I went in search of a recipe in Spanish that I could attempt to prepare and came across a wonderful little blog that is full of interesting recetas (recipes).  El Microverso has an excellent and easy instructional YouTube video to prepare tortilla de patatas. The ingredients for this recipe are in any supermarket.  You simply need potatoes, eggs, an onion, olive oil, and salt.  I like this video because it’s suitable for all levels of Spanish learner and there is no tricky measuring of ingredients.  The video is set to music and there is text explaining the ingredients and cooking process.  Below I’ll walk you through this delicious Spanish lesson.

1. First, I watched the video all the way through so there were no surprises. I made sure that I understood each of the verbs that were used in the video.  What I like is that this video demonstrates the action rather than giving you the English translation.  Learning this way mimics the way a child would learn to do something and is an effective way of learning a language.
2. After I had watched the entire video I then read some of the tips below the video.  These answer a lot of questions about the quantity of ingredients, use of the oil, and how to turn the tortilla.
3. Next, it was time to dive in and either succeed or fail.  I used to be notorious for botching almost every recipe imaginable. Since then my skills have improved but the insecure feeling was present when I started cooking.  I sliced the potatoes as in the video, tearfully sliced the onion, and added them both to the heated oil in the skillet with a dash of salt.  I stirred the potatoes and onions in the skillet with the olive oil until they had reached the same color as the potatoes in the video.
4. While the potatoes and onions were cooking in the oil I cracked the eggs into a large bowl and scrambled them.  When the potatoes and onions were done I added them to the bowl of eggs.  It’s important after this step to add more oil to the skillet and assure that the oil is hot before adding the egg, potato and onion mixture.
5. Add the mixture to the skillet and wait for the eggs to brown.  You can lift up slightly underneath the tortilla to check the color.  When you think the tortilla has achieved the right consistency and color place a plate over the top of the skillet and then flip the tortilla onto the plate.  Quickly add a bit more olive oil to the skillet and slide the tortilla, raw side down, into the skillet once again to cook the other side.  When the other side has achieved the same look as the previous side, use the plate once again to flip the tortilla out of the skillet.  Then enjoy!

The finished product is pictured above. This tortilla de patata could easily feed four people so I encourage you to check out the recipes at the El Microverso blog and see what interesting things you can create to share with others!  It’s an excellent way to bring you one step closer to the culture while learning Spanish.

If you have any interesting recipes or tips you’d like to share please share them in the comments!

Leah Budke is a college student currently working on obtaining bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and Art Education at Fort Hays State University.  She has always had an interest in languages and cultures and is continually expanding her knowledge of other ways of life.  She has studied abroad in Italy and is planning to feed her travel bug by studying abroad in Spain.  In addition to learning languages, studying cultures and traveling, Leah is passionate about human rights issues, environmental issues and animal rights.  You can read more of her writings on her blog:  www.futureexpat.wordpress.com.

After spending quite a bit of time listening to Spanish podcasts, I felt quite fortunate to stumble across Ben and Marina’s Notes in Spanish site and podcasts.  Surely you’ve all experienced the feeling of frustration during the language learning process.  It’s one thing to learn from a book, but quite another when you’re in the world attempting to converse in Spanish and there are phrases or manners of saying phrases which you can’t quite grasp.  In their podcasts, Ben and Marina converse about normal things occurring in Spain and in the world in general.  This is a great substitute for real immersion because Ben and Marina are using common conversational phrases and conversing about real occurrences.  There are audio podcasts for each level of Spanish from beginners to advanced and the podcasts can be listened to for free.  There are many things that you can learn from the context of the conversations, but if you subscribe to Notes in Spanish you can download the transcript and use the worksheet to help you gain even more from the podcast.  Below I will go into a little detail about how the site is organized and what it has to offer for each level of language learner.

Inspired Beginners

For the Spanish newcomer the inspired beginners section is where it’s at.  I recommend that you to start at the very first podcast and go through them all.  The first audio podcast for beginners starts with Ben and Marina introducing themselves and explaining their backgrounds.  They continue to explain the concept behind Notes in Spanish and how they hope to teach the things you might not learn in a textbook.  They explain the usage of the verb gustar, phrases to help make small talk, and other basic phrases to get your Spanish “arsenal” up to date.  In addition to being useful for beginners, others that already have an understanding of Spanish can benefit by listening and refreshing their memories.  If you are a beginner or perhaps trying to get back into learning Spanish, it can be very motivating to know that Ben has been through everything you’re going through at the moment and is still learning new words and phrases.

Need some extra help? If you feel like the podcast is going just a bit too fast for you, you most definitely would benefit from having the transcript of the conversation right in front of you.  You can then make notes to help you remember particular things from the podcast and continue to study it at a later time, with or without listening to the podcast.  You can obtain the worksheets for the beginners’ podcasts here.

Intermediate

In the intermediate podcasts Ben and Marina have a regular conversation about what is occurring in Spain or what is occurring in their personal lives.  They speak fairly slowly so that the listeners can understand and hear clearly every word they pronounce.  At the end of the podcast Ben and Marina speak just a little bit about what they have talked about during their conversation. If you still feel like you’re not grasping enough of the information from the context of the conversation you can purchase the transcripts and worksheets on the website.

Advanced

The advanced audio section is the highest level of Spanish that Notes in Spanish offers.  In this section you will probably notice that Ben and Marina talk a bit faster than they did in the intermediate section.  The advanced level is where Notes in Spanish started.  Podcasts 1-34 are the original podcasts of Notes and Spanish.  The first 34 audio recordings do not have accompanying worksheets or transcripts.  If you have benefited or think you will benefit most from listening along with the transcripts then the transcripts can be purchased starting at podcast 35.

Notes in Spanish Blog

In addition to audio podcasts there is a lot of other useful information on the Notes in Spanish site.  Go to the blog to see interesting videos and easy explanations of some of the most confusing things in the Spanish language.  Learn how to use tricky verbs like dar and become an expert at the elusive subjunctive as well as many other helpful things.

Notes in Spanish Gold

Finally, Ben and Marina have recently launched Notes in Spanish Gold, a subscription based service where they offer new podcasts w/ transcripts on a weekly basis. One difference between these podcasts and the others that they offer is that at the end of each podcast they spend several minutes reviewing new phrases and slang. The podcasts tend to be a little longer than the normal podcasts (about 20 minutes).

If you like what you’ve seen on the Notes in Spanish website be sure to sign up for the free newsletter so you can keep up to date on all the new things occurring with Notes in Spanish.

Author’s Bio:

Leah Budke is a college student currently working on obtaining bachelor’s degrees in Spanish and Art Education at Fort Hays State University.  She has always had an interest in languages and cultures and is continually expanding her knowledge of other ways of life.  She has studied abroad in Italy and is planning to feed her travel bug by studying abroad in Spain.  In addition to learning languages, studying cultures and traveling, Leah is passionate about human rights issues, environmental issues and animal rights.  You can read more of her writings on her blog:  www.futureexpat.wordpress.com.

My new discoveries started with this Writing Club theme – write about your favorite song, which has been one of our most popular topics ever (for good reason).  Since then I have discovered a bunch of great resources that I would recommend to anyone else interested in finding great Spanish language music.

1. I signed up (and actually paid) for a couple of months on LoMasTv. LoMasTv is a site that has videos in Spanish (like telenovelas, music videos etc.) that you can watch. The player that you watch the videos on has Spanish and English captions (that you can turn on or off) and pitch-correct slow play (especially useful when you’re listening to Calle 13). While you’re listening you can add new words to a flashcard program in one-click.

There are 2 other things I think LoMasTv does really well. First, the music available is popular and crosses every genre. It’s organized by Spanish-difficulty and/or country. There is a tongue-in-cheek write-up about each song/artist. The other is that there are Spanish lessons on grammar, expressions or vocabulary that reference specific songs. Here is a lesson on the suffix -ero (it helps explain our name – lenguajero no?), that uses Choc Quib Town to reinforce the lesson. This is an awesome way to learn Spanish.

2. I discovered another great site Radio Tuna.

It’s a beautiful site that helps you find free streaming online radio stations. Just click on genre “Latin” and you’ll see un montón of Spanish music. Another neat thing about the site is that for each song you can see information about the artist. So if a song by Las Orishas comes on, I can see right there on the site their entire bio and a list of their albums.

3. I really like the YouTube stream for Buenos Entonces. One morning I played their video of Gotas de Agua Dulce by Juanes about 20 times in a row. I’m sure my neighbors loved me.

4. @Verschof from the language-learning blog Baby-Steps to Fluency tells me that Pandora is great for discovering new music. Her advice is to start with a spanish-language artist that you like (Juanes, Manu Chao, etc.) and the site will then stream music that it thinks you’ll like. Unfortunately it only works in the United States. I can’t experience it here in Mexico.

5. If you have iTunes, you can scroll to the bottom of the iTunes Store. There’s a link “Change Country”. If you set your country to Spain or Mexico you’ll get that country’s version of iTunes. You’ll see the most popular music and podcasts. It’s a great way to discover what’s popular now. This also works on YouTube. At the bottom of the homepage there’s a “change location” link.

August and I put together this Lenguajero Recommends – MP3 Music Store (US only). Any MP3s you buy from it help us continue with Lenguajero.com.

What music discoveries have you made lately? Share them in the comments or on twitter.

Y Tu Mamá También – 2001
This Oscar nominated film by Alfonso Cuarón, starring Gael García Bernal, Diego Luna, and Maribel Verdú focuses on the lives three young Mexicans. Two teenage boys, Tenoch (Diego Luna) and Julio (Gael García Bernal), from Mexico City convince Luisa (Maribel Verdú), a married woman, to take a road trip with them to an imaginary beach on the Pacific coast of Mexico. The movie is a coming of age story that explores sexuality and individuality, while tying in the real time economic and political backdrop of Mexico at the turn of the century.

Maria Llena Eres De Gracia (Maria Full of Grace) – 2004
This Academy Award nominated film, written and directed by Joshua Marston, explores the world of the Colombian-American drug trade, and the lives of those at the bottom of this world. María Álvarez (Catalina Sandino Moreno), a 17-year-old Colombian girl, finds herself pregnant and alone after she quits her job at a flower plantation. Desperate for money she accepts a job as a mule, and flies to the U.S. with drugs hidden inside her body.

El Laberinto Del Fauno (Pan’s Labyrinth) – 2006
Set in post-Civil War Spain in 1944, this Academy Award winner, directed by Guillermo del Toro, is the highest grossing Spanish language movie of all time. The movie tells the tale of Ofelia (Ivana Baquero), a young girl who travels between two worlds. One is a world of fantasy and imagination, while the other is the harsh reality of life in rural Spain, where her mother’s second husband, a lieutenant in the fascist Spanish army, is attempting to brutally suppress an armed resistance.  The two worlds merge together as a character in Ofelia’s imaginary world (The Faun) orders her to carry out tasks in the real world.

Volver – 2006
Volver, directed by Pedro Almodóvar and starring Penélope Cruz, tells the story of two sisters, Raimunda (Cruz) and Sole, whose parents died in a fire several years before the start of the film.  The events surrounding their deaths are central to the movie, and the ghost of their mother plays an important role in the movie. Death is the central theme of the movie, and both sisters must cope with the deaths of their parents. In addition to their deaths Raimunda must deal with the death of the father of her daughter, who is killed by her daughter. Penélope Cruz was nominated for an Academy Award as Best Actress.

Sin Nombre (Without Name) – 2009
Sin Nombre is the story of a young Honduran woman, Sayra (Paulina Gaitán), who dreams of going to the United States in hopes of starting a better life.  To achieve her dreams she must first get to Mexico, and to do that she must stow away on a train that will take her north.  Her path crosses with a gang member played by Edgar Flores whose life changes when he kills the leader of his gang in order to help Sayra. This award winning film has garnered international admiration, and is on the short list for Best Foreign Language film at the 2010 Academy Awards.

Thanks to @Castellano3CAS for recommending Sin Nombre to us.

This week we interviewed John Biesnecker on his experiences learning languages, specifically Chinese, while living in China. John is an American, born and raised near Orlando, Florida. He graduated with a political science degree in 2003, and moved to China soon after. John is currently living in Shanghai where he works as a software developer and Chinese-English translator. He runs a small company, Qingxi Labs, and a blog, Global Maverick.

What languages do you speak, and how well do you speak them?

My native language is English, and I grew up staunchly monolingual. I took German in high school and college, and have over the last few years tried to at least get my reading back up to speed, but still, those years of German were pretty wasted and if I wanted to really learn it I’d be starting pretty much from scratch.

I speak, read, and write Mandarin Chinese. My reading and listening are somewhere around adult native speaker levels (though my reading speed is a bit slow), and I speak and write somewhere below that, though still pretty well. Living in Shanghai and being reasonably curious and outgoing gives me plenty of opportunities to practice.

I can handle myself conversationally in Cantonese and Japanese, too. I’m actively working on the former, and plan on learning the latter eventually.

When, where, and why did you learn these languages?

I took a couple of years of German in high school and college. It was just to fulfill a foreign language requirement, and my lack of enthusiasm is reflected in my current level of German.

I started learning Chinese after coming to China for the first time in 2001. When I moved to China after graduating from university in 2003 I decided that I wanted to learn the language, and I’ve sort of just fallen down the rabbit hole since then. Every step forward I take just opens up that many more unknown areas. It’s a constant adventure, one that I’m sure I’ll be pursing for decades.

Cantonese and Japanese are both languages I’ve studied in China, and both of them are basically just out of self-interest.

What do you do when you’re just starting out learning a language?

Besides German, which I didn’t really learn that well, all of the languages I’ve learned have had non-Roman alphabets, so that’s a major hurdle to overcome initially. Beyond that, I try to figure out sentence patterns that I can use to build more complex sentences from. Once I have basic sentence patterns down, it’s just a matter of filling them out, and improving my comprehension. From the very first day I start listening to native speed material as well, as I think there’s basically no other way of ever getting your ear accustomed to it besides pouring on the input.

In general what kind of learner do you consider yourself?  That is, which strategies work for you and which don’t?

I’m a reader. Of course listening and speaking and stuff all have their place, but in my heart of hearts I’m a reader (this is as true in English as it is in any foreign language). A lot of my ’studying’ is just reading lots and lots of interesting things in the language I’m learning. I find that most of my learning starts with reading, and once I’m comfortable with the vocabulary and structures in writing I’ll start to notice them in audio and visual mediums.

Beyond that, I’m a huge fan of SRS. It makes sense to me on several levels, and I’ve used it pretty extensively for about four years now with great success.

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Thanks to John for sharing his learning insights with us here at Lenguajero.  You can read more about his adventures in language learning here.

Have you had an interesting experience learning a new language?  We want to hear about it. Send an email to august@lenguajero.com.

In addition to being avid language learners ourselves, we’ve met a lot of other language learners over the past year.  Our experiences have led us to believe that there is no “one right way” to learn a language.  In tribute to this belief we are starting a new interview series on our blog. We will interview successful language learners about their learning experiences, and ask them what they believe has made them so successful.

To start this series we are interviewing a good friend of ours, Sara Elaine Magil. Sara has a MS in Linguistics from Georgetown University. She is a passionate social worker who dedicates herself to working with the varied immigrant communities in Toronto, Canada.

What languages do you speak, when did you learn them?

English: It’s my first language.

Swedish: I learned all through immersion.  When I was 15 I had the opportunity to study abroad
for 6 months, and then again for 6 months at age 20.

Mandarin: I learned in-class for 2 years during university, and then spent 6 months in China at age 22/23, and another 6 months at age 27.  My level is somewhere around “low advanced”, but I have to practice a lot or else my level drops pretty quickly.

French: I studied 2 years in high school, not much since then. I’m somewhere around “low advanced” here as well.

Spanish: I’ve taken a few classes over the last few years, probably 6 weeks of formal classes, plus 2 weeks spent doing homestays in Mexico (at age 25 and 26).  I’m pretty comfortable making small talk, and even taught a home owners information course in Spanish one time. My level is probably intermediate.

Thai: I lived in Thailand for 6 months, and used to be pretty good. Unfortunately, it’s ALL gone now.  I still remember the alphabet though, so I can sound out words.

What do you do when you’re learning a new language?

First of all I usually get very excited, I love the challenge of learning a new language.   I’m going to start studying Arabic this year, and I just got my first textbook.  I was like a little kid I was so excited!  I think that enthusiasm is very important.  I don’t worry about learning languages, and I believe that I can do it.  I think that makes a big difference, because I don’t expect to fail.

How does getting your MS in linguistics from Georgetown relate to learning a new language?

OK, funny story here.  On my first day of graduate school, I met a woman who had majored in Spanish for her BA.  She was so excited to be doing a PhD in linguistics, because she realized she didn’t just want to speak a lot of languages, she wanted to really understand them at a deep level, and look at the patterns and similarities between languages.  It was a really surprising moment for me, because as she said it, I realized that I DON’T really care about the deeper understanding, I just want to speak a bunch of languages!

However, I think my education in linguistics was helpful in several ways.  For one thing, I was surrounded with other people who were language-crazy like me.  Linguistics also made me pretty comfortable with the IPA (International Phonetic Alphabet), which made me better at learning and teaching languages, because that’s what everyone else uses to figure out pronunciation.  (North Americans don’t really use it, but when I taught in China students often asked whether a word was pronounced like /wʊd/ or /wud/, and I was able to tell them the answer.)

It has also helped me as a language learner.  I have found that a lot of people have trouble with grammar or constructions that are very different from their native language.  I think  I’m able to understand that things in another language work in a very different way from what I was expecting.  I don’t insist on drawing direct parallels, which means I get less confused.

In general, what kind of learner are you?

I think I’m a “guess and test” learner.  I like it when the teacher presents some new material, and then we try using it.  I’m less shy about using a language than many other people are – I’m willing to try to say something in a language before I’m certain I’m right.  I think that helps a lot, especially with pronunciation.

Why did you study Mandarin?

I started studying Mandarin partly because I knew it would be useful in the future, and partly because people told me that it was “a hard one”.  I decided that I should study the hard languages when I was relatively young, so that I could save the easier ones for when I was older and my brain wasn’t so good at it!

Is learning and speaking Mandarin fundamentally different from French or Spanish?

The only thing that’s REALLY different about Mandarin is that it doesn’t have an alphabet, so you can’t look at a word and “sound it out” like you can for most other languages.  In Mandarin, if you don’t know the character, and you don’t have a dictionary with you, you may be stuck.  In French and Spanish, you may be able to piece it together a bit.

How do you maintain your languages?

I am very lucky to live in North America, where there are lots of languages being spoken in most cities.  In Toronto, it’s not too hard to find Chinese speakers and Spanish speakers.  Also, because I’m a social worker, many of the clients I work with are immigrants, so I can use my language skills talking to them.

What is a Spaced Repetition System and why should I use one?

A spaced repetition system (SRS) is a learning program that schedules what material you need to study, and when you need to study it, so that over time the material becomes incorporated into your long term memory. That is, you will be able to recall the material instantly.

Lenguajero’s SRS program is designed for Spanish and English learners who want to expand their vocabulary, and improve the speed at which they recall words or phrases.

Lenguajero’s SRS program allows you to add either pre-existing flashcard sets to your personal deck of cards, and/or create your own sets. We currently offer many standard flashcard sets, which cover a lot of basic Spanish and English vocabulary. The majority of the cards focus on learning new words, but we also include two sets of basic phrases to help you start memorizing phrases as well as words. If you are an advanced learner, and these flashcard sets are too basic for you, just create and save your own custom sets.

How do I use Lenguajero’s Spaced Repetition System?

Our flashcard system let’s you grade how well you know words and phrases on a scale of 0-5. The program then remembers these grades, and schedules when the next time you need to see a word or phrase will be. The lower the number the more frequently you will need to see a card. Our grading system works like this:

0 — I don’t know what the answer is.
1 — I don’t know the answer, but it is familiar.
2 — I know it today, but I probably will forget it tomorrow.
3 — I know it, but it took me a few seconds to remember.
4 — I know it, but it took a 1-2 seconds to remember.
5 — I know it like the back of my hand.

After you use the program for the first time you will notice that each time you visit the program you will have flashcards scheduled for your review. Once you have reviewed all of your scheduled cards you can choose to continue learning unmemorized cards, or you can call it a day.

Tips on using Lenguajero’s SRS flashcard program

1. Study your cards every day. It makes a big difference!
2. Add words AND phrases. Studying words is a great way to increase your vocabulary, but adding phrases will really help you improve your speaking ability.
3. Add corrections from your writing assignments. When you write about a topic in the writing club you will receive feedback from other users. Make sure that you add these corrections to your custom set by clicking the “Add A Card button in the bottom right corner of the screen.”