La llegada de Sam, from Extr@ en español

Buenos dias, chicas y chicos, damas y caballeros, y todos mis amigos.  ¿Qué tal este día hermoso?

I am enjoying working with several conversation oriented activities on the 'Net.  One is called Extr@ en español.  It is part of a series of such programs and versions for German and French are also available.  They are perfect for beginners, because almost all of the dialogues are in the target language and the actors speak slowly and distinctly (but not so much so that they sound artificial).  The scenarios are creative and genuinely funny and entertaining--sort of like the vintage American series Three's Company.  One very good aspect of the series is that one of the characters is an American who knows some Spanish, but speaks with a strong American accent.  This is good for beginners because his Spanish is more recognizable to us neophytes and it gives us a character to sort of identify with, as he struggles to understand his Spanish (the action all occurs in an apartment in Spain) roommates, and they his.  I was especially pleased when I found myself laughing at some of the antics, since humor is one of the things hardest to convey in a new language.  

I think there are only about a dozen or so 1/2 hour episodes, which is disappointing.  I could see how this method of exposure to spoken Spanish could be utilized all the way through intermediate and even advanced levels.  Let's hope the producers of the show have expansion in mind. 

Hasta luego...

Nix the English, amigo.

Why am I still writing these posts in English, you may ask?  Fair question.  First, this blog would become much more of a chore than a delight for me.  Mistakes in writing are much more glaring than those made during spoken conversation.  Second, it would take hours for me to complete each post.  At this point in my learning, even expressing a simple thought in Spanish requires a lot of looking up words and checking to see if my grammar structures are even half-way on the mark.  Writing this blog completely in Spanish, however, is a long-range goal.  Even now, I try to intersperse Spanish words and phrases into my text when appropriate.

Una taza de té

Now, oral Spanish, that's a whole different taza de té.  After performing a little research and some experimentation, I've concluded that once you've learned most of the most frequently used Spanish words and the rudiments of the grammar, it's important to remove as much English as possible from your daily practice.  English just interfere and keeps you in the thinking process of that language.  At first I thought the solution to this was to watch Spanish movies and TV without subtitles, but after months of that technique, I'm beginning to doubt the efficacy of such an approach.  I'd usually end up grasping only a word or phrase here and there and felt that the progress I was making was negligible.  Then I discovered several resources that teach conversational Spanish in a different way:  No English from the very start.  Some of these courses used subtitles, but the subtitles were in Spanish, never in English.

One of the best of the online options for using this method is the series 'Extra en español.'  You can watch it for free on YouTube and here's a sample:  Extra en espanol episode.  This one uses Spanish subtitles and the Spanish is spoken a little slowly and very distinctly.  The real selling point for this series, though, is that it is utterly charming.  Well acted by attractive and charismatic Spanish actors, it's sort of a Spanish 'Three's Company.'  No, nobody is gay in the series, but the two female flat-sharers are hiding an American man (not allowed by  their apartment manager).  As I said, the male character is not gay, but he does have a cute 'bromance' going on with the handsome next-door neighbor.  Too bad that there are only about a dozen episodes, I'm enjoying it and feel that it has helped me leaps and bounds with my comprehension.  

Another site that uses a similar approach is a MOOC produced by the University of Salamanca.  It's a series of videos that also portray an American who is visiting Spain.  It's also very entertaining and even though it does not use any subtitles, anyone who has the very basics of Spanish can understand at least 90% of the conversations.  It also has short grammar lessons interspersed in the lessons.  Not convinced that you want be completely at sea and won't understand a word they're saying?  Give it a try: Capitulo Dos .  Cuidado!  You may get addicted.  (PS:  They also have similar classes in Italian and, I think, other languages).

How do you propose to go shopping in Barcelona if you can't pronounce 'euro'?

I sure do wish Spain had not adopted the Euro.  But not for the reasons you might think; I have a terrible time trying to pronounce the word, but at least it's not as hard as the way the Italians pronounce it with their propensity for distinguishing every letter so that it comes out sounding sort of like ai-oo-rrr-oh.  The Spanish seems a little less obsessed with perfection and sounds more like ee-ooh-rroh.  I think I'm getting better at it with my Pimsleur Spanish audio recordings--it uses the word often in its lessons about shopping.

 Here is Jorge addressing a most important topic: dinero.  He uses the word euro frequently.  Check your pronunciation.  (It's a great video in itself). 

This is only the tip of the iceberg in the process of language acquisition and is probably the major reason why people who are fluent often still have an 'accent' which they can't seem to shake no matter how hard they try.  Some sounds in Spanish are just completely different from their English equivalents and those little phonetic helpers are often not much help at all; in fact, they can be harmful in that they train you to pronounce the letter or word incorrectly, and once you learn something incorrectly, it's hard to unlearn it.  To this day I have to struggle to remember that the 'e' in the Spanish word bien, is not pronounced like the 'a' in the English word 'day,' but more like the word 'bend,' (and even that is only an approximation).  I picked up this bad habit from my Freshman Spanish teacher, who was the sweetest lady in the world, but who was not a native speaker and who had learned the sounds incorrectly herself. 

I'm not sure I agree with the linguistics theory that once you pass a certain age, it becomes impossible to produce some sounds that are not unique to your mother tongue.  I don't see why that, with a little coaching and a lot of listening to the correct pronunciations and perfecting them in practice, anyone can't eventually succeed in reproducing any of these 'foreign' sounds.  The purists claim that as we age, we not only can't reproduce some of these sounds, we can't even hear them!  I will agree with these nay-sayers in one respect:  you may not hear the subtleties of certain sounds until many exposures in which you listen extremely carefully to the sound.  A good example is the Spanish 'd.'  There are times when it sounds very close to the English 'd,' but other times when you need to add a soft 'th'-like sound to it.  I like to form my mouth as if to say a 'd,' and then to say instead 'th.'  And on top of all this, there is the problem of dialects, when some "c's,"  for example sound sort of like "th's," thinko for cinco, for example.  This is one case where persons who speak English have an advantage, since many English words contain that 'th' sound.

It all boils down to the simple fact that English is not a dialect of Spanish, even with its strong Latin roots.  Though an 'accent' may sound interesting and perhaps even sexy, everyone will immediately know that you're an outsider, a forastero.

Hasta pronto...

Buenos Dias de Estrellas

Oliver singing Good Morning Stars Shine in Spanish

It's always fun to listen to pop songs that have been recorded in Spanish.  Above is Buenos Dias Brillo de Estrellas (Good Morning Stars Shine, from 'Hair.')  The Spanish rendition is just as lovely as the original, though the title looks a little silly with Buenos Dias :)  I had forgotten what a first-class voice Oliver had.  He reminds me a little of John Denver.  

I wanted to add a couple of other Spanish covers for American songs, but they're not as easy to find as you'd think.  Here's the legendary Johnny Cash singing his megahit 'Ring of Fire' in Spanish, written, I believe, by his equally legendary wife June Carter.  Mr. Cash's Spanish has a whisper of American accent, but his rich, powerful bass voice makes it sound intense and beautiful.

Hasta pronto...

Mira!

 

I'm always in a good mood when I find new sources for viewing TV shows or movies in Spanish.  I have two more to report.

One is called DramaFever.com.  It's a website that offers many current telenovelas and the best part?  It's free.  Yes, they would love it if you sign up for their Premium version, but for now I'm pretty satisfied with the free stuff.  I'm watching (or rather listening to) a miniseries called Montecristo right now. Another plus (or perhaps a minus if you don't want the feature) is that there are English subtitles.  I used to think this was cheating, but I've decided that just listening to Spanish spoken at a normal rate and thus grasping only a few words here and there is not really that helpful.  That comes when you've gotten more fluent.  A good alternative is to watch first while reading the subtitles, then cover them up and re-watch the scene.  Oh, one more slight annoyance is that the program is interrupted about every ten minutes with a commercial--en Inglés, por desgracia.  But we can't have everything, now can we?

The other site worth mentioning is Hulu.com/latino.  Yes, this is the Spanish version of the popular movie/tv site Hulu.  I just took a quick luck, but it looks worth investigating.  There's a large selection of movies and quite a few of those steamy, ubiquitous telenovelas, spiced up with sexy chicas and shirtless chicos.  Ay caramba! 

Historia de España

 

For several months now I've been reading a history of Spain by Mark William called simply The Story of Spain.  I'm less than half-way through, but not because the book is dry or difficult to read; it's not.  In fact it is very short and condensed, less than 300 pages.  The issue once again has been my language-hopping. 


I've checked out similar books off and on for both French and Italian.  Just as I'm getting into the thrilling story of Italy, I'll feel the lure of Spain or France.  No use to fight this halter-skelter roving about; I guess I should go ahead and self-diagnose attention deficit disorder.  But still I don't chide myself too much for this inconstancy; I think I'm still in the process of deciding which one of these exquisite languages I want to dedicate the bulk of my time and energy on.  Each one has its pros and cons. 

At any rate, one thing that the author of The Story of Spain vigorously objects to is the popular thesis that Spain has been the worst offender when it comes to imperialism, religious intolerance, and colonialism.  William is very protective of his subject and insists that if we do a comparative history of the major European nations' reputations, we'll conclude that Spain was no less merciless, no less ravenous, no less unjust than any of the lot.  I thought he illustrated his argument well by pointing out that many Native Americans in South America have risen into positions of governmental power and have avoided for the most part the stigma and segregation of Native Americans in the United States, which of course was colonized by the British (after the Dutch, the Spanish and the French retreated).  The indigenous tribes of what is now the U. S. were almost completely annihilated and the residuals placed in 'reservations,' perhaps a euphemism for permanent concentration camps?  I don't think Williams is naive enough to deny that tremendous atrocities and injustices were perpetrated by the conquistadores, simply that they appear to have been judged much more harshly than other imperialist countries.

The subtitle of the book is The Dramatic History of Europes's Most Fascinating Country and as I advance through its pages, there is something to be said for this boast.  Spain's history is tightly entwined with the other major powers of Europe and for a time the country came close to dominating the world.  It's footprints are evident all over the Americas.  You don't have to travel too far to run across Spanish place names:  San Diego, San Antonio, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Santa Domingo, the list goes on.  Even the notorious Borgia family had strong Spanish roots with Pope Alexander Sextus's son named Juan (yes, some popes did father children back then). 

I'll want to take advantage of my current focus on Spanish to finish up Williams' book.  Like so many before me, I nodded off way too much in Freshman History class, and that is not acceptable.  We will all benefit from learning about Spain and other great nations and how they helped shape the world as we know it today.

Mi verso es un ciervo herido

Guantanamera. I love this song--no, I mean I love this song.  Me gusta esta canción!  I had not heard it since I was very young, but this time I really listened and found the English translation.  When I listened to the song a second time last night, I felt a surge of emotion that only great art can draw from us.

Apparently, the song has a very complicated and interesting history, as explained by this Wiki article (Wiki has become the Delphi Oracle of our day :) Guantanamera.  It seems that the song was originally written by a Cuban man to express his heartbreak from being rejected by 'the woman from Guantánamo.'  Interestingly, when the folk legend Pete Seeger created the definitive arrangement for The Sandpipers' exquisite recording of the song, he chose to omit most of the romantic aspects of the lyrics and what resulted was a gentle folk ballad about a impoverished Cuban poet, singing his corazón out. The Sandpipers' sweet voices and perfect harmony make it, in my opinion the best rendition of the song--and as you can see in the Wiki, about 50 artists have recorded the song, including such giants as Joan Baez and Bobby Darin.  It was also translated into Italian and sung by many Italian vocalists.  For a time it placed in the top ten of both US and UK charts. 

But enough of my jabbering, below you'll find the lyrics--both Spanish and English.  Listen carefully and let the song flow over you and into your soul.

Songwriters
JOSE MARTI, PETE SEEGER, JULIAN ORBON, J. FERNANDEZ DIAZ

Published by
Lyrics © THE BICYCLE MUSIC COMPANY, SOCIEDAD GENERAL DE AUTORES DE ESPANA S G A E

Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera
Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera

Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crece la palma
Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crece la palma
Y antes de morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma

Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera
Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera

Mi verso es de un verde claro
Y de un carmín encendido
Mi verso es de un verde claro
Y de un carmín encendido
Mi verso es un ciervo herido
Que busca en el monte amparo

Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera
Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera

Con los pobres de la tierra
Quiero yo mi suerte echar
Con los pobres de la tierra
Quiero yo mi suerte echar
El arroyo de la sierra
Me complace más que el mar

Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera
Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera

Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera
Guantanamera, guajira Guantanamera

 Trascrizione all'ascolto di Lorenzo Masetti

I am a truthful man
from the land of the palm trees
and before dying
I want to share these poems of my soul

My poems are soft green
My poems are also flaming crimson
My poems are like a wounded fawn
seeking refuge in the forest

With the poor people of this Earth
I want to share my fate
The stream of the mountain
pleases me more than the sea.