Tag: language

What a year!

I stepped away from my two sites this year to make room for a special passion project and to spend time with family members. While it was a stressful health year for our family, it was also a fulfilling year of connecting with people and creating. This coming year will hopefully one for the books, combining my love of teaching in my spare time, reading and reviewing books, and helping independent authors with putting their best stories out into the public domain.

My passion project for a very long time has been to set up ESOL classes that are available free of charge to the students. Early this year, I contacted a local library, and we’ve worked together to provide these in-person classes. At first we started with a 10-week session of classes one day a week. The next session was 11 weeks, with one advanced beginning class a week and one class for total beginners another day. Both sessions had their merits and issues, but we were able to help some community members improve their language skills. And ultimately, that is what it is about: helping people to communicate.

The classes are general. Students tell me what their overall language concerns are and what they hope to take away from attending. There are no grades, people attend when they are able due to work and family obligations, and we can easily review topics that are problematic for the English learner. I’ve enjoyed working with the community.

The ESOL classes will continue in the new year, though to give myself a break and some time to reflect on what worked and what didn’t, classes don’t start until February. During the break, I’ll be working on my websites as well. I’ll be updating and organizing this site so it is easier to navigate and updating my editing website to include a little information about what I can offer. Helping others communicate is my passion, so thank you for following along with my journey.

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Book review: The Complete Learn Spanish for Adult Beginners by Worldwide Nomad

3 out of 5 stars

** Disclaimer for my review: I have taught English, Spanish, and ESOL at the high school and college (2- and 4-year college) levels. I have helped departments choose textbooks for all three specialties, so please take that into consideration when reading my review. I am probably a little pickier than the casual learner.

The Complete Learn Spanish for Adult Beginners Book (3 in 1) is a decent collection of grammar and vocabulary instruction and explanation, important phrases to know in various situations, and short readings to help aide the understanding in context of grammar and vocabulary learned in the previous two books. I would recommend using these books in the numbered order to ensure the best learning experience.

Book 1: Spanish Grammar Workbook for Beginners provides solid explanations of how Spanish is different across different populations and why it may not always agree with you might have learned previously. It doesn’t mean what you have learned was incorrect, it’s just that this is the vocabulary this book is using to prepare you for the later two books. There are good grids of comparative Spanish and English vocabulary. The chapters in this book are set up in a similar format of what follows: introduction, vocabulary/grammar grids/presentations (these are repeated a few times in each chapter, introducing a new set of vocabulary/grammar rules), and practice questions at the end of each chapter. The answer key for those questions is located at the end of Book 1.

Book 2: Spanish Phrase Book for Beginners is a good reference book for various situations in which you might find yourself. It ranges from explanation of money in different countries to transportation and medical phrases (and many other situational phrases) that might be important to help you throughout your travels. There are no practice questions in this book.

Book 3: Spanish Short Stories for Language Learners is a good collection of short readings ranging from one or two paragraphs at the beginning to almost full-page stories toward the end of the book. Each story has a similar format to what follows: Spanish story, same story in English, vocabulary list, questions for comprehension in Spanish and English, and historical notes. This format is effective in not only using the vocabulary and grammar in context that was learned throughout the first two books, but also in providing educational details about the readings themselves. To give an idea of reading level: if I were using these reading in teaching a traditional quarter or semester class, I would probably start in the last third of the first semester of learning and continue in the first part of the second class.

Overall, a decent set of books for learning. However, there are erroneous translations throughout the three books, as well as typos and formatting errors. The most egregious of these are some of translation errors. Translation is an art form and not everyone will agree on a single translation; however, I feel these books could have used another round of editing and proofreading to tighten up the knowledge provided. These books would have earned 4 out of 5 stars without those errors.

I received an ARC for this book. This review is honest and voluntary.

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When language fails…

Truth is, words don’t fail me often, so it’s not something I’m comfortable with when it happens. I’m a blabbermouth and love to expound on subjects that intrigue me. Whether it’s the always frightening writer’s block or pure exhaustion draining our vocabulary reservoirs or knowing the word you want but not being able to procure it from the tip of your tongue (aphasia), when we can’t express ourselves, it can be a major frustration. (Disclaimer: I understand that for some people, it’s much more than a simple frustration. They’ve had an injury or have a condition that causes aphasia and it’s not likely to go away. But for the purpose of this blog post, I’m talking about the run-of-the-mill tip-of-the-tongue problems.) It’s doubly frustrating when you’re bilingual and you can’t think of the word or words in either language that you want to use to enhance your story.

Beyond the irritation of not being able to retrieve a word from our neural databases, aphasia can be debilitating if it happens frequently. (Aphasia is an inclusive term that can be broken down into more determinate terminology for when the failure to retrieve happens or what part language is failing us.) How do we stimulate our synapses to produce what we we are looking for? For me, word retrieval usually happens at 4:00 a.m. a few days later as I wake up from a dead sleep, shouting the pesky word or name I couldn’t think of at the appropriate time.

We add to our life story daily—sometimes 140 characters at a time, sometimes in a long rush of emotion. But what happens when language fails us (especially when it’s part of our job description)? How do we get back in the language groove? And why does it usually happen in high-stress situations? Or is that just when it bothers us the most?

Writer’s block can be a little more overwhelming, especially when we’re assigned to write an article or are passionate about our subject and we can’t produce the elusive wording. Some sites offer a cure for this predicament, such as psychcentral.com in its article 5 Creative Ways for Writer’s Block or Pam Federbar’s blog post for Huffington Post, Cure for Writer’s Block. Just as with medicine, not every cure works for every would-be writer/language producer. My go-to cure? Some good loud music (think AC/DC, Korn) and I think about the subject until I just can’t think anymore. Take notes. Then write. Then delete and write some more. Then edit. Then write some more. It doesn’t always turn into the polished piece that I need or want, but it does help to storm the brain castle and jostle the thoughts a bit.

How do you get over your writer’s block? Do you have problems with some form of aphasia?

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When basic isn’t basic enough

During my 11 years of teaching Spanish, more than once students complained, “Señorita, I took this class for an easy A. I’m getting a B. What’s wrong with this picture?”

That question angered me at first. Learning a language is difficult. It’s something that take serious study and countless hours of listening, speaking, and writing. Why would anyone think it’s easy? Then it dawned on me that there are programs that promise that you can learn a language in a month! two weeks! Take this course, and you’ll be speaking Italian! It’s true. You’ll have a starting point. But it’s an entirely different thing to retain the knowledge over a period of time and constantly practice.

My brightest and best memories are of teaching the classes that few of my colleagues had patience for: beginning levels. For me as a teacher, those were the most rewarding classes. The students came into Spanish 101 knowing how to say “Hola. Cerveza. Yo quiero Taco Bell. ¿Dónde está el baño?” And they left with the ability to form complete thoughts in present tense, some past tenses, and knowing how make some future constructions. But those who asked me that question very often were the ones who cared about their grades and actually learning. They put the required time in and reaped the benefits. I did notice that some needed to realize that learning a language is a different aptitude than just memorizing parts of speech and vocabulary.

So we broke learning language down and created a formula that worked for them. Once they unlocked that formula and went beyond the basics of memorization and wrote learning, they could go on to retain much more than someone who was just in it for the semester. There was never one formula that worked for all students. It depended on their situation, what type of learner they were, what resources they had at hand. If it came easier to them after unlocking that formula, then that’s another matter.

So no matter what you are learning, whether it be a language, math, science, html coding, if the basics aren’t working for you, go beyond the basics and find your personal formula. Here are some of the questions I would ask my students to help them realize their potential (which is really what teaching is all about):

1. What do you hope to gain from learning Spanish?

2. How can you practice to achieve that goal?

3. Realistically, how much time do you have on a daily basis?

4. What resources do you already have at hand? (Because we’re talking about students, free or already owned resources were a must.)

5. Who do you know that can help you achieve your goal?

6. What are the basics of this lesson and how can you break it down into more digestible chunks?

7. Where and when do you learn/remember the most?

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Glossaries, resources, search engines, oh my! When is enough, enough?

There are so many resources out there for translators and others who work with languages on a daily basis. Where do you start? And more importantly, where do you finish? When do you say, “Okay, that’s good for now. I don’t need any more sites to pull up, books to pull out, glossaries to create”? I’ve worked with languages for quite a while now, and I haven’t reached that point yet. But I imagine there might be a point in time where I think I have more than enough to work with. Would that restrict me though? Since the languages we work with are constantly changing, are we allowed to put our feet down and not budge another inch?

One of the greatest qualities translators/interpreters/language teachers have in common is curiosity. We’re constantly learning since our material is not the same day in, day out. We have to learn new words, new ideas as our clients, our source texts, our classes change on sometimes a daily basis. Sure, we have specialty areas, but can even the experts claim to know all there is to know and not learn another word? We are not static people by definition, so it’s my opinion that we can’t be afraid of a little change. We must be restless.

Here are just a few of my favorite sites to consult and train with routinely. What are some of yours?

Lingua Greca: Adventures in Technical Translation

They offer a weekly collection of favorite sites, lists, and articles: http://linguagreca.com/blog/

ATA: The Savvy Newcomer

Even for those who aren’t new to translation, this is a good place to gather ideas, resources, strategies: http://atasavvynewcomer.org/

Linguee:

This is a search engine for bilingual texts for single words or more complex phrases: http://www.linguee.com/

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Translation in transistion

My first word in translation was when I was five years old and someone taught me how to say “one” in Chinese. I was living in Kuala Lumpur at the time. I learned many more words in the following two years we lived there, but I always associated the words I was learning with the equivalent word in my mother tongue, English. There were always word pairs for me to associate meanings.

Fast forward to the summer before fifth grade. By then we were living in Ohio, and my mother was going stir crazy trying to keep her inquisitive daughter’s curiosity in check. She said it was about time for me to be curious in two languages and signed me up for beginning Spanish classes. Most of the classes were about word pairs again and learning easy phrases, but it also introduced the idea of culture with learning language. It was a difficult concept for us to grasp at that age, because words are words, right? We say “dog;” they say “perro.” Translation and learning a language are that easy, right?

I’m fascinated that most people who are not part of the bilingual/multilingual world (and some who are) think that is all that translation encompasses. Sure, a large part of translation is knowing how to use a dictionary, thesaurus, or other reference materials wisely. But it’s also understanding the target culture of the audience. I have known some of my colleagues to fret a day or two about a phrase that is causing them major problems. It’s not just that some things just don’t translate well, it’s that some ideas don’t translate at all. How do you transform an idea into another language without losing the intent of the author in the source language? Many blogs are written about this very question. And I’ve yet to find an easy answer. Translation is art form. While great strides are being made with Machine Translation (MT), we’ve yet to see a computer generate the articulation of a human translator who has spent more than a second’s time in deciding which word or phrase should be used in a source language.

Translation is definitely in a transitional stage at the present time, but that is good. We need to be continually challenged and pushed to be our best and use the best resources out there. No longer are dictionaries the only resource. We have translation memories and computer-assisted translations, to name a couple. But the human element will still be needed because our audience, no matter what language they speak, will always be human. At least, for the time being.

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Language as a portal

Since I learned to read, write, listen, speak, and watch, language has taken me places. From a physical point: I’ve lived in Malaysia, Spain, Venezuela, and various states in the U.S. I learned a few words of Chinese at five years old. In summer school before fifth grade, my mother had me take Spanish. In seventh grade and later on in college, I took various courses of French. I took a month of Spanish Basque when I lived in San Sebastian, Spain. While pursuing advanced degrees in Spanish, I took Portuguese and German. The only languages I claim fluency in and have taught are English and Spanish. The other languages keep a firm hold on my attention, and that list grows every year.

From an imagination point: I’ve read thousands of books and articles–some of which transported me to places I can’t physically visit in this lifetime. I must admit that I’ve read much more than I’ve written. I took time off from sharing my writing (almost 19 years) to learn, listen, watch, read, and practice what I wanted to say. For most of those years, I’ve used green, red, and orange inks to edit the works of colleagues, students, friends, and significant others. Along the way, I’ve had wonderful mentors, teachers, and friends who have taught me the importance of a single word or the weight of a phrase. And for now, I’ve been bitten by the bug to start writing and sharing again. I’m not sure for how long I’ll feel the effects of the writing bug–maybe a month, maybe 10 years.

Language is fascinating, no matter how you choose to use it. We use it every day when answering questions from parents and teachers; asking questions of friends; reporting on the latest trends to bosses; texting notes to loved ones; listening to our favorite programs on podcasts, television, or radio. How we choose to use language is up to us. Some use it to delight and inspire others to be their best, others use language to frighten and chill while entertaining us. Others use language to motivate populations to purchase a product or consider a differing viewpoint.

And the best part of language? It’s constantly changing. A single word that meant so much in the rocking ’80s can hold a totally different meaning today. Language itself is not a trend, but many studies are written about the trends of our communities and technologies and how to reach a target audience, all while using the one thing that’s being studied. What’s the new buzzword or tagline? Who will respond to it? Who will ignore it?

No matter how we communicate, language transports us. I know it’s naive, but hopefully it’s somewhere new and fascinating for the reader, listener, speaker, or even the writer. How will you use language today?

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