Third Language Blog

Turn your novel into a multi media experience

Bill Ferguson — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 14:20:48 +0000

I just finished reading a book called Dark Tangos, by Lewis Shiner. I enjoyed the story, without spoiling it is set in Buenos Aires and is contemporary. The thing I did that was different was to follow up on some of the references to music, places and themes that I met while reading the novel. For example when he mentioned a tango by Caló called "que falta que me haces" I went to YouTube and found a recording of the music. When he mentioned Lezama Park I went to google maps and found a slide show. I was able to follow his journeys through Buenos Aires with google maps (disappointingly without streetview – yet!). And thanks to google maps I now realise how close Buenos Aires is to Uraguay.So this has become my "must share" idea. Grab a novel set in a country of your choice. Follow up on any references to places and journeys with google maps and get some music from YouTube. Simple I know but this is the first time I have done it …

Almost forgot to mention that Dark Tangos is available as a free pdf. Download it here

Open University: learning a foreign language – is the OU better than evening classes

Bill Ferguson — Sun, 12 Jun 2011 17:49:59 +0000

Question from a reader

"I hope you don’t mind my contacting you. I have read your interesting blog. I came across the sentence "the OU is trundling off in its own direction and making it hard for students like me to stay with them.".

Can I ask you how/why you feel this way? Is it expense, or quality of teaching, or what? I am seriously thinking of embarking on one or two language modules with the OU, and am interested in your views on whether they are as good or better than the conventional evening classes or even just ‘teach yourself’ books. I should add that I do have (ancient) O level passes in the languages I’m interested in, so I will not be a complete beginner…well, maybe not! Thanks for any help you can give."

Forgetting a language

Bill Ferguson — Wed, 25 May 2011 17:31:11 +0000

I enjoyed reading this blog post from Benny who is an expert on language acquisition and an inspiration to anyone who follows the polyglot trail.

I found myself nodding in agreement at several points. The languages that stick are the ones where you have emotional investment, that is why I have "forgotten" Norwegian, Italian and Welsh but so far, clung onto French and Spanish: they are the (only) languages that some of my friends speak. It’s obvious really, but for me seeing it written down made me realise it for the first time. So the message is clear, having got to conversational level I need to speak, read and think in English, French and Spanish every day, and all will be well.

Excuse me did I hear you speaking Spanish

admin — Thu, 17 Feb 2011 18:31:58 +0000

One of the first things my new Spanish teacher said to the class was that we should always try to start a conversation whenever we heard someone speaking Spanish in a shop or on a train or wherever. I thought at the time that sounded like a good idea, in principle! This topic has just been aired on the "about Spanish" group and the consensus is … well see for yourself.

Most people seem to agree that its a good idea to initiate a converation but like most things in life, a smile and a bit of humility will go a long way when talking to strangers.

Why our education system fails for language acquisition

Bill Ferguson — Thu, 27 Jan 2011 22:28:44 +0000

Watch this recording of Ken Robinson on his favourite topic: "Do schools kill creativity?"

I think he makes some good arguments and asks some searching questions including "what is education for?" His suggestion that our education system is designed to produce university professors makes a lot of sense. He suggests that formal learning does not teach creativity, in fact it tends to stifle it.

Applying this idea to language learning helps me to understand why I felt something was missing from my recent Open University courses. The grammar and other "facts" about Spanish was there in bucket loads but the opportunity to get creative and have fun with using the language was almost entirely absent.

I remember at school learning French, the old fashioned way. To me French consisted of lists of verb conjugations that had to be memorised and then regurgitated for exams. I don’t recall ever playing or having fun with the language. At the age of 16 when I first went to France I was tongue-tied, unable to have even a basic conversation. It was only 10 years later, as an adult that I went back to studying French and starting learning how to communicate.

In academic study mistakes are discouraged and punished by poor marks, this discourages the student from taking risks and makes the study a chore instead of a delight. Making mistakes and laughing about them should be part of the fun of learning. My reason for learning a language is to have fun using it, not to write learned essays with every comment carefully referenced and scanned with anti-plagiarism software.

The menú del día (menu of the day)

Bill Ferguson — Wed, 05 Jan 2011 22:15:28 +0000

One of the benefits of learning a new language day is that you can explore new cuisines. Spanish is particularly good for this and I often order things that I have never tried before either on the waiter’s recommendation or just bravado. A good way to get into this habit is to select the "menú del día". There is an unwritten rule that the lunchtime menú del día, for normal work days should be tasty, nutritious, filling and cost less than 10 euros. Usually it will be 3 courses and include some wine or beer and water. Fantastic value.

Today in Arrecife in Lanzarote I had "marmite", a soup with big lumps of potato and fish in a consommé base. Next was braised lamb, again with potatoes. I could have had dessert but I chose cortado (a small coffee) instead. The cost was 9 euros and that included a glass of house wine and bread. Typically Sunday menú del día is slightly more expensive – this week it was 14 euros and the quality was superb.

The biggest surprise is that a tip is not expected, most people leave 20 – 50 cents but if you leave nothing it’s no big deal. My Spanish friends tip normally around 5-10% in the evening but at lunchtime it is not done, or expected. An excellent reason to choose Spain for your holiday instead of USA.

Typical Sunday Menú del día first course – paella

Typical Sunday Menú del día – main dish

Typical Sunday menú del día – main dish

Choose coffee or dessert with menú del día

OU Results L140

Bill Ferguson — Thu, 16 Dec 2010 10:55:48 +0000

At last the results have come out for L140. Sadly none of my group of "study buddies" or me, made distinction level (85% or better in each component) but we didn’t disgrace ourselves and we all passed. Here is my long awaited letter from the OU:

Open University L140 Results letter

Strangely I didn’t feel like celebrating, maybe because the gap between end of course and results was so long. The other reason is perhaps a sense of disappointment that the OU is trundling off in its own direction and making it hard for students like me to stay with them.

Here is my summary of my OU Spanish experience after 2 years

L194 is excellent – it takes you from nothing to better than most ex-pats in a year, it was fun to do and a little bit of work each day kept me up to date. My tutor, Gemma was exemplary, even gave out her personal mobile number.

L140 is a good course, apart from the eluminate online tutorials which were unhappy events. It’s a bit heavy on old fashioned drills and exercises even though they are done in a modern way with CD-ROM. Once again I was lucky to have a good tutor, thanks Laura! so I could get help by email when I needed it.

The biggest problem, that I keep harping on about, is lack of conversation practise. I think it should be an intrinsic part of the course. Talking to other students this was a common criticism and probably part of the reason that hardly anyone intended to continue to the next level with OU. Maybe a tie up with a Spanish institution who teach English would be possible, one-to-one "intercambios" between students on Skype, half an hour a week might do the trick (wish I’d thought of that sooner).

No matter how well you can conjugate irregular imperfect subjunctives, when someone grunts and mumbles something to you in a noisy bar it is a good idea to have a phrase or two ready in response. I feel poorly equipped with "Spanish sounding phrases " for daily use "on the street". I intend to work on this on my next trip to Spain, I want to take all the podcasts from Notes in Spanish with me, and try out some of the phrases that Ben suggests will make me sound "like a local".

To finish this post, here is a link to a catchy piece of Spanish music that I like.

December update

Bill Ferguson — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 16:05:15 +0000

Resumé: its now 2 years and a week since I started learning Spanish and it isn’t getting easier or harder. It feels like swimming in the sea, if you try to go too fast it’s dangerous because you get tired and out of breath, plodding along is safest, and I can’t risk stopping because there isn’t anything solid to hold on to yet.

I have some new resources to share:

Notes in Spanish is very good www.notesinspanish.com , they offer three levels; beginner, intermediate and advanced. If you are a complete beginner the intro level is probably a bit advanced although it would augment any other course that you might be doing, there are some lovely colloquial phrases that will raise eyebrows from your Spanish friends. Intermediate is just about possible for me to follow and I haven’t yet dipped into Advanced.

The podcasts are about 20-25 minutes long and are free to download. If you want the transcripts and grammar exercises you have to pay a small amount. There are also some YouTube clips (which is where I originally found Ben and Marina, the presenters), just search for "Notes in Spanish".

Next resource is www.meetup.com ; I got in touch with a local group (25 miles away) who meet monthly and I intend to be a regular attendee next year. Here is the link to the group if you are near Kent, UK www.meetup.com/Kent-Spanish-Language-and-Latin-American-culture. This group meet socially to speak in Spanish and share resources. The local organiser Viviana told me about a movie on YouTube, called "Ilona llega con la lluvia" and it even has subtitles, I liked it but didn’t expect the ending …

Here is my Spanish "diet", I choose a little from each group every day. Watch some TV, online or satellite. Read some El Pais, online and free. Read some Spanish literature on the Kindle. Self test on vocabulary. Listen to some Spanish music, YouTube has huge selection. If I hear a good phrase or a new word I write it down and look for it later in the dictionary – today’s word was "acudir". I am not talking about hours of study. Five minutes on each is painless and it keeps the stuff dripping in to the brain.

My Adult Ed course is going well, this week it was cancelled because of bad weather. Full marks to Juliette Negri who made sure I was called early enough to tell me the centre was closed. I missed one when I was in Barcelona but otherwise I’ve been to every class. The teacher is great; she makes us work for the full 90 minutes and English is forbidden in the classroom. I am still suffering from what I see as the major weakness of OU – lack of conversational practice. I can do the written work and the reading comfortably but when it comes to speaking without prompt or preparation I struggle. If only I could have Michel Thomas in my ear saying "how do you say – ‘is it ready for me because I need it tomorrow?’"

I feel that French has really slipped although I can still read and understand it without too much trouble, in conversation I lapse into some sort of hybrid language that only makes sense to me. I have a notion to try the 80/20 principle so that my "language time" divides into 80% Spanish and 20% French – probably a project for 2011.

I’m still waiting for my OU results, L140 seems like a long time ago. They are so slow at getting results back. How long does it take to mark an essay and an oral exam?

Reading Spanish novels with Kindle 3

Bill Ferguson — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 17:19:01 +0000

I read recently that a school in Kansas had given all of the students Kindle readers instead of the usual course books. There were several advantages for the students: they didn’t have to drag heavy textbooks around with them, all the course books had been downloaded onto a device weighing a few ounces. Just like a real book they could highlight sections and make notes in the margins. I thought "how interesting" but didn’t feel inclined to invest £150 in an electronic reader. Until I found this… Dave Slusher has created a free Spanish to English dictionary for the Kindle, you can get it here

I ordered a Kindle 3 from Amazon the same day. This looked like the answer to my prayer. When I try to read Spanish novels I frequently come across words that I don’t know, I could read on and ignore the mystery word, or guess it sometimes. Or I could stop reading and look it up in the dictionary. Now if I am reading on the Kindle 3 I just move the cursor to the left of the word and the translation appears instantly at the top or bottom of the screen.

Here are a couple of pictures to demonstrate. The book is by Isabel Allende, called La casa de los espiritus:

Kindle 3

look at the tenth line down, suppose I didn’t know the word "gitana", I move the cursor to the left of the word using the five way toggle switch

Kindle 3 – 5-way toggle switch

and the translation appears at the bottom of the screen:

Kindle 3 – translation at bottom of page

So now I can lie in bed and read my novel without having to grab a dictionary every few seconds. Delightful.

After Open University, Adult ed and Kindle 3

Bill Ferguson — Mon, 04 Oct 2010 08:31:00 +0000

There is a space of less than a week between finishing L140 with Open University and starting a level 7 Spanish course with Kent Adult Education. This is going to be interesting: the prospectus suggests that I am going to struggle at this level but 2 years ago I was attending French at level 7 and we had quite a spread of ability in the class, so I hope that the range of proficiency in the new class will be broad enough for me to slip in somewhere above worst. Vamos a ver (we will see).

Kindle 3

As always I am looking out for helpful technology. I had noticed the Amazon Kindle making the news from time to time and it had never seemed anything more than an irrelevant techie gadget. Until a few days ago. I came across a blog post from someone who had designed a Spanish dictionary for Kindle, he says that if you highlight a Spanish word it will translate it instantly and that stopped me in my tracks. I have been slowly and painfully wading through books written in Spanish. Not as real books but as electronic versions on my PDA and PC. The possibility of having a reader with an interface that is kind to the eyes and the chance to instantly translate the words I didn’t know was seductive.

Then I read how the next generation of Kindles had been streamlined to pocket size and lighter weight. I checked out a couple reviews on You Tube and decided to risk it. I pre-ordered as Amazon were out of stock and reckoned on a month or two to wait. Today I had an email from Amazon telling me it has been dispatched – watch this space for a review. Spanish books I have been reading: Stieg Larson "Los hombres que no amaban a las mujeres", Harry Potter, Stephanie Meyer "Crepusculo", Isabel Allende "La casa de los espiritus". I’ve got them all as text files or PDF’s so theoretically I can get them onto the Kindle. I also have a dozen or so books that I haven’t even started yet.