the right track with making use that I read, listen, and write in Spanish every day, and for the best and fastest results to spend several hours each day doing these activities.  It all comes down to the fact that English is simply not a hybrid of Spanish or vice versa.  Though both have Latin origins, they evolved differently and Spanish adopted the Latin custom of flexibility in word order, whereas I suppose English went more with the German way of building a sentence.  Either way, I can see that I've got a lot of work to do if I want to sound more authentic. 

Hablespanolporfavor

It seems to me that spoken Italian is easier to understand than Spanish, but Spanish is easier to speak.  That's probably an over-generalization and true only in certain respects, but there is some evidence that it's at least partially true. 

I find that when I using my Pimsleur recordings for Spanish, I sail right along, with very few words and phrasing presenting a lot of difficulty in pronunciation or articulation.  As soon as I switch to Italian, though, I'm faced with being asked to say things like "Would you like to drink something?" (Lei vorrebbe bere qualcosa?).  Getting that 'vorrebbe bere' out is difficult for me and makes for a real mouthful of quickly spoken Italian.  So many b's and e's.  Though the Castillian Spanish 'c,' as I've stated in previous posts, does present some difficulty for English speakers, it seems to me that for the most part Italian words are longer and contain a lot of tongue-twisting sounds.  But oddly, on the other hand, when I watch a TV show or movie in Italian, I find that even though I my Italian vocabulary at this point is probably about half of my Spanish one, I can understand so much more of the spoken Italian. 

The problem is that to me Spanish spoken a a normal pace seems faster than Italian because Spanish requires so much more elision and running together of words.  Also, often d's and v's and b's are sort of slurred over which makes them hard to hear.  Thus it's sometimes difficult to tell when one word ends and another has begun.  In Italian, though there are some contractions and elisions, quest'anno for example, it seems to me that for the most part in Italian every letter is distinctly pronounced and there is a tiny pause in between words.  This makes such a tremendous difference.  Even though my grammar and vocabulary are more advanced in Spanish, often when I listen to long period of spoken Spanish, I comprehend practically nothing. 

This is a huge problem, since one of the main reason I'm studying these languages is to be able to watch TV show and movies and to understand the lyrics of songs.  Also, even if I learn to speak either of these languages fluently, it's not going to do much good if I can't understand what my speaking partner is saying to me.  I suppose the solution is to concentrate on listening when I study Spanish and on speaking with Italian.  It's all a mystery to me.

What, Are You Going to Type All Day? (Or Are You Going to Practice Your Spanish)?

For some reason the YouTube video contains the same skit twice.  Just hit stop after first run.

 Remember Charo?  Boy, you must be old! (Just kidding).  Above is a skit she did on the Carol Burnett show way back then.  It's pretty funny. 

I've added a music file to this blog.  It's actually a very energetic and pretty instrumental with a Spanish rhythm.  To play it, just click the forward button on the little window on the right of the home page.  If it's not your taza de té, just hit the stop button.

I'm having second thoughts about adding all this multimedia to my blogs.  I've noticed that it now takes a few seconds longer for the blog to load, and I wonder if this is a real problem for readers with slower Internet service.  The purpose of my blogs has never been to showcase technology, but rather to talk about learning languages.  I'll have to re-evaluate all the bells and whistles as I go.

I read a lot of material on language acquisition.  Just as with any other topic, the opinions vary widely and one 'expert' will completely contradict the findings of another.  I think the reason for this is that everyone has her own reasons and goals for studying a specific language.  For example, right now I'm more interested in learning to comprehend spoken Spanish, either in movies or TV shows or in real life conversations with fluent speakers.  Another person, on the other hand, may be more interested in learning to read Spanish or Latin American literature or needs only the basic vocabulary and grammar for a trip to Barcelona or Mexico.  They may have no interest in watching films in Spanish or in carrying on an extended conversation in Spanish.  Perhaps all they want is to have the satisfaction of ordering a meal in a Spanish restaurant.  For each of the purposes, the learner may need to adapt a learning program that is primarily centered on her goals.  For my own purposes, I've concluded that I need to listen to and speak in Spanish every day.  Instruction material that have me reading and typing or writing all day seem to me for the most part counterproductive for my goals.  I use the all-audio Pimsleur system and spend several hours a day watching TV or films in Spanish or listening to Spanish audio recordings and songs.  That's not to say that I should completely eliminate all non-oral activities.  Reading is the best way I know to bolster vocabulary and writing grammar exercises helps solidify my learning.

So the point is that there is no one specific method that is tailor made for all learners of languages.  I registered for the Babbel online courses and though I'm a little disappointed that so much of it entails reading and typing, I do like their pronunciation tips and drills and the voice recognition.  Their written exercises are interwoven into typical conversations, a technique which avoids introducing vocabulary and sentence structures that are isolated from real conversation and context.  Still, I feel that all the typing is interfering with the aural component that I need to focus on.  But I'm supplementing that with Pimsleur and my YouTube viewing, so I should be fine.  It's all very logical:  If you want to read or write Spanish, find an instruction method that emphasizes that; if you want to understand spoken Spanish and eventually speak it, find a method that has you doing more listening and speaking.

I found that Google Hangouts is a good compromise.  Though it involves typing messages back and forth, because of its immediacy one does get the feel of having a conversation.  I feel that I've learned quite a bit from my daily pen-pal interaction in Hangouts.  Try it, if you have a Google account. 

Aristocratic Bloodlines at Gran Hotel

I was pleasantly surprised to see that the NetFlix series 'Bloodline' is available to subscribers with both Spanish audio (dubbed from English) and Spanish subtitles.  See here for a review:  Review of Bloodline.  This is good news for my daily exposure to spoken Spanish because, though it's relatively easy to find TV series with Spanish audio (either dubbed or original), finding material that has both audio and subs is not nearly as simple.  And this is a good one to watch for the purposes of learning.  1) It's relatively fast-moving and contains a lot of action that cues the watcher/listener who is trying to comprehend the Spanish and 2) it's well-acclaimed, reasonably directed, and offers Sissy Spacek and Sam Waterson in starring roles.  I watched the entire first episode with both Spanish audio and subs turned on.  Though there was some dialogue (a lot actually) that I didn't grasp, I was able to follow along with the story and scenes fairly well.  Naturally, the issue with subtitles, no matter what language they're in, is that if you're reading, it's hard to concentrate on the audio.  I suppose the sensible thing to do would be to watch each episode twice--once in English to make sure I absorb most of the dialogue and story and then again to focus exclusively on the Spanish audio.  I'm just not sure I like the series enough to watch each episode twice.  Now, if they offered a show that's very dear to me, like 'Monarch of the Glen,' for example, that would be a pleasure to watch in two languages.

One thing that I've noticed is that subtitles, whether in English or Spanish, do not always match completely with what the actors are saying. I was elated to see that I was understanding enough of the spoken Spanish to recognize this.  I suppose the subs sometimes have to be shortened to fit that little space on the bottom of the screen. 

"Santander.Palacio.de.la.Magdalena.2". Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Santander.Palacio.de.la.Magdalena.2.jpg#/media/File:Santander.Palacio.de.la.Magdalena.2.jpg

The other show I'm following on NetFlix for Spanish practice is 'Gran Hotel,' (See Wiki here: Gran Hotel ) which interestingly is offered only with Spanish audio (its original track) and English subtitles.  One of the things most attractive for language learners here is that there are over 40 episodes of 'Gran Hotel,' enough viewing time to give me a pretty thorough comprehension workout.  The series is a sort of high quality telenovela, rife with beautiful actors and lush Spanish scenery.  It's filmed on the north coast of Spain at the Palacio de la Magdalena.  It is highly melodramatic with people getting murdered right and left, pistol duels, and someone getting pushed out of a window.  Lurid stuff, but perfect for language practice, since there's lots of action and conversation.  Now if only I could find a version with Spanish subs. 

To Speak or Not To Speak, Esa Es la Pregunta

Perhaps it's just wishful thinking, but I wonder if it really matters that much if Spanish is not spoken perfectly.  I've seen movies where a non-Hispanic is obviously speaking Spanish with a strong accent and she is getting her point across.  In my dealings with Spanish speakers attempting to communicate in English, I've noticed that it is rare that I completely fail to understand what they are saying.  Often they use the present tense almost exclusively and are mispronouncing many English words, but I get the gist of what they are saying.  If not, I ask them to repeat or to try to phrase it another way.  Sometimes, I play detective and ask them if they mean this or that.  Yes, I think that being unable to pronounce the Castillian c or d exactly right should not deter anyone from speaking Spanish.  I mean, really, we're all familiar with the French's difficulty with the th sound, but very few of us would be perplexed by hearing 'the' pronounced 'zee,' as in 'show me zee money.'  Zee is close enough.

Of course it would matter a great deal to someone who is on a diplomatic mission to Latin America or is for whatever reason trying to avoid being perceived as a foreigner.  But that's not the case for the vast majority of us.  Indeed, I've heard that embarrassment and self-consciousness is the primary reason why language learners often fail to become fluent.  We are determined not to utter a word in public until what comes out of our mouths is perfect Spanish and our conversation partner is smiling and marveling at our linguistic talents.  Well, it ain't gonna happen--at least not for years.  I'm one to talk, though--I shudder in horror at the thought of having to speak to anyone in Spanish, whether they be gringos or native madrileños.  I'm hoping that fear will subside.

Thinko Thenas

Having some regrets about learning 'peninsula' or 'Castellano' Spanish instead of the Latin American variety. I'm still plodding through Pimsleur's Castillian Spanish audio recordings and have concluded that correct pronunciation is harder to achieve than with its counterpart.  The difficulty arises with the major difference between the two dialects:  the 'th' sound.  You'd think that sound would be a cinch to make for English speakers, since so many of our words contain the 'th' sound as in 'think.'  But I've found that when the sound has to be repeated in the same word or in a quick succession of words, such as cinco cenas (five dinners).  For some reason I find saying thinko thenas very difficult to articulate.  And when there are three or four of these sounds in the same sentence, I start feeling tongue-tied, which slows down the all-important fluidity of my Spanish.  



My logic for studying peninsula Spanish instead of Latino was that, since I lean toward the sound of Castellano a bit more than the Latin American accent, I could use oral study materials with that pronunciation and modify the pronunciation slightly should I need to speak the Latino version at some point.  I could have just as easily done the reverse, and now I sort of wish I had.  It's much easier to find Latin American learning materials in the U.S. and I wouldn't have to concern myself with all that lisping (I don't mean for that term to be derogatory).  I think that if I learned the Latino way first, I'd already have the rhythm of the language down pat and it would be much easier to add the "th's" on after I have mastered the other pronunciation problems that are for the most part identical in both dialects, such as the softer g's and d's.  Agua seems to me to be pronounced more like 'awa' than 'agua.'  Well, no harm done, since I can still revert to Latin American Spanish if I choose to. 

In so many ways it's amazing, really, that Spanish retained so much of its purity when it left the borders of the Iberian Peninsula during Spain's imperialist age.  English, it seems to me, did not make the transition quite as intact.  Though most North American's can easily understand British, or Scottish, or Australian, et al., English, there are major differences in vocabulary, intonation, and the pronunciation of certain vowels and a few consonants.  When I watch Downton Abbey on PBS, for example, every now and then an individual word or phrase doesn't register with me and I'm not quite sure what they meant. 

Perhaps one reason why Spanish exported so smoothly was that for the most part it's much easier to learn to pronounce than English is.  It's pronunciation is way more consistent and there are very few (with the possible exception of some 'g' and 'j' sounds) guttural or 'toothy' sound (with the exception of that ubiquitous 'th').  English contains so many cases of possible pronunciations of such diphthongs as 'ou,' for instance.  And the grammar for the most part is very logical and versatile. 

Malas palabras del dia

Veo que 'la palabra del día de hoy' es 'mala pata,' (bad luck).  Well, let's hope that's not a bad sign in itself.  Funny, I always thought the Spanish word for bad luck was mala suerte, but I suppose one needs a variety of ways to express that things are not working out quite the way we'd prefer them to.  

This once again adds support to my theory that Google Translate is very limited in just how helpful it can be as a language learning resource.  When I typed in 'bad luck' and clicked the Translate to Spanish button, it came up with, wouldn't you know it, mala suerte.  Worse, when I clicked on the phrase for alternate translations, mala pata never made an appearance at all.   In fact, various combinations of the word suerte were all that ever displayed.  

I have a feeling that a good unabridged online/offline Spanish dictionary would be more beneficial.  Even more distressing was that when I used an online Spanish thesaurus, mala pata still did not come up as an synonym.  Now I'm really perplexed.  Is the source that is pulling my Spanish word for the day unreliable?  I even googled mala pata and nothing anywhere near bad luck popped up.  Looks like I'm having muy mala pata today with my Spanish studies.  Or is that mala suerte?  

And now that I'm harping on dictionaries, I'm p.o.'d at Amazon for failing to provide a setting to change the default dictionary in First Generation Kindle Fires (the kind I have). This means that I cannot attach a foreign language dictionary to the books I have collected on the device.  I did, however, find a partial solution to this (no thanks to Amazon, mala suerte).  There is a free ebook reader for Kindles called 'Moon Reader' that displays ebooks in a format similar to Kindle's.  The user manual says that there is a way to attach alternate dictionaries to Moon Reader documents, though it looks complicated and I haven't tried it yet.  In the mean time, if I tap on a word I get a menu and one of the options is 'Translate.'  That will take me to Google Translate and the Spanish definition of the word selected.  This is cumbersome, but maybe if I can figure out how to attach the Spanish dictionary to Moon Reader I'll be in for some smooth sailing and no more mala suerte with dictionaries. 

Proper Assimilation of Assimil

Never having tried the popular language teaching materials called 'Assimil'--Assimil French with Ease, Assimil Spanish with Ease, etc., I decided to give the one for Spanish a try.  This series is the preferred method of learning a foreign language in Europe, or so I've heard. According to someone on a YouTube review of it, it's pronounced ASSimil, with the accent on the first syllable.  I was saying AsSIMil.  Who knew?

Having completed the first several lessons, I can easily see why it would appeal to some language learners.  It does deal with grammar, but it incorporates it into the dialogues and notes of the text.  This is probably the way grammar should be taught, at least at the first stages of learning.  Isolating sample sentences with no context makes learning grammar much more difficult than demonstrating the rules in full conversations.  It makes the grammar easier to remember and allows the learner to see ordinary situations in which, for example, the subjunctive mood is needed. 

Also, the dialogues seem natural and useful.  One of the main complaints I've had about a lot of language textbooks and self-teaching books is that I'm being fed a lot of words and phrases that I simply won't need in everyday conversation.  At the outset, I need only words that will likely pop up in a normal conversation or, in my case at this point in time, in a casual email.  Assimil seems pretty adept at this. 

Another attractive aspect of the series are the audio files that can be purchased along with the book.  Unfortunately, this ups the ante in the cost of the program.  The book is not cheap (even used copies run for around $30), but the audios are over $100.  Still, even it doesn't break the bank for you, they are very good tools for getting your pronunciation right and for practicing comprehension. 

I'll end this post by changing the subject to TV.  I've been watching the Spanish language miniseries Gran Hotel for the past few nights.  Luckily, NetFlix allows me to watch either with English subtitles or with no subtitles.  At this point, I would not be able to follow the story at all without subtitles.  The show is lavishly produced with lush sets and talented and gorgeous actors.  It's sort of the equivalent of a typical Spanish telenovela souped up BBC style.  I must admit that I was taken by surprise when one of the female characters pushed her sister out the window from one of the upper stories of the hotel.  It was late and I was sort of dozing off, but that really woke me up!  Did the girl survive?  Tune in next time to find out :)

Every Letter in Spanish Pronounced Distinctly? Dream on!

Spanish Makes a Good Showing in the US

When I first began to study Spanish, I was very excited to read that unlike French, every letter is pronounced distinctly.  Absurdo! No es verdad.  While it's true that if you isolate individual Spanish words, you would clearly enunciate every syllable, every letter, when you're using the same word in a sentence, it may sound more truncated and more merged with the word that follows it.  Take the sentence ¿Dónde está el hotel?, for example.  I'd probably be understood by a native Spanish speaker if I recited this sentence with no elisions, enunciating every letter, but it would probably come across similar to an English speaker talking to someone they assume to be hard-of-hearing.  My understanding is that this sentence should be delivered sort of like this: ¿Dóndestál otel?  And this makes perfectly good sense, because we'd probably squish all those words together in English also:  Wherzthotel?  or something to that effect.

This condensing of words and phrases seems for the most part to just come natural after you've studied Spanish for awhile, but the problem arises when you're hearing someone else speaking and trying to isolate different words to make sense of the meaning of the sentence.  Scrunched up words just sound different from the way we learned them from vocabulary lists and textbooks.  

Still, it was a bit of a letdown when I discovered that Spanish is not quite as simple to pronounce as many would have us believe.  And most of the elisions make very good sense, because it often sounds awkward to pronounce two or three vowels together.  And as in all language acquisition, the only way to get the hang of it is to listen and practice; speak and practice.  

Hasta pronto.