Learn Spanish by Stories: 2015

Saturday, September 5, 2015

No se aceptan devoluciones / Instructions not included

I just heard that this movie is now available on YouTube. Enjoy! This is the one we'll be watching in class at OLLI in October.

youtube.com/watch?v=EcmYtRXCL3U

Al cine en español

There's a new class coming up at OLLI at Southern Oregon University this October. It's called Al cine en español. We'll be using a movie, and maybe a video or two, to help decipher spoken Spanish. We'll watch a bit, stop, think, go back, repeat...with vocab and grammar help as appropriate.

Other opportunities are available on the FluentU.com site. Great videos from many lands, at all levels from "newbie" to "native/bilingual". There are subtitles as well as word-by-word explication. Check it out.

Using video/film to learn language gives you lots of advantages - time, repeats, colloquial language. and no embarrassment about not getting it all the first time!

Take it slowly. Give yourself time to think, try listening without subtitles a few times first.
Don't tackle an entire film. Choose one or two scenes at a time.
Choose one variety of Spanish, for example, Mexican, peninsular Spanish, Argentinian, etc.
Choose videos you enjoy!
Listen most carefully to monologues or simple, two-person dialog sections. Busy street scenes or group conversations are more difficult to manage.
Try putting yourself in the place of one of the characters and see if you can say his lines yourself.

And, if you can get a few laughs, even better!
¡Que te diviertas!

Friday, May 8, 2015

Feliz Cumpleaños, Enrique

Hoy es el cumpleaños de Enrique Iglesias. ¡Cumple 40 años! Algunas de sus canciones que más me gustan incluyen "Alguien soy yo," " Nunca te olvidaré, y claro, "Bailando. " Si no conoces a Enrique, búscalo en YouTube o en la sección de Música en este blog. Enrique es el hijo de Julio Iglesias, otro cantante español excelente.

Tuesday, February 24, 2015

Como vivir bien

(Borrowed from an anonymous Facebook post)

Speak Spanish
Kiss French
Dress Italian
Spend Arab
Party Caribbean
Eat Peruvian

Sunday, February 22, 2015

Academy Award nominee

Relatos salvajes, película argentina. Watch the trailer.
Another chance to practice listening to Argentine Spanish--maybe it will win the Oscar! Maybe it will even come to Ashland!

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

New class starting now!

Several students from Adelante Dos have asked for more classes. We start tomorrow, 11 Feb, at 11:00-12:30. There will be four classes in the series, on Wednesdays, last one on 4 March. Contact me through this site, phone or by email if you want to join us and didn't sign up at the last class.
¡Hasta luego!

Thursday, January 29, 2015

Spanish word of the day

PALABRADELDIA.COM
SPANISHWORDOFTHEDAY.COM

This site often has useful vocabulary. But it also has very advanced expressions as well, so you can pick and choose. Here are a few words from today's list.

BASIC VOCABULARY -

el inodoro - toilet
el lavabo - sink
el papel higiénico - toilet paper
el grifo - faucet

http://spanishstudies.com/spanishvocabularyfamily.htm with soundclips
http://spanishstudies.com/learn_spanish_vocabulary2.htm - travel
---------------------------------------
IDIOM (S)

cualquier cosa - anything at all
cualquiera de los dos - either of the two
cuatro letras - a few lines
cuatro palabras - a few words

Sunday, January 25, 2015

Una buena película: Valentín

Valentín is about a small boy living in Buenos Aires with his grandmother in the late 1960´s, seeing his father occasionally and wondering why his mother never comes to see him. It's a lovely, touching story. The actors speak very intelligible Argentinian Spanish, so it's good practice to listen. And, you can read the subtitles, too. I found it on Netflix Instant streaming but you may find it on Amazon as well. La recomiendo.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0296915/plotsummary?ref_=tt_ql_6

Monday, January 12, 2015

Adelante Dos, Winter OLLI class, started today.

OLLI winter class started today. If you are looking for the class notes, click the "Current OLLI Class" tab. If you are looking for Bailando, by Enrique Iglesias, check the Música tab.
If you didn't make it to class today and you were on the list, be sure to contact the office if you want to continue with the class, or if not, please let them know so someone on the waiting list can join us.
And remember, this class meets twice a week, Mondays and Wednesdays.
¡Hasta el miércoles!

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Cognates: words that are similar in two languages, in both spelling or sound and meaning.

Words that end in "or" are often identical in both English and Spanish. So, you already know these words! Spanish words that end in "r" are stressed on the last syllable (doc-TOR).
actor
doctor
color
director
doctor (also médico)
error
exterior
honor
horror
humor
motor
opresor
superior
tumor
vigor

PERSONALITY COGNATES:

The words below are all related to personality characteristics, so you can use them to describe someone. You might notice that most can end in -o (masculine) or -a (feminine). But others don't change their endings, they can refer to either a masculine or feminine person. For example, artista or dentista = an artist or dentist (m. or f.) idealista, optimista. Words ending in -l or -e don't usually need to change endings for m. or f., although they do add -s or -es for plurals. (Ellos son sociables y joviales. Sus amigos son elegantes.)

temperamental

- generoso, -a

- elegante

- creativo, -a

- organizado, -a

- independiente

- entusiasta

- idealista

- activo, -a

- energético, -a

- versátil

- sociable

- sentimental

- romántico, -a

- persistente

- agresivo, -a

- serio, -a

- práctico, -a

- selectivo, -a

- artístico, -a

- tímido, -a

- jovial

- reservado, -a

- intuitivo, -a

- optimista

- impulsivo, -a

Al cine / At the movies

El ciudadano ilustre, de Argentina. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4562518/

Me gustó mucho. La recomiendo. Besides being a fun and interesting film to watch, with plenty of twists and turns, it's really good for listening to Argentine Spanish dialect.

Warehoused (Almacenados) 2015 en Netflix

This occasionally absurd dramedy works on all levels. TWITTER

I really enjoyed this film about a young man reporting for work at his new job and his retiring boss, who has only a week to teach the new man all the details of the job. It's in understandable Spanish, with very little dialog, and wonderful repetition of several stock phrases.

Medianeras (Sidewalls) (Argentina) 2011

"Separated by the wall their apartments share, Mariana and Martin are the perfect couple. They have the same quirks, same tastes, same ideals and even the same neuroses--they're a match made in heaven. There's just one problem -- they've never met. " - Netflix.

Chico y Rita (Cuba)
An animated film about love, time and distance. Quite delightful, and I barely noticed it was animated. On Netflix.

La misma luna (Under the same moon)
This drama centers on a young boy's journey across the U.S./Mexico border to be reunited with his mother. Adrian Alonso stars as Carlitos, a Mexican boy living with his grandmother while his mother works as a maid in the U.S., hoping someday to send for her child. But when the grandmother dies unexpectedly, Carlitos must sneak across the border and seek out his mother.
This is a film for the whole family and it puts a very human face on the immigrant story.
Try watching it in Spanish with or without English subtitles. Then, find a scene you understand and play it several times to practice listening.

The Way, 2011
This film, directed by Emilio Estévez and starring his father Martin Sheen, is not in Spanish. But it is filmed in Spain, and France, and shows a man walking The Way, el Camino de Santiago. This is a pilgrimage to the supposed burial site of St. James the Apostle, Santiago de Compostela, a town in northwest Spain in the area of Galicia. One pilgrim from Ashland told me she had stayed in some of the same "albergues" (shelters) as Sheen and that the movie was very authentic in presenting the experience. I liked it very much and recommend it as a treatment of father-son relationships and personal growth as well as for the wonderful scenery. ¡Buen camino!

Even the Rain / También la lluvia

In my opinion, this is an outstanding film in every way. For students of Spanish, the contrast between the Castilian Spanish of the film crew and the Bolivian Spanish is wonderful to hear. You might also catch some local Quechua dialect. Available on Netflix.

What's it about? Read the info I lifted from the official website, www.eventherainmovie.com:

"A Spanish film crew led by idealistic director Sebastian (Gael García Bernal) and his cynical producer Costa (Luis Tosar) come to Bolivia to make a revisionist epic about the conquest of Latin America - on the cheap. Carlos Aduviri is dynamic as “Daniel,” a local cast as a 16th century native in the film within a film. When the make-up and loin cloth come off, Daniel sails into action protesting his community’s deprivation of water at the hands of multi-national corporations.

This fictional Fitzcarraldo-like quest to make a film against all odds is set against the back drop of the real life “Water Wars,” fought against the privatization of Bolivia’s water supply in the year 2000 and is anchored in the philosophies of historian Howard Zinn, as well as the stories of 16th century priests, Fathers Bartolome de las Casas and Antonio Montesinos, the first radical voices of conscience against an Empire."

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