Spanish Resources

I've attempted to brush up on my Spanish recently, mostly because I'm a bit short of other things to do until I nail down a consistent job. The internet can be a pretty amazing thing...it provides access to a wealth of resources that one would otherwise have to spend quite a bit of time or money to access. And it allows one to read and listen to a language as its actually written and spoken in the "real world"...not some dumbed down stilted exercises in some textbook and tapes. I've especially appreciated the aural exposure to Spanish that the internet has allowed me.

So - partly so that I have an easy record of sources to access, and partly in the hopes that all this might be helpful to someone reading this someday - here are a number of the online resources I've found to be a great help at this point in my study. (I've enough basic knowledge of Spanish to often (but not always) be able to figure out a word's meaning using a Spanish-to-Spanish dictionary. So I don't know what sorts of resources would be most useful to someone starting from scratch).

Tools

Spaced Repetition Systems. The folks who use SRSs swear by them...so I've joined the club, if only because it's a lot easier than making paper flashcards. Afraid I don't use it as consistently as I should, though.

I've been using Mnemosyne, and Anki is another common one. One thing I really don't like about Mnemosyne, though, is that I can't shuffle the cards. (Maybe I've just missed the checkbox on the options menu?). But I don't know if Anki is any better when it comes to shuffling.

WordReference.com. Specifically, the Spanish-Spanish dictionaries, Spanish-English dictionary, and verb conjugator. All are linked to one another, and there's even links to relevant threads in the WordReference discussion forums that help to flesh out additional nuances, or that include a discussion of the rare word that isn't in the dictionary. (I've used the forum links several times. They're usually very good).

This is holy grail of Spanish online dictionaries. I've looked at several other online dictionaries and translators, and none of them can hold a candle to this site. It's miles ahead of anything else I've seen out there in both ease of use and thoroughness of definitions.

Both of the dictionaries are very good at noting idioms, showing which prepositions go with what verbs, and giving example sentences. Moreover, they do an excellent job identifying the verb you're looking for whenever you type in a conjugated form. Which is an absolute lifesaver when one runs into an unknown irregular form, or isn't even sure that the word they're looking at is actually a verb.

Also, they're so, so, so much faster than flipping through a dead-tree dictionary. And they're especially useful if one is using a computer flashcard program to keep track of words and sentences.

Any Spanish news sites. They're good practice, relatively interesting, and usually not too difficult to understand.

Google! See a word or phrase somewhere, and want to know if it's being used correctly? Or want a couple more examples of how it's used? Want to know which variant of a word or phrase is actually the most common? GOOGLE IT! There's example sentences galore to study and use, right at one's fingertips.

Audio

Huzzah - Spanish radio! I've stuck with stations where there's a lot of talking; so far the best Latin American ones I've found for those purposes have been the AM ones on the Radio Centro site. Good variety, and usually high quality sound. Sometimes they refuse to play on my computer, and I use 920 Noticias as a fallback, but the sound quality can be iffy.

Although I'm somewhat wary of mixing European Spanish in with Latin American at this point...I do very much like RTVE (the Spanish version of NPR, as far as I can tell). It's a rather classy series of stations all around, with few commercials and high sound quality. Channel 1 is news; channel 5 is a wide variety of programs, including interviews and talk shows.

La Biblia de las Americas (New Testament only) - Fluid reading, at what I suppose is a moderate clip of a pace. Whenever I try to run the whole New Testament, it always flashes an ERROR message at me and stops a chapter or a half in. But listening to whole books at a time hasn't been a problem.

Audio Biblia - I can't say I really like this audio Bible. I don't care for the slow speed and jolting voice of the narrator. But it IS the entire Bible, not just the New Testament.

Video

Amar en Tiempos Revueltos - a TV show from Spain.

The only TV shows I've found that come from Latin America are horribly cruddy low-budget soap operas. Which is a shame, because shows are a rather good way of learning to comprehend oral Spanish. However, if you're willing to toss some European-style Spanish into the mix, do check out the Amar en Tiempos Revueltos. It's something of a historical melodrama (historical soap opera?), set in the years surrounding Franco's dictatorship. So there's fights and politics and death, and far grander conflicts and betrayals than mere romantic ones. It's also got excellent production values - crisp filming, intricate period costuming, and I'm assuming good acting (though that's rather hard to tell when I understand only 5% of what they're saying, at best). What I've seen of it, I very much like.

Abre Los Ojos - Watch the entire film online...legally! (And I guess here at IMDB, too.)

Everybody Kills Hitler on Their First Trip

On a lighter note (and also dealing with Hitler and time travel), is the short story "Wikihistory."

M is for Merchant

I recently visited the Smithsonian American History Museum. One of the exhibits contained a small collection of abolitionist literature. One of the books highlighted in this collection was a childrens' book of verse, with a title something along the lines of "The Abolitionist ABCs." For a while, it was a fairly standard excoriation of the slave trade and slaveholders. But then I turned to "M is for Merchant" - and "M", it turns out, was for all of the northern merchants who profited, directly or indirectly, from slave-produced goods. The book turned and went straight for the jugular of its northern readers, showing them that, yes - they might not own slaves. But that didn't necessarily make them innocent of profiting from - and supporting - the evils of slavery.

I rather liked that page of the book. I hadn't been so impressed by some bit of historical information since reading (last year) how the Grimké sisters attended a northern abolitionist meeting, and sat down next to all the black people who'd been relegated to the "black pews."

Things that have impressed me before, though, have often turned around to bite me in the end, when I sit down and actually think about them. Usually it's for the best, but the process is never comfortable. And that page of the book does bring up a heck of a lot of questions. Many of which, I suppose, have crossed my mind before - like wondering how far we're responsible for where our money goes. Or how many things we may end up supporting without even noticing or thinking about it. And how permissible any ignorance and indifference about such things is (or is not).

The following is far from an exhaustive list of thoughts. Just current high points, I guess, in a very muddled mess.

* I looked at the history of the fair trade movement. Was interested to find that it owed some of its origins in movements started in the 1830s. Several associations of northern abolitionists refused to purchase any goods produced by slave labor.

* From time to time, various groups protest and boycott various organizations over their treatment of their overseas workers, or their treatment of the environment. One may disagree with their solutions, or their analysis of the problem, or even that there is a problem in any particular protested instance. But one cannot say that right treatment of employees, and that stewardship of God's creation, are unimportant things, matters not worthy of any thought or concern.

* Nations often refuse to trade with nations they believe are engaging various human rights abuses. Despite their drawbacks, trade sanctions seem to be a standard means of trying to force change.

* Anti-war protesters have refused to pay a portion (or all) of their taxes out of objection to wars in which the nation was engaged.

* There are many corporations that give funds to Planned Parenthood. So does the government. Planned Parenthood does a number of good things, including STD treatment and cancer screening. (I'd tentatively add preventing-egg-and-sperm-from-uniting contraception to the mix, though I know my Catholic friends would disagree). It also does things like provide 1/4 of the abortions performed in the United States, making it the largest provider of such services in the country. (305,310 last year...compared to 4,912 references for adoption. See page 9).

* Part of one's tax money goes toward support of abortion (c.f. above) and now embryonic research.

* I'll admit, this troubled me. (This, on the other hand, is just plain funny).

I've simply thrown all these down onto the page, with little attempt to connect dots or pass judgment, because I'm still thinking through a lot of this. I'm not sure how the dots should be connected, which dots are important, or what it all means.

But I guess if I become a radical liberal hippie environmentalist socialist commie activist anarchist, you can at least all shake your heads and say you saw it coming?

Alright - A First Post, Finally

As Angy informed me about...err...four months ago: "YOU! If you go to the bother of getting a second blog, you should probably, you know, write on it."

And the excuse "Hey! I'm busy chasing my little brother around the house yelling Latin conjugations!" can really only work for so long. (We've made it up to "bo, beris, bitur, bimur, bimini, bunter!" by now - though his favorite is "bam, bas, bat, bamus, batis, bant!" Mostly because we always yell it out with the "'a' as in cat" variety of 'a' sound. Even though that's not quite the right pronunciation, the chant is a heck of a lot more catchy and memorable that way, especially to a 4th grade boy).

So, yes. Here goes a second attempt at a blog sort of thing. I'll mostly probably talk about books I'm reading. And maybe a bit of Latin and little brothers, too.