Thursday, February 28, 2013

Learning to listen to Spanish




This post is primarily for adults learning Spanish, for example in my college-level courses.  The most popular inquiry is regarding how to hear, and more importantly understand, the Spanish language.  So please read the following strategies and ideas about how improve your listening skills.    

1.  First thing is first, get over the notion that you need to understand every word.  It's just not realistic.  It won't happen.  But instead, listen to get the gist and then use educated guessing to fill in the blanks.  If you have comprehension questions to answer, know those when you're watching, and listen just to find out the answer and forget the rest.
2.  In that process, you will need to repeat audio/video playing several times...  maybe even 50 times or more!  Use the pause button judiciously, then rewind immediately, until you do your very best to get it.  It is good ear-training.
3.  Are you using earphones?  If not, I highly recommend them.  Having the sound closer to your ear is helpful.
4.  Write down what you DO understand.  Leave blanks where you DON'T understand.  Then, see if you can figure it out.  Seeing it written down can be helpful.  
5.  If you hear a word that you don't understand, see if you can spell it out.  Type it into Google Translate, and see if it gives you anything that might be appropriate to context.  
6.  Be patient with yourself.  It is easy to get frustrated, but frustration does you no good.  Take a break from it, walk away.  Come back later when your brain is fresh.  This may do the trick!

Here are some idea for more organic forms of practice:

1.  Watch a movie, but set the language to Spanish.  If it is a movie you know well in English, you will find you can learn the Spanish you are hearing due to your pre-established knowledge.
2.  Listen to music in Spanish.  Find Spanish songs and then Google the lyrics so you can read along as you play the song.  Then take this song with you on your MP3 player, in your car, wherever you can listen to it.  Like #2 above, repetition will help you learn the language.  It's how we learned as babies... by listening over and over before we attempted to say a word for ourselves.
3.  Check out the podcast News in Slow Spanish.




Saturday, February 23, 2013

Talking point #1: Latinos are not falling into the U.S. melting pot


In preparation for a presentation I will be doing about the importance of learning Spanish in this country, I read Bilingual is Better by Ana L. Flores and Roxana A. Soto.  This book has a lot of great points, but one that stands out to me is the notion of Hispanic cultural sustainability.  They quote an April 2012 Nielsen report, saying "Hispanics are the largest immigrant group to exhibit significant culture sustainability and are not disappearing into the American melting pot" (Flores and Soto, 50)  That was a real Oprah "ah-ha" moment for me.  I had to think about this.  So the Hispanics in the U.S. don't fold in and acculturate into American society?  They are not just naturally going to blend into our Proverbial melting pot?  That is what other immigrant populations have done over time.  It's called acculturation, which Merriam-Webster defines as "cultural modification of an individual, group, or people by adapting to or borrowing traits from another culture; also : a merging of cultures as a result of prolonged contact"

Isn't this the way it goes in the U.S.:  Introduction of a new cultural community --> Fear, confusion and insecurity --> Reluctance to tolerate -->  Gradual tolerance --> Eventual acceptance AND/OR acculturation  --> Two cultures eventually becoming one --> Birth of new cultural community.  

What they are saying is that Hispanics are maintaining their cultural identity, their traditions and customs, their language.  They are not losing their culture.  Yes, when two cultures unite, some acculturation is going to happen.  But for the most part, Hispanic traditions (i.e. Spanish language!) are not being lost along the way.  Think about the number of Spanish words that are now recognized in the English language.  Flores and Soto offer the following as examples:  "taco, macho, burrito, fiesta, amigo, cilantro, poncho, barrio, piƱata, siesta, coyote, hombre, co-jones, tortilla, rodeo, salsa, cabana, guerrilla, loco, sombrero, patio" (Flores and Soto, 51).  Some of those words are so commonplace English, that you may not have even realized it is a Spanish word!

I think of my hometown Grand Island, Nebraska (population roughly 50,000).  It was established by Germans.  But to find someone who speaks German there today is a real rarity.  There are no German print magazines or newspapers, nor is there even one German food restaurant.  All that I can think of are the two local halls:  The Liederkranz (this supposedly was the "high German club") and the Platt Duetsche (apparently the "low German club").  Those buildings are the most prominent traces of a once-thriving German culture.  The German culture of my hometown is considered a part of the history, not it's present, and certainly not it's future.

Spanish is different.  We see it everywhere.  If Latino culture is here to stay, then so is the Spanish language.  It's not going away!



Flores, A., & Soto, R. (2012). Bilingual is better. (1st ed.). Bilingual Readers.

Merriam-webster online dictionary. (n.d.). Retrieved from http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/acculturation

(2012). State of the hispanic consumer: the hispanic market imperative. (Quarter 2), Retrieved from http://nielsen.com//content/dam/corporate/us/en/reports-downloads/2012-Reports/State-of-the-Hispanic-Consumer.pdf