I haven’t been able to write a post for quite a while. But there is plenty to write about, especially in relation to many of the news found in elcastellano.org website. One of the news items is about some Spanish language academies criticizing what they see as “a vulgarization of the Spanish language” by radio [...]
Filed under: Culture, Education, Language, Language learning, Learning Process, Second Language Learning, Spanish | No Comments »
Late last year I wrote a post here about the proposal of reintroducing the teaching of Spanish in the school system of the Philippines.
My post has generated many responses. It has been in fact the most popular of my post since I started this blog. Since the time I wrote it I’ve found out [...]
Filed under: Culture, Education, Foreign Language Learning, Language, Language learning, Second Language Learning, Spanish, Spanish Language Learning | 1 Comment »
To achieve success in the learning process of a second language, students need to acquire a high level of understanding of the phonological features of the language they’re studying. This can be done in the medium to long term by direct and continuos exposure to the sounds patterns of that language; conversely they can endeavour [...]
Filed under: Foreign Language Learning, Language, Language learning, Phonetics & Phonology, Second Language Learning, Spanish, Spanish Language Learning | No Comments »
Many modern American Spanish language varieties use the personal pronoun vos instead of tú when referring to the grammatical second person. The pronoun Vos is the predominant, if not the only form used by an enormous amount of Spanish speakers in many countries. This usage is especially evident in ordinary day [...]
Filed under: Education, Foreign Language Learning, Language, Language learning, Second Language Learning, Spanish, Spanish Language Learning | No Comments »
The aspiration or loss of the /s/ sound in a final position of a word is a natural phonological feature found in many varieties of Iberian and American Spanish.
This language phenomenon is marked by an aspiration or dropping of the /s/ when speakers articulate structures like los niños, las [...]
Filed under: Education, Foreign Language Learning, Language, Language learning, Second Language Learning, Spanish, Spanish Language Learning | 2 Comments »
I’ve always been aware of the existence of Ladino or also known as Judeo Spanish, but it was only today that I managed to have a first contact not only with its written but also its spoken forms in a simultaneous way. And it couldn’t have been in a more magnificent fashion than through [...]
Filed under: Culture, Education, Foreign Language Learning, Language, Language learning, Second Language Learning, Spanish, Spanish Language Learning | 1 Comment »
The BBC website has an excellent page named Los blogs de BBC Mundo. Obviously all the blogs are written in Spanish, although some commentaries are sometimes written in English.
There are several blogs dealing with the topic of languages. The more interesting blog for me is Hablas español, because of [...]
Filed under: Culture, Education, Language, Language learning, Second Language Learning, Spanish | No Comments »
In my long experience of teaching Spanish, I have witnessed the amazed reaction of students learning this language whenever the issue of synonyms and the abundant number of idiomatic expressions with which Spanish is endowed arises. I’d like deal in this post with the richness of the lexical or vocabulary aspect of Spanish.
The Castilian language [...]
Filed under: Culture, Education, Foreign Language Learning, Language, Language learning, Second Language Learning, Spanish, Spanish Language Learning | No Comments »
A few days ago I read an article in The [...]
Filed under: Culture, Education, Foreign Language Learning, Language, Language learning, Second Language Learning, Spanish | No Comments »
In my professional teaching experience it’s very common to find out that many students are often unaware about lots of the aspects relating to the nature of the Spanish language vocabulary when they start their learning process.
For example, they often find it surprising that a Spanish word like chocolate or tomate comes from Pre-Columbian languages. [...]
Filed under: Education, Language, Language learning, Second Language Learning, Spanish, Spanish Language Learning, etymology | No Comments »
