¿Cómo aprender un nuevo idioma?

Muchos de nosotros nos hacemos esta pregunta a menudo, sobre todo si nos cuesta aprender un nuevo idioma. La verdad es que para aprender ya sea inglés, francés, italiano o chino hay que considerar lo siguiente:

1. Estudiar grámatica es esencial e inevitable. Se requiere conocer las reglas gramaticales para hablar el idioma apropiadamente.
2. Practicar lo aprendido constantemente. La repetición es un método de aprendizaje muy eficaz.
3. Escribir un diario en el nuevo idioma comezando por ideas básicas sobre nuestros quehaceres diarios y siguiendo con oraciones completas sobre nuestros planes o metas a corto plazo.
4. Escuchar el idioma lo más que se pueda, ya sea por el radio, la televisión, escuchar música, etc.
5. Es muy importante leer, hay que comenzar de manera simple con cuentos cortos, cuentos para niños y seguir con lecturas cada vez más avanzadas. Todo claro de manera gradual y constante.

¡No olvide que la práctica hace al maestro!

Why do I need to Learn Spanish?

The Spanish language is second most spoken language in the world behind Mandarin. There are more that 330 million native speakers. More than 40 countries have it either as first language and/or as second language.  Spanish language, castellano (Castilian) originated in the region of Castile.
Spanish is a dialect of Latin and it became very important during the reign of Isabel of Castile (1451-1504).

In the United States, Spanish is spoken by over 30 million people as a first language and as a second language by over 15 million people. The United States is the second largest Spanish speaking country in the world behind Mexico. It is the most studied language in US schools with roughly 6 million students.

What is a cognate?

When learning a new language, we come across a special category of words called cognates. Two questions come to our minds: what are they and how important is it for us to know them?

In linguistics the word cognate means "descended or borrowed from the same earlier form". Examples of cognate languages are French, Spanish and Italian that descended from Latin, or Scandinavian languages such as Norwegian, Swedish, Danish that descended from an earlier form of a North Germanic dialect. The English language (as part of the Germanic family) shares words with other Germanic languages. Also, one third of the language is based on Latin; therefore, English shares words with Spanish and French. Here are some examples: similar, radio, television, patio, singular, plural, popular (true cognate words with Spanish);  revenue, reservoir, avenue, boulevard, abstention, parent, partial (cognate words with French). 

Cognate words help us learn new vocabulary, but we have to be careful in making the distinction between true and false cognates. True cognates are words with identical spelling and similar meanings, while false cognates are words with similar spelling but different meanings. For example the French word inhabité is translated in English as "uninhabited", while the English word inhabited is translated in French as "habité". In Spanish, the word atender means "to assist" and asistir means "to attend".

Cognates are very useful, whether they are true or false. The truth is that you can learn the new language faster and boost your vocabulary just by learning the similarities and differences of words of your own language and your target language.

Summer Language Camp?

When deciding what to do during the summer it's important to think about the benefits of learning a new language. Whether you want to practice conversation or review grammar, you can definitely benefit from a Summer Language Camp. Not only you will be learning new grammar, but you will also be immersing yourself into a new language. You must speak Spanish, French, Chinese or the language you choose the very first day of class and after 6 weeks of intensive language classes you will see the results. I encourage anyone who's thinking about learning a new language this summer to consider intensive or full immersion programs. ¡Buena Suerte! Bonne Chance!