learn Spanish

H107 – 09, originally uploaded by Axelhouston.

A dancer in front of the National Museum of Anthropology and History in Mexico City.

Originally posted 2008-03-11 03:38:13. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Destinos is the best video series teaching Spanish ever. PBS aired these 52 episodes back in ’92 or so.

Destinos: An Introduction to Spanish
Destinos teaches speaking, listening, and comprehension skills in Spanish. This telenovela, or Spanish soap opera, immerses students in everyday situations with native speakers and introduces the cultures, accents, and dialects of Mexico, Spain, Argentina, and Puerto Rico.

Early episodes have an English speaking narrator that explains part of the story. As episodes progress, less and less English is presented and it’s soon 100% Spanish.

There’s a review of previous week’s episode, along with a short tutorial section where a picture is presented with the Spanish word, at the end of each episode is a small quiz about the Spanish in the episode. There’s a workbook available (here, if you really want it), that expands on the Spanish in the episodes. The workbook isn’t required or even missed to watch and understand Destinos!

It’s free to watch the streaming video online (here). You have to be connected to watch. DVD’s, workbooks, audio cassettes and a host of other materials are available here, but you’ve got to like it a lot for $450 for the entire series. Watch it online, it’s free! You could get the Destinos Workbook and CD and watch the video online with the workbooks.

You’ll get hooked and won’t be able to wait to get to the next episode. It’s a good story line with good production along with cultural information. The Spanish is easy to understand especially at first and you’re learning all the time!

The narrator even explains that you’re not supposed to understand every word of the conversation and to try to follow along using context and character actions to understand the conversation.

There is a Nuevos Destinos that was made several years later, but the episodes are only 15 minutes long and the people I know that have seen it, don’t think it’s as good as the original.

Sherman, Texas is going all out to get their patrol officers bilingual. Their plan is to first use Rosetta Stone’s Program, (Rosetta Stone: Free Demo)
then move to formal classes at the college, then -

Sherman Police learning Spanish
In addition to the work on the computer and in the classroom, members of the Hispanic community, like Lupe’s Tamales owner John Arriazola, will be invited to ride along with the officers themselves to better understand one another.

But the final step is a two week immersion trip to Cuerna Vaca, Mexico. A trip Sergeant Steven Dean will make Saturday. “There is a communication problem within law enforcement which is primarily English speaking white males which is typically what we have in this community.”

A multi-pronged attack! Computer work, class room, ride along with someone to practice with (I’m assuming), then immersion. Like the one article I found here, immersion with no basic foundation, is a waste.

The rest of us can take the same course. I’m not sure I can go through a college or adult education Spanish class right now, but going through a computer course, doing some grammar work through books may be just as good. Then finding a Spanish speaking buddy, then taking a two week vacation for an immersion class, sounds like a decent plan.

You may not be able to find someone to ride around with you all day so you can practice with, but there are resources on the net that may come close. I’ll get to those in a later post.

Originally posted 2008-03-03 04:00:10. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

A short clip from the movie “Despardo” with Salma Hayek & Antonio Banderas. The clip as subtitles and the Spanish is easy to understand. I suppose you can get a few phrases out of it. The website at the end isn’t working anymore.

Why? When the second unofficial language in America is Spanish and in some cities it’s number one. You would think there would be several immersion schools around the US. You could be in a school in El Paso or Laredo in a classroom for a few hours, then reading Spanish newspapers, listening to the radio or watching Univision or Telemundo after classes, then go to a Mexican restaurant or a club at night. Have cross border trips on the weekends. I would pass through the border towns right now, but after you get deeper into Mexico it gets safer.

You could do the same thing in any city in the Southwest. Phoenix, Anywhere in California south of Sacramento, Tucson or San Antonio. I think it might be a little more effort to stay immersed once you get further north like Dallas or Las Vegas, but it would still be possible.

There are newspapers, magazines and radio stations to fit almost any taste. There are almost as many Spanish speaking TV stations on cable as there are English speaking. Enough news, sports, telenovelas, game shows, talk shows and movies to keep someone immersed forever, if you really wanted to. Most large cities have at least one neighborhood that is completely Spanish. Store signs, menus, even churches, everything completely in Spanish.

Two Week Total Immersion

A two week vacation somewhere exotic would be cool for tourists, but realistically, two weeks and you’re probably just getting started. What about a month or more where you can still go to work for 8 hours then go to Spanish immersion for the rest of the day. Staying immersed when you go home may take some effort if you’re the only one in a household learning, but what about having the entire family participate? Or stay in a hotel or dorm next to the school and participate in evening activities.

If any Venture Capitalists think that’s a good idea, call me. Otherwise I hope someone starts one or if there’s some already out there that I can’t find, let me know.

Originally posted 2008-03-20 04:55:31. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

Temple of the Warriors, Chichen Itza, Maya Ruins, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Click on the picture to read detailed notes about the temple.

can8602_07, Temple of the Warriors, Chichen Itza, Maya Ruins, Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico, originally uploaded by jimg944.

This is kind of the point of this article. Saying that Immersion schools are not the best way to begin learning a language. It makes sense that adults and children learn differently and that a lot of methods, including immersion try and teach a language like you were a child. Children learn by associating pictures (objects) with words.

You’re Not A Native… All About Immersion

Adults are word based, not image based. When we talk about traffic we do not see little BMW’s, Fords or Hondas flashing through our heads. The reason for this is that it is easier to manage large bodies of information concretely rather than abstractly.

Which is faster to download on your computer, a graphics file or a text file? Text is always faster to process than graphics! The same is true for the human brain.

It goes on…

One last word about immersion. There is a place for it. You should be in an immersion program when you already understand and have a mastery of the Spanish language and are just looking to “smooth out the language.”

I would agree with that and that’s the way I was thinking. It would be great to go to school somewhere only to learn Spanish but just listening to Spanish or being shown pictures and the Spanish isn’t going to do much. It takes years for children to get to a point of comprehending and being understood using pictures and being immersed.

Once I get the grammar and vocabulary to a certain point of comprehension, I’d like to go to an immersion school to be able to fine tune and be able to put into practice on a daily basis. Plus it would be a great vacation! But to go and spend money on an immersion school as a complete beginner, you might as well sit and watch Telemundo all day and learn Spanish that way.

I don’t know, but I would think that even people that live somewhere and are immersed still have to learn grammar somehow. You don’t learn verb tenses with pictures or even by being immersed. I’d love to hear from someone that has had experience with living somewhere or an immersion school, in the comments if you want.

It’s a good article and I’m still checking out the website at: Bilingual America there are a lot of good articles (here) on the best way to learn. This is a serious (and expensive) course. With audio, workbook and private tutor time.

Originally posted 2008-02-20 16:45:32. Republished by Blog Post Promoter

If you’re participating in one of the many Spanish learner forums, (Rocket Spanish and Learning Spanish Like Crazy have support forums when you participate in their programs) there will be instances when you will need to type Spanish characters like ñ or accents over the vowels.

Typing Spanish characters on an English keyboard takes a few extra steps. This tutorial on adding Spanish Characters to your keyboard is for Windows XP and I’m pretty sure it’s the same on Vista. Click on the images to enlarge:

• Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
• Under Pick a category, click Date, Time, Language, and Regional Options.
• Under or pick a Control Panel icon, click Regional and Language Options.
• The Regional and Language Options dialog box appears.

Read the rest of this entry »

CNN Democratic Debate Austin, Texas Feb. 21, 2008.

The question from Univision. There are 30 million people in the United States that speak Spanish.

Hillary says that English should be our common unifying language, but that’s not always the case, more and more employers are preferring candidates that are bilingual.

[kml_flashembed movie="http://youtube.com/v/N4z74ALt7TU" width="425" height="350" wmode="transparent" /]

Originally posted 2008-02-27 05:49:08. Republished by Blog Post Promoter