Goodbye Spanish and Journalism

Today I went to a networking mixer at my Alma Mater. I enjoyed learning about ways that I can use social media to boost my career and that I should think outside of the box. I also had fun talking to other alumni. But what shocked me was the last conversation I had with an alumni who graduated with a double major in Spanish and Business a year after I left– she told me that the Spanish program was cut at my college.

Lately, I have been thinking about the importance of my college education.Was it worth it? After I graduated high school, I was encouraged to go to college so that I could get a good job. I knew that I wanted to do something with Spanish, but didn’t know what. All I knew is that I didn’t necessarily want to be a teacher. So I took a career aptitude test to find out what I should do with the major. It showed that I should be a translator and a journalist. The results were equal for both fields. I took a journalism class and adored it. It seemed kismet to become a double major.

In retrospect, I wish that I didn’t attend college until I had real world experience first, rather I would’ve used my love of Spanish to do some sort of service with the Hispanic community. I’ve worked at jobs that required bilingual speakers. I noticed that I was the only one who went to college to learn Spanish at those jobs. The others learned Spanish the good old fashion way, by being immersed in the language. While I was trying to remember what tense to use, they didn’t worry about the grammar rules. Their Spanish flowed naturally. My resume shows that I have a bachelor’s degree in Spanish and my study abroad experience as how I immersed myself in the language. Honestly, I could’ve received experience volunteering at an organization using my Spanish everyday for six months and it would’ve been cheaper for me in the long run.

Most of the bilingual jobs in my area involve business, you must be able to convince someone to either buy a product or pay their own bills. After I had some experience in Spanish, then I probably would’ve applied for the bilingual jobs in my area. I would’ve learned that my art of persuading people to pay was poor, knowing very fast that I need to study business to improve my sales persuasion, studied another field where I could use my Spanish or move to a place with a high Hispanic population like Texas where I could do almost anything in Spanish. Another option is that I would’ve later studied the field that related to my v

Updates on my language challenge

I wanted to let you all know that I am still doing my language challenge. It has been way too busy for me to do daily updates. I didn’t realize the amount of time that is devoted to doing such a challenge especially with two languages. I tried to do both free listening for 30 minutes and active listening in both languages. Based on my busy schedule, I completed the tasks about half of the time.

I am discovering more videos on YouTube in Wolof. I listen to them while doing my activities. I believe that it falls under free listening. It helps because I have an idea what the language sounds like. Yesterday I finished watching the Jesus film in Wolof. Everyday I watched about 30 minutes of the film. I picked out a couple of words from Memrise and the Wolof Language Learning Videos that I found on YouTube. For instance, I heard “buur” repeated a lot when Jesus was being questioned by the rulers. I previously learned that word using Memrise, but I didn’t know how it sounded. I attempted to practice active listening with Wolof. I’d watch a video spoken in Wolof with English subtitles. The videos were very short maybe 15 minutes at most. Since I don’t know how to spell in the language, I couldn’t fill out vocabulary cards based on the films. So I found a song in the language with the transcription provided. I also found a website with the Wolof-English dictionary made by the Peace Corp. The PDF was about 70 pages long. I learned a few new words, but only a few of the words in the transcription were in the dictionary.

Now on to Spanish. I love using the Discover Spanish podcast as my free listening requirement. The course, designed for middle school students, teaches Spanish in 15 minute segments. I like it that I can start from the beginning as if I don’t know the language. This allows me to do a review of vocabulary that I haven’t used in a while. On the days that I could do the active listening, I either did an activity based on a story at Bookbox or sang along to music videos in Spanish. Bookbox is an awesome website that has the transcriptions and translations of various stories online. One story I transcribed. I had a lot of errors with the past tense. So I plan to focus more on that tense in the future. I’ve also simply read along with the transcription and wrote down any words that I did not know. I find this challenge very helpful. When I transcribed in college for assignments, I thought it was a very helpful way to increase my listening of the language, practice spelling and grammar concepts. I plan on doing more transcriptions with this challenge. I haven’t Sin Bandera in a long time. The group sings a lot of  romantic ballads. One day for about an hour, I found their music videos with lyrics singing along happily. I wrote down any words that I did know for my vocabulary lists. I have to go. Time to get ready for ballet class.

My Writer’s Block/ Mi bloqueo al escribir

(I included a video on how to conjugate the verb “ser”. It is one of the verbs that mean “to be” in Spanish.)

For many years, I thought that I had a writer’s block because I couldn’t write fiction. When I began to write a story, there wasn’t enough plot in the story to keep me interested, so I’d get bored writing the story and I could not finish it. I still can’t, but I don’t consider it to be a writer’s block. Everyday I write in a journal. I can write my thoughts down for hours, the events that have occurred in my life and the lives of others. How can it be a writer’s block if I can write for hours?

Now I teach writing. The irony of how someone can teach another person how to write about a topic, teach English grammar, teach vocabulary, teach how to write and revise compositions and more, and can’t write, is ridiculous. I am a writer. I write about reality. I studied Journalism at a university nine years ago and can still write for a newspaper if I have the opportunity.

Have you tried to be someone that you aren’t? Or tried to do something that you couldn’t? And when did you accept reality?

Por muchos años, he pensado que tenía un bloqueo al escribir porque no podía escribir cuentos de ficción. Cuando empiezo a escribir un cuento de ficción, no hay conflictos suficientes para mantener mi atención, y me siento aburrida escribiendo el cuento, ya que no puedo, no puedo cumplir mi objetivo. Todavía no puedo, pero no considero que sea un bloqueo al escribir. Cada día escribo en un jornal. Puedo escribir por horas de mis pensamientos, de eventos que han occurido en mi vida o de eventos en la vida de otra gente. ¿Cómo puede ser un bloqueo al escribir si puedo escribir algo por horas?

Ahora, enseño a escribir. La ironía de como alguien puede enseñar a escribir sobre un tema, enseñar la gramática del inglés, enseñar el vocabulario, enseñar cómo escribir y revisar la composiciones y más y no puedo escribir, es ridículo. Soy una escritora. Escribo de la realidad. Estudié periodismo en la universidad hace nueve años y todavía puedo escribir para un periódico si tengo la oportunidad.

¿Fingiste ser alguien que no eres? ¿Intentaste de hacer algo que no puede? ¿Cuándo aceptaste la realidad?

21 day challenge

“Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow” Oliver Wendell Holmes

I read Language Master Key: How to Unlock Your Brain’s Ability to Learn Any Language By Ron Gullekson. In the E-book, he discussed in detail ways that you can learn a foreign language and retain the information. He posed a 21 day challenge where you memorize 200 new words or chunks of phrases, learn at least 200 new vocabulary words and expose yourself to 10 hours of the spoken language. Here’s the website where you can view a PDF of his book.

http://languagesurfer.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Language_Master_Key.pdf

I have decided to improve my proficiency in Spanish and Wolof starting today. I post a journal of how I fulfilled the challenge in the “21 day challenge” category. I will post the information that I have learned in either the “21 day challenge- Spanish” category or the “21 day challenge- Wolof” depending on the language. I am looking forward to the challenge. Hopefully it will inspire you all to do it with me. 😉

Un cambio de planes/ A change of plans

I have included a video teaching furniture vocabulary in Spanish.

Here’s a paragraph that I wrote in Spanish followed by its English translation.

Hoy no salí de la casa porque tuve que esperar para recibir un sofá. Esperé todo el día para que llegara el mueble. Ahora tengo dos. A la persona que le enseño gramática y de escribir en inglés, no quiere tener una clase esta noche porque hay mucha nieve. Por eso tengo más tiempo para descansar. ¡Qué maravilloso!

Today I did not leave the house because I had to wait to receive a sofa. I waited all day for the furniture to arrive. Now I have two sofas. The person whom I teach grammar in English and writing in English, does not want to have class because of too much snow. So I have more time to relax. How awesome!

My busy life/ Mi vida ocupada

Above is a video teaching family vocabulary in Spanish.

Here’s a paragraph that I wrote about my busy life written in English followed by the Spanish translation. My life has been very busy. On February 21st, I received the news that my grandmother hadn’t eaten in four days. The following Friday I visited her. My aunt told me at that time that my grandmother could not eat ever since the night of her birthday, on Valentine’s Day. She turned 108 years old. She sang a lot and opened presents at her party. But that night, she had a sore throat and, as a result, could not swallow food. On February 24, my grandmother passed away. My grandmother and aunt were neighbors and lived about 20 minutes away from where I live. My aunts did not inform the rest of the family about what happened. I had to find my family. Truthfully, I don’t know many of my family. It was difficult to find them on Facebook. Monday was the funeral. The service was very brief. I met relatives that I haven’t seen since I was a child. I didn’t work for three days. Today I returned to return to work. I am happy that tomorrow is Friday because I need more days of rest.

Here’s the Spanish version of the paragraph that I wrote about my busy life.

La vida mía ha estado muy ocupada. El 21 de febrero recibí las noticias que mi abuelita no había comido en 4 días. El viernes siguente la visité. Mi tía me dijo en ese momento que mi abuelita no pudo comer desde la noche de su cumpleaños, el día de San Valentin. Ella cumplió 108 años. Ella cantó mucho y abrió los regalos en su fiesta. Pero la noche, sufrió un dolor de garganta y, por eso, no pudo consumir su comida. El 24 de febrero, mi abuelita falleció. Mi abuelita y mi tía vivían como vecinas a 20 minutos de donde vivo. Mis tias no le informaron a la familia lo que sucedió. Tuvo que buscar a mi familia. De verdad, no conozco mucho a mi familia. Fue muy difícil a encontrar a mi familia en Facebook. El lunes fue su funeral. El servicio fue muy breve. Conocí a familiares que no había visto desde mi niñez. No trabajé por tres días. Hoy regresé a trabajar. Estoy feliz porque mañana es viernes, ya que necesito más días de descanso.

Keep your eyes open!

Here is an interesting article that I read about how being a Native English speaker is a great advantage when it comes to learning languages.

WhittakismLanguages

Whenever studying languages, even if it’s just one, it is incredibly useful to make use of the similarities that you spot; especially with languages from mainland or northern Europe. If you are a student whose first language is English, like me, you have a huge advantage over pretty much everybody else in Europe. This is because English is the sum of many language influences, with elements from languages of the north (due to the Viking invasions), and from the south (due to the famous Norman conquest of England). It is not as easy to find such an advantage in languages further to the east, although there are very often modern words borrowed from English into languages such as Russian, this is not the same as there isn’t a consistent pattern and link in lexicon, but instead just borrowing when necessary, here’s an example, using English and Russian:

Comput

View original post 872 more words

No One Can Stop You!

Here’s a blog that I read. I think that it is vital to learn as much as we can to be as best as we can in life whether it is learning a foreign language or overcoming obstacles.

After reviewing the paragraph I wrote for this segment, I read how to express time in Spanish. I forgot that in the Spanish language that am and pm are not used. If you’d like to learn how to express time in Spanish, then please click on this link telling time in Spanish.

Para festejar el año nuevo, fui aI una misa, comí con la congregación y escuché un sermón. Después regresé a la casa, mi esposo y yo hablamos hasta que él salió a trabajar. Miré unas de mis películas favoritas “When Harry Met Sally“ hasta que terminó a las 12.Dormí mientras miraba tres programas en la televisión y lo hice en frente de la pantalla mientras navegaba en la Web. Pero no fui a la cama hasta las 4 de la mañana.

To celebrate the new year, I went to a church service, ate with the congregation and listened to a sermon. Then I returned to the house, my husband and I talked until he went to work. I watched one of my favorite movies and in front of the screen while surfing the web. But, I didn’t sleep until 4 am.

Don’t be afraid to use children’s material

 

I guess Peter Pan and I have something in common because when it comes to learning a foreign language, I do not want to grow up. I adore using children’s material to learn Spanish.

I have helped people learn to read Spanish by using toddler books and advancing to the harder ones. Dual language books are great because if there’s a word or a phrase that they don’t understand, they can look at the English version for clarity.  Children’s books use simpler language. Because there are so many books available in Spanish at the local library, I don’t have to buy reading material.

I used to tutor in Spanish when I was in college. I had a high school student who was offended that I chose for him to read Los Osos Berenstain (The Berenstain Bears) because that’s for children. I tried to explain to him that when you learn a second language that you will not be on the same reading level as your native language and I wanted him to read a book that wasn’t too difficult for him to understand. After I and his mother talked to him, he accepted the idea of reading children’s books.

There are some cartoons that I enjoy watching only in Spanish because I can understand what the characters are saying (this is not the case for many because their voices are too high). I enjoy watching Maya y Miguel, Dora la Exploradora, Diego and a couple of other cartoons on Univision on Saturday mornings whenever I can. Don’t forget Sesame Street ! You can learn SO much by watching that program because it is available in almost any language. If you took notes while watching it, then you can use Sesame Street as a textbook of sorts that is free.

There is no need to pay to learn a foreign language unless you want extra help. Below is an article that I found highlighting the pros to having a foreign language tutor and there are also other interesting articles about learning a foreign language that I hope you will enjoy.

Related articles

• Top Tips: learning a new foreign language (tutorhub.com)
• Fun with Online Spanish Learning- Free for Students and Adults (bidosmartblog.wordpress.com)
• Learn Spanish by MindSnacks (spanishtechblog.wordpress.com)
• Two Miami sisters create Spanish-language kids books (miamiherald.com)
• “Adults can be stronger than children at learning a new language.” (europeanvox.wordpress.com)