Archive for 'Uncategorized'
The Sweet Sounds of Caribbean Spanish Posted by Jakob Gibbons on May 30, 2016
Last week we shared a post on some of the quirks of Colombian Spanish, but even within this one country there’s as much variety of language as of geography and people, with sometimes mind-blowingly different pronunciation and word choice to be found just over the next mountain range. One of the many varieties of Spanish you’ll hear in Colombia is…
Art in Spanish: Joaquín Torres García, Uruguayan painter Posted by Paula on Apr 15, 2016
La semana pasada repasamos vocabulario sobre arte en español y hablamos de la artista mexicana Frida Kahlo. Esta semana presentaremos a Joaquín Torres García (1874-1949), pintor uruguayo-español nacido en Montevideo. Vivió cerca de Barcelona durante su vida adulta y fue contemporáneo de Pablo Picasso. Last week we reviewed vocabulary on Spanish art and we talked about Mexican artist Frida…
Art in Spanish: Frida Kahlo, Mexican painter Posted by Paula on Apr 11, 2016
La semana pasada repasamos vocabulario sobre arte en español. Hoy queremos hablar de la artista mexicana Frida Kahlo (1907-1954). Kahlo es famosa por sus autorretratos imaginativos e incatalogables, así como por su activismo feminista y su defensa del comunismo y la revolución mexicana de 1910. Estuvo casada con el muralista mexicano Diego Rivera. Last week we reviewed…
5 Sounds that Are Making Your Spanish Pronunciation Sound Super Gringo Posted by Jakob Gibbons on Dec 28, 2015
Speaking Spanish is kind of hard. Not just because every word has about 34 different meanings, but also because of its many nuanced sounds. For speakers of other languages, the sounds of Spanish — especially the consonants — can be counterintuitive. V‘s that sound more like B‘s and diphthongs that sound like not much of anything are just…
Making Spanish Vowels Even Easier with the IPA Posted by Jakob Gibbons on Oct 26, 2015
Are you one of the many language learners who think Spanish only has five simple vowels? It’s true, Spanish has an easy system of pure vowels or monophthongs — a, e, i, o, u — but what about words like rey, aire, or bueno? Spanish vowels are mostly easy, but the diphthongs, vowels made up…
The IPA for Spanish Language Learning: Consonants Posted by Jakob Gibbons on Oct 14, 2015
Did you learn Spanish out of a textbook in high school but still struggle to hold a conversation that doesn’t involve ordering food? Or maybe you’ve been speaking Spanish for years but are fed up with that awful acent that gets you made fun of everywhere you travel? I’ve had plenty of students with both of these…
The Spanish Language in the 2016 US Presidential Race Posted by Jakob Gibbons on Sep 30, 2015
The United States is not an English-speaking country, and its linguistic diversity is already affecting the coming 2016 presidential elections. The argument is often made that the US federal constitution doesn’t recognize an official state language, which, while true, has few practical implications. What does matter is that 74 million Americans speak a language other than…