The Human Connection

Back to School

This great cartoon by Tom Gauld is a reminder for all students - read the book!  

If you're studying a foreign language, then in addition to following all the other good advice you hear, you should also read as much as possible in your target language. Reading is slow. At first it feels ridiculously difficult. "At first" meaning for a long time... it won't be easy.

When I say "book" I'm not just talking about tackling Don Quixote, or the fancy-sounding classics. When you are able, dive in to a big book. Go for it! Keep in mind, however, that fiction is difficult to comprehend. The art of fiction relies on creativity and subtlety. Find your level. Don't despise the small start. Read news articles, short stories, or magazine articles. (Pictures help!) Read about familiar subjects that already interest you. Read bilingual children's books. Seriously.

Time spent reading is never wasted. You're absorbing vocabulary, sentence structures, and subtleties that you may not catch at listening speed. You're also seeing correct spelling, grammar, and details that disappear when speaking. If a movie or a summary helps you understand context and storyline, that's okay. But remember that there is no substitute for reading.

How to Keep Calm and Carry On

Q. Are you going to make mistakes as you learn a second language?

A. Is the Pope Catholic?

I hope language teachers everywhere noticed this story: Pope Francis accidentally slipped and said a rather vulgar word while speaking at the Vatican.

My favorite part of the video is that he handled it like a pro. He literally did not even blink. He corrected the error, and kept speaking. Speaking of errors in high places, remember George W. Bush having issues with his native language?  And let’s not forget that Barack Obama choked during the oath of office. Speaking a foreign language might make you hyper sensitive to your mistakes, but you probably haven't paid much attention to how often you slip up in your native language. It happens! And people probably aren't judging you for it like you are judging yourself. 

The fear of these mistakes can wake up in new ways as you grow in a language, and as your opportunities to use it increase. If you let it, that fear will undo all the progress you make studying. Fear will send you back to where you started out. The only way forward is to accept mistakes as part of the process. Have a strategy (or strategery) in mind. You have lots of options: Correct yourself. Apologize if necessary. Do nothing and keep going. Laugh. But remember, it’s not a big deal if you don’t make it a big deal.

Embarrassing mistakes happen to the best of us. Many leaders have made hilarious, humiliating errors on the world stage that will be memorialized forever on YouTube. They kept going because they have bigger things on their minds, like wars, economies, and policies. These errors are small things. As for the Pope, I’d love to know if he had a good laugh about this later. I have a feeling he might have. 

Cultural Encounters - Have you fallen for a single story?

This is a great TED talk, where writer Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie explains the danger of the assumptions we make based on a single story. Anecdotes from her experiences show show both sides of seeing and being seen as "a single story." This is an interesting, crucial, and sometimes unspoken area of learning a foreign language. 

Since I can't say it any better than her, here are a few quotes:

"Show a people as one thing, as only one thing over and over again, and that is what they become...  

The single story creates stereotypes, and the problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. 

They make one story become the only story." 

"It is impossible to engage properly with a place or a person without engaging with all of the stories of that place and that person. 
The consequence with the single story is this: it robs people of dignity." 

"Stories matter. Many stories matter.
 Stories have been used to dispossess and to malign. But stories can also be used to empower and to humanize.
 Stories can break the dignity of a people, but stories can also repair that broken dignity." 

As you study a language, listen not just for morphemes and dialects, but also for the stories of the people you encounter, and for the many stories that make up a culture. A single story is never enough.

Learning imperfectly is progress...

Here's a Ted Talk by Benny Lewis with some interesting ideas about language learning. 

(His accent is a bonus.)

I don't agree with everything he says, but these points ring true - 

• Anyone can learn a second language 

• Learning a language is a decision

• Language learning is more about hard work than about talent 

• You can make a lot of progress in a language even when you can't travel 

And I agree most with this statement: “Perfectionism is a really bad thing in language learning.” Perfection prevents language learning. Mistakes are required. If it's worth doing at all, it's worth doing imperfectly. And that's the idea behind the name of this blog. Even if you aren't as immersed as you want to be, you can still make progress in a second language. 

Mark Twain said, "Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn't do than by the ones you did do." Many people have told me they wish they had learned a second language years ago when they had the chance. I've never heard of anyone who was sorry they studied a second language. The great part is you never finish, and you always have something new to learn. 

Ten years on, this is how you'll feel: 

Actividad 2 - Miguel Servet / Activity 2 - Michael Servetus

Primero, mira el video MIGUEL SERVET

Note: "Miguel Servet" is the native Spanish form of Miguel's last name. Due to his living among several other languages, and changing his name to protect his identity, many other forms and spellings are common. "Miguel Servet" appears on the  Spanish stamps and memorial statues at the end of the video. The standard English form is "Michael Servetus," using the Latin form of his last name. 

 

Usando los sitios abajo (u otros),  escribe un párrafo en español contestando tres las siguientes preguntas. / Using the sites listed below (or others), write a paragraph in Spanish answering three of the following questions.  

1. ¿Qué podemos concluir sobre Espana y Europa durante esa epoca por estudiar la vida de Miguel Servet? / What can we conclude about Spain and Europe during this era by studying the life of Michael Servetus?  

2. ¿Qué razones piensas que Servet tenía en quebrar las leyes y tradiciones de su día? ¿Explica porqué sus crímenes eran castigado con la muerte? / What reasons do you think Servetus had to justify breaking the law and traditions of his day? Why do you think his crimes were allowed to be punishable by death?

3. Winston Churchill dijo, “La historia es escrito por los vencedores.” ¿Estás de acuerdo con este dicho? ¿Es verdad en el caso de Servetus? / Winston Churchill said, “History is written by the victors.” Do you agree with this statement? Is it true in the case of Servetus?

4. ¿Cómo afecta el contexto nuestro conocimiento de una obra de literatura? ¿Si podríamos estudiar las escrituras de Servet, cómo afectaría el contexto histórico nuestras conclusiones sobre él? / How does understanding context affect our understanding of a piece of literature?  If we could examine more of Servetus’ writings, how would the historical context affect our conclusions about him? 

5. ¿Piensas que la historia tal como lo conocemos es completo o no completo? ¿Qué podemos saber de la historia por estudiar la literatura? / Do you think history as we know it is complete or incomplete? What can we know of history from studying literature?

¿Quieres saber mas? / Want to know more? 

•  The University of Edinburgh’s scanned images ofChristianismi Restitutio.

• www.Octavo.com  has examples of other rare medieval books.

• http://miguelservet.org/ The Miguel Servet Institute

• http://www.miguelservetinvestigacion.com/vida.html A webpage dedicated to Servet’s story

Actividad 1 - Café de Colombia / Activity 1 - Colombian coffee

Primero, mira el video: CAFÉ DE COLOMBIA

Usando los sitios abajo (u otros),  escribe un párrafo en español sobre uno de los siguientes sujetos. / Using the sites listed below (or others), write a paragraph in Spanish about one of the following subjects. 

1. El proceso de cultivar y procesar café desde el árbol hasta la taza / The process of farming and processing coffee from the tree to the cup 

2. La importancia de la industria de café en Colombia. / The importance of the coffee industry in Colombia 

3. Las razones por la calidad alta de café colombiano / The reasons for Colombian coffee’s high quality 

Español http://cafedecolombia.com/particulares/

Ingles http://cafedecolombia.com/particulares/en/

 

Información botánica sobre el árbol de café:

Ingles

http://www.cafedecolombia.com/particulares/en/sobre_el_cafe/el_cafe/el_arbol_y_el_entorno/ 

Espanol

http://www.cafedecolombia.com/particulares/es/sobre_el_cafe/el_cafe/el_arbol_y_el_entorno/

 

Información sobre “Fair Trade”

http://www.benzinga.com/general/entrepreneurship/13/05/3612353/these-ridiculous-facts-about-the-coffee-industry-will-blow-yo

Federación de Cafeteros http://www.federaciondecafeteros.org/particulares/en/

Café de Colombia http://www.cafedecolombia.com/familia

¿Quieres saber mas? / Want to know more? 
Coffee in the Global Economy http://www.globalexchange.org/fairtrade/coffee/faq

Canal de Youtube, Café de Colombia http://www.youtube.com/user/100porcientocc/videos