Watching Bolivia

To tell you the truth, I didn't make it through the movie. I stopped it after about 45 minutes. Too depressing!

Here's the plot: A portrait of Argentina as seen through the eyes of Bolivian immigrant Freddy. Working as the cook at a Buenos Aires grill, Freddy must deal with everyday discrimination from his boss and customers, while struggling to earn a meager living.

I thought the Spanish was hard to understand, and although I'm all about being conscious of the troubles of this world, I don't think delving in them will help change poverty, racism and associated evils. I'd rather pick a more uplifting story to learn Spanish!

On a scale of 1-10, I'd give it a 1 rating.

Nathalie interviewed by Miles Mead on WUST

Nathalie talked to Miles about Vera Birkenbihl and her best-selling programs, the importance of self-confidence in language learning and, of course, the use of smart language learning strategies.

That's really the bottom line to successful language learning--think about the old adage "if you keep doing what you've always done, you'll get the same results you've always got."

It's not through memorizing more grammar rules and 500 more vocabulary words that you'll suddenly start speaking, but rather after setting up your brain to soak up those grammar rules and instantly understand the words someone's using WITHOUT translating back to English, or whatever your native language is.

Listen to the interview here:

Mike McConnell talks to Nathalie Fairbanks on WLW

It became quite obvious during this conversation that I don't play golf! Glad it was Mike that was laughed at for trying to speak golf-Spanish rather than me, because I would have made the same mistake (plus a few more golf-related ones, I'm sure...)

Being laughed at is part of the game of learning a language. Sometimes, we just say things that sound hilarious to a native speaker! I've been on both sides of this one, the laugher and the laughee, so to speak :)

Click this link to listen to the interview:

http://a1135.g.akamai.net/f/1135/18227/1h/cchannel.download.akamai.com/18227/podcast/CINCINNATI-OH/WLW-AM/081106_2_mcconnell.mp3

Sam Greenfield and Nathalie talk on WVNJ

Sam wanted to know if the audio-lingual method is effective. My experience teaching for Berlitz allowed me to put this method in its place. I do like it, but not as the ONLY strategy to get a student fluent!

Michel Thomas Spanish Course: Report 2

I'm now at the end of CD 5 of the Michel Thomas Spanish for Beginners course.

One of the things I love is how he focuses FIRST on what I'll need most in a regular conversation.

For example, to teach present tense conjugations, he starts first by teaching me how to say "I want to do something" and "you want to do something," as opposed to presenting the endings of ALL the persons.

How often do we use "we" and "they," compared to "I" and "you" in everyday conversation? Not all that often! So why not learn the forms we'll use most, derive the principles, and only then start looking at the other forms? It makes all the sense in the world!

Watching Azúcar Amarga (Bitter Sugar)

My Spanish movie for the week!



Here's the plot from IMDB (internet movie database):

"Gustavo is a young Havana Communist who believes in the revolution; he hopes for a scholarship to study aeronautical engineering in Prague. But his faith in the new Cuba is tested: his father, a psychiatrist, can make four times as much playing piano at a hotel for foreigners; his sweetheart, Yolanda, wants a career as a dancer and longs for the riches of Miami; his younger brother Bobby simply wants to play rock music, and as a result is in constant trouble with the authorities. When Bobby takes a shocking step of revolt and Gustavo is refused service at a foreigners-only bar, the contradictions in his resolve to become a "new man" push him to the breaking point." Written by {jhailey@hotmail.com}

Although not exactly uplifting, the movie plays in beautiful modern Havana. The story is compelling (and true!) and gives a good picture of life in Cuba. Lots of dialog.

Easiest to understand: Dad, then Gustavo, then Yolanda. It's a little stretch to grasp everything they're saying, as articulation is not very clear, but hey, that's how they speak. I watched it once with English subtitles, then without. Knowing the story line and the content of the dialogs helps tremendously!

On a scale from 1-10 for Spanish learning, I'd give it a 7.

Michel Thomas Spanish Course: Report 1

I'm currently on the 3rd CD of the Michel Thomas Beginner Spanish course. I like his approach a lot - it's like a brain massage where I come out knowing all the basic structures I need in order to speak.

I'm amazed that I'm able to remember pretty much everything he's telling me, even days later, after going through every CD only once. My hunch is that it's because I've done so much Passive Listening of Spanish materials in the past, so I understand everything he says and know how it's spelled and written. I'm not sure how a total beginner would fare since there's no written materials.

I'll be sure to include his CD's into any of my language learning combos for future languages!

Nathalie on the Chuck Wilder Show!

Nathalie discusses with Chuck Wilder why learning languages is one of the factors that can help boost the American economy in these turbulent times.

You can listen to the recording here:

Claudette helping out in Cameroon

SpeakEZ Languages donates 10% of its profits to causes close to our heart. IDAAS is one of them.




Here are a few pictures of Claudette in Cameroon. She was so inspired by the work her friends Glory and George had done that she decided to help them set up a non-profit organization (IDAAS) to provide training on sustainable and self-reliant organic farming practices.















Claudette serves as their U.S. officer and is happy to report that Glory and the IDAAS farms have brought jobs, joy, organic food, education and sustainability to the people of Wum and Bambili (small towns in NW Cameroon)!

Nathalie talks to Scott Sloan on WLW

I talked to Scott Sloan about the LPGA decision to have their foreign players pass an English test to participate in the tour - more about that story at http://www.golfweek.com/protours/lpga/story/lpga-english-news-082508

During our conversation, Scott raised a valid question: why should Americans learn a foreign language, since it's not a necessity for them as much as it is for Europeans? I'm not sure that my answer convinced him... so do me a favor and respond to this post with what I could have said to win him over!

Here's the recording for you:

Jean Dean interviews Nathalie Fairbanks on WRVC

Nathalie had a lovely conversation with Jean Dean about learning a language in Europe vs. the U.S., how to keep up your language skills, whether or not to study Latin, and what's different between learning a language as a child vs. learning as an adult.

Click here to listen to their exchange:

Catherine's Birthday

Here's Catherine blowing out her first birthday candle with Mommy's help. I opted out of making a cake for her -- not knowing about sugar is a blissful state of being!

She very much enjoyed the bananas, strawberries and blueberries...

Baby Catherine... Then and Now

We've been promising pictures of baby Catherine... here are two!

Nathalie and Catherine one week after her birth.

Catherine in action! She's a little over eight months old and just got her 4th tooth today. Yeay!

Claudette's Wedding

Happy Anniversary, Claudette and Ollie!

I was so thrilled to be a bridesmaid! Little baby is hiding in the tummy behind the flowers :)

SpeakEZ Spanish I Course

It's been many months now since the birth of baby Catherine, and I'm finally getting back to updating our blog.

Apart from learning how to be a Mommy, I've been putting a lot of time into the details of our Spanish I course. The dialogs were written by María del Carmen Muley, who has become a good friend of mine in the process. She has extensive experience in using the Birkenbihl Approach teaching Spanish in Germany, and was recently asked to lead a teacher training at the FH Coburg, a university in Germany. That's great news!

So for the past few months, in between her teaching and my playing with Catherine, we were on the phone discussing decoding from Spanish to English. If you are unfamiliar with "decoding," it means translating word by word into your native language.

Decoding the main vocabulary is straightforward, and I learned a great deal just doing that. Since I knew the content of the dialogs, it was easy to guess the meaning of words I didn't know yet. The tricky part is decoding expressions that just don't have an exact equivalent in English, such as "tengo que" (I need to/I have to) - it doesn't make any sense if you translate literally.

We found ways around it that work. What's interesting, too, is that new trouble spots come up with each different language pair. Since Carmen was used to decode from Spanish to German, some of the questions that came up were new to her as well.

I can only encourage you to decode all you can. I see it as an intellectual challenge that takes me deeply into the structure of the language and leads me to ask the right questions. If you are a beginner, you'd want to start by using texts that were decoded for you. The grammar will seem so clear right from the beginning that you won't experience the typical "grammar fog" I've seen on so many students' faces over the years.

Later on, though, you'll learn a lot by trying to find out what exactly a phrase like "hoy tengo ganas de ir al restaurante italiano" means and how it's put together.

We plan on publishing the course within the next month - we'll keep you posted!