Voices en Español

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.

“Remember that we’re in the U.S.,” Dante Celestino is told by his friends and neighbors when his daughter Emmita runs away.

Dante had told Emmita to date only respectable, Spanish-speaking boys but she doesn’t listen to him and runs away from home in the middle of her quinceañera. To make matters worse, Dante is living in the U.S. illegally, making it impossible for him to report his daughter’s disappearance to the police.

So begins Dante’s journey. Accompanied by a donkey named Virgilio and the voice of his dead wife, Beatriz, Dante heads to Las Vegas, where Emmita’s boyfriend, or kidnapper, as Dante considers him, supposedly lives.

Arte Público Press, the publisher of the book, has graciously granted me 5 autographed copies of the book. I’d like to share these books with you. So, the first 5 Voices en Español listeners who sign-up for my email newsletter AND leave a comment on this blog will get the book. (If you have already signed up for the email newsletter, you are still eligible to get the book. Just be sure to leave a comment on the blog.) The only requirement is that you live in the U.S. and that you post your comment under a valid email address that you check frequently so that I can contact you privately to get your mailing address. Due to shipping costs, books will only be mailed to addresses in the U.S. Update: As of Feb. 21, all the gift copies of the book are now gone. However, you can buy the book directly from Amazon through the link below.

Here is an excerpt from the novel El corrido de Dante by Eduardo González Viaña.

More…

Interview with Eduardo González Viaña, author of El corrido de Dante. Eduardo is from Peru and in this podcast he talks about the inspiration of this book and the current situation of some Hispanic immigrants in the United States.

Porque el mate no es solamente una bebida
by Javier Luis Guastavino (Read by Dolly from Uruguay)

El mate no es una bebida. Bueno, sí. Es un líquido y entra por la boca. Pero no es una bebida.

En este país nadie toma mate porque tenga sed. Es más bien una costumbre, como rascarse.

El mate provoca exactamente lo contrario que la televisión: te hace conversar si estás con alguien y te hace pensar cuando estás solo.

Cuando llega alguien a tu casa, la primera frase es “hola” y la segunda “¿unos mates?”

More…

In this Spanish podcast, Gabriel Guillén tells us all about Blogs Exchange, a new web site that helps native Spanish and English speakers improve their respective second languages through blogging.

It’s easy. First you create a blog on the Blogs Exchange platform, then you start posting in the language you need help with. The site will assign you a learning buddy who will give you feedback. You can also give them feedback on their postings as well.

Listen to the podcast to hear Gabi describe how it works.

Blogs Exchange: www.blogs-exchange.com

In today’s podcast I introduce you to The Mixxer, a language exchange web site. If you’ve never done an intercambio (a language exchange) I highly recommend it. It’s an easy way to meet native Spanish speakers eager to help you with your Spanish. In exchange you agree to help them with their English (or German, French, Chinese, etc., or whatever your native language may be.)

The Mixxer was created by Todd Bryant at Dickinson College. In this podcast, Todd talks about how the Mixxer came about and gives some tips on how to get the most out of the site. Interview is in English.

The Mixxer: www.language-exchanges.org

In today’s podcast, we hear from Kim Griffin, director of Middlebury College’s Spanish school in Spain. Middlebury is a U.S. college located in the state of Vermont. It offers both undergraduate and graduate programs in Spanish in Spain and in this interview Kim talks about the unique challenges of maintaining a language immersion environment away from Middlebury’s Vermont campus.

Kim, who grew up in an English-speaking household in upstate New York, today speaks Spanish like a native, but that wasn’t always so. She tells us about her experiences learning and eventually mastering the Spanish language.

In the second part of this Voices en Español interview, Javier Barros del Villar talks about the different styles of street art he found in Europe, specifically Austria, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

There’s a word that Javier uses frequently in this podcast. It’s cuate. And it means buddy, friend or dude.

Also, the names of the street artists mentioned in this podcast are:

Acamonchi
Fuera de servicio
Watchavato (Tijuana style)

Check out Javier’s blog (arte callejero) for more examples of street art in Mexico and from around the world.

Examples of street art above in Holland (”El agua es vida”) and below in France (“So Alone”)

Javier Barros del Villar from Mexico City talks about Arte Callejero, his Spanish-language blog. What started out as a hobby photographing images he saw on the streets of Mexico City, has now become the largest photographic archive of street art in Mexico.

In this podcast, Javier talks about the differences between street art and graffiti and also tells us about one work in particular by one of his digital cuates who goes by the clever name Aguafiestaz. It’s called me_miras.

This is part 1 of a two-part interview. A transcript will be available later this month.

Javier’s blog: http://arteycallejero.blogspot.com

Transcripts of the first six Voices interviews (Cantabria, La Política, the Voiceover Artist, Raising Bilingual Kids, Parts 1 and 2), are now available in the Voices store. Only podcasts conducted in Spanish have transcripts, so there will be no transcripts forthcoming for the Alison Mackey (Raising Bilingual Kids, Part 3) and Neil Hohmann (Ritmo Latino) interviews. Thanks and happy listening!