Voices en Español

David, el Cántabro, is back. This time he’s going to talk about stereotypes that exist among the Spanish regarding mi “pueblo,” the United States, and explains what he’s looking forward to seeing during our vacation there.
Music featured in this podcast:
Big George Jackson
“If I Could Change” (mp3)
from “Big Shot”
(Black and Tan Records)

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More On This Album

Nueva York Passing Lista by Kinito Méndez

(Time-lapse video of Times Square, New York City by Morgan Lane. Purchased and licensed via iStockPhoto.com)

In this podcast I chat with Maya Escobar, a performance artist from the U.S. Her culturally-diverse family background (Dad is Guatemalan and Mom is Jewish) has inspired her to create a series of photos and satirical videos about stereotypes related to Latina and Jewish women. Maya says her work “Acciones Plásticas” is a “commentary of the objectification and exoticization of otherness that I have personally experienced. I reclaim ownership of myself; I transform my body as well as my “self” into an object used within the performed ritual, which is then documented through analog and digital photo, video and collage.”

You can read more about Maya on her website MayaEscobar.com and see the complete series of “Acciones Plásticas” videos here.

Here’s Part 2 of my chat with Teresa Córdova from Middlebury College. In this podcast Teresa talks about the ways some American university students have found to work legally in Spain. You can find more info about the Language Assistants program she mentions here. Also, Julie Espinosa, a current language assistant in Madrid, gives advice and general tips about the program on her blog.

At the end of this conversation, Teresa gives us a funny phrase for my ongoing “Pongo un circo” segment. This is the part of the interview where we talk about a colloquial expression in Spanish. Teresa’s contribution is estar al loro. You’ll have to listen to the podcast to find out what it means. I’ll give you a hint…that colorful, bright-eyed dude in the photo has something to do with it.
Photo by tolis*. Used with permission.

Today’s episode of Spanish Pronunciation 101 is about Spanish consonant sounds that don’t come naturally to English speakers. Martín Ventola, our Spanish instructor from Buenos Aires, has written a detailed post on his blog about the subject but here is a summary of today’s topic:

There are five Spanish consonant sounds that sometimes throw a wrench into an English-speaker’s Spanish pronunciation. They are:

The b sound in words like voy, vamos, había.

The d sound in words like hada, ciudad.

The g sound in ego, agua, agujero.

The j sound, like in ajo, jota, reloj.

The “aspirated s” sound in mosca, espacio.

In this podcast you’ll hear me just refer to consonants but I really meant the consonant sounds.

Teresa Cordova, a coordinator for Middlebury College’s program in Spain, talks about the benefits and challenges of studying abroad. Teresa is from Puerto Rico and a graduate of Tufts University.

Cody’s Cuentos is my new podcast featuring children’s stories in Spanish. Cody, a mischievous, lovable puppy, serves as the mascot to this new program. Every month Cody and one of his human pals from Spain, Mexico or Argentina will present to you a well-told tale in Spanish. Spanish-speaking and bilingual families everywhere can now introduce to their children classic fairytales of the Brothers Grimm, Hans Christian Andersen, Charles Perrault, among others.

You can read more about it here. In this episode, I introduce you to the podcast and give you a sample episode — Little Red Riding Hood in Spanish. The story is read by Megui Cabrera from Barcelona and you can find a complete transcript of the story here.

The first step to improving your Spanish pronunciation is to isolate and eliminate the sounds from your native language (in my case, English) that don’t exist in Spanish.

In this podcast Martín Ventola talks at length about some of these sounds from English that interfere in pronouncing Spanish correctly. You can get more details here.

Era un tipo guapo Santonni. Siempre con jeans y zapatillas blancas percudidas. Y siempre con esa mirada ausente, introspectivas, que tienes los ojos que no son verdes, ni azules, ni grises, sino una mezcla de los tres, esos ojos que miran hacia adentro como escudriñando el alma para reporcharle al mundo y a su madre el haber nacido vivo; y tenía también un rostro que había perduado en el tiempo, que se había quedado viajando de la juventud a la madurez sin llegar a ninguna parte sino sólo sobrevolando. En él guardaba el secreto por el que en el metro de Londres se le quedaban mirando, hombres y mujeres por igual, detenidos en esa cara suya de ángel o de actor. Irradiaba una templanza extraña que yo asociaba con la piedad. Como si hubiera ido y vuelto ya de muchos lados. Como si aquella convalecencia en la que yo le veía fuera más su estado natural. Creo que todo eso sentí la noche en que Silvestre nos quiso atacar.

More…

Juan Manuel Villalobos, a writer and journalist from Mexico City, talks about his novel, “La vida frágil de Annette Blanche.” Click here for more details.

Today’s podcast is an introduction to a series of podcasts I plan to do with Martin Ventola, a Spanish teacher from Buenos Aires, Argentina. Martin has studied English phonetics, so that background, combined with his experience teaching Spanish to extranjeros in Buenos Aires, makes him the ideal guide for those of us who want to improve our Spanish pronunciation.

In this introductory episode, Martin talks about some of the differences between English and Spanish pronunciation, introduces us to the “base of articulación” and tells us the reason why we could all learn something by watching the performance of U.S. actor Jack Black in the movie Nacho Libre. Yeah, no kidding!

Martin and I are going to keep these podcasts short but packed with practical information. Whenever possible, Martin will include some simple exercises we can do on our own to get rid of or at least minimize our gringo accents.

Please leave your comments and suggestions and tell us what you think. Also, be sure to check out Martin’s blog (spanishpronunciation101.com) for more information on this topic.