Voices en Español

Take a quick tour of one of Spain’s most historic and fascinating regions without leaving home. Listen to this week’s podcast to learn more about the famous andaluz accent.

Here’s some video of the places mentioned in the podcast.
La mezquita de Córdoba

I don’t know who the two men are in this video but I picked it because it has a lot of good shots of people wearing traditional clothing (women in flamenco dresses and men wearing “trajes cortos”) during the Feria de abril in Sevilla.

I’ve never met Dr. Molly Martin in person but I consider her a kindred spirit since we  share a passion for the Spanish language. We also both have a strong desire to share our knowledge with other people.

Dr. Martin is a podcasting pioneer. She was the first person to ever do an instructional Spanish language podcast for healthcare professionals and she has had one of the longest-running podcasts out there focused on Spanish grammar.

Here is a Q&A I did recently with Molly about her instructional Spanish language programs:

What prompted you to start the Medical Spanish Podcast?

Actually many things. My dad introduced me to podcasts during my Internal Medicine residency, and I found they were a great way to study medicine. I would listen to them while exercising and commuting. And then I discovered Spanish podcasts! My favorites are those that present everyday conversational Spanish and are interactive. When I saw there were no medical Spanish podcasts I decided to create my own using this format.

What is the format of the podcast?

As an Internal Medicine doctor, taking a good clinical history is key to providing quality care. So most topics we cover are based on a dialogue between a health professional and a patient. In writing these dialogues, I make sure to include the key questions you should ask when presented with a particular health concern.  All the dialogues are written and recorded with native Spanish speakers. And each dialogue is accompanied by a series of interactive exercises, which make up our Premium Podcast Series. The interactive exercises, are like audio flashcards, with spaces for the listener to translate the key vocabulary and key phrases from the dialogue. During these translation exercises, I try to explain the more tricky grammatical constructs using examples. I also plan to do more interviews pertaining to books, organizations and classes, of interest to those learning medical Spanish.

What level of Spanish does one need to have to benefit from the podcast? Currently, most of our lessons are for the intermediate to advanced Spanish speaker, but I’m in the process of developing more lessons for the beginner. At our website, I’ve included a notation next to each series denoting its level.

Is the podcast for doctors and nurses only?

Nope. Anyone who loves Spanish and wants to expand their medical vocabulary and speaking skills can benefit from this podcast. I think the best thing about them is that they are based on conversations and include interactive exercises so they really get you speaking and using your Spanish. Health is a common subject in everyday conversation, and the podcast focuses on the Spanish used with the patient, not the technical language of medical professionals.

How would you recommend people incorporate the podcast into a Spanish learning program?

I made the podcasts as a fun way to practice your spoken Spanish while commuting or exercising. They’re a great way to get yourself talking in Spanish when you’re amongst non-Spanish speakers.

How frequently are episodes released?

I publish a new episode for the free podcast at least every 2 weeks. And we will be putting together at least 10 Premium Podcast Series per year. Each series will focus on a topic introduced in the free podcast.

You recently redesigned and relaunched your web site. What are some of the major changes?

I’m really excited about this, as I think it will allow me to keep the Medical Spanish Podcast going strong! The new site gives gives the user the option to subscribe to Premium Podcast Series. I wanted to keep everything simple and automatic, while at the same time versatile. Once you create an account you are given a personal podcast feed. When you purchase one of our Premium Podcast Series, it automatically downloads to your computer through iTunes or another feed reader of your choice. We also have an annual subscription option, where you automatically receive every Premium Podcast Series we make.  Some other added features of the new site, is that now the show notes are viewable on your iPhone, in addition to your iPod and iPad. And now the podcasts are organized into categories making it easy to find what you want. Soon we will be adding quizzes.

Do you have a favorite episode or series of episodes?

Well we just started collaborating with Language Tailor, an online Spanish school, so I think the most recent series on Chest Pain and Asthma are the best indication of what to expect from future series.

You also have a Spanish Grammar podcast. Can you tell us a little about that podcast?

That was actually my first podcast, and it was the grammar group you and Michael Ray Lovett started over Skype that inspired the first episodes. I use this podcast to practice advanced grammatical concepts, and I’ve learned a lot during the process of writing it. I go over all the episodes with a native Spanish speaker. Instead of lengthy explanations, I use examples to demonstrate grammatical concepts. I started using this same technique to explain grammar in the Medial Spanish Podcast. I try to publish about one Spanish Grammar Podcast episode per month.

Molly’s website: Medical Spanish Podcast.com. You can also find her on Facebook and Twitter.

La nueva gramática de la lengua española is a bestseller. Since going on sale a little over three months ago, the publisher has already sold more than 60,000 copies. La Real Academia Española, which took more than a decade to compile the work, said the number of books sold so far have surpassed its expectations.

It’s an impressive achievement, especially when you consider the book’s size (close to 4,000 pages) and it’s price (120€ / $168). Obviously there is an untapped need for such a book.

Two other editions, smaller in size, will be available later this year. Listen to this week’s podcast “La nueva gramática española de la A a la Z” for some of the odd items listed in the two-volume set.

Tourism is one of the most important industries in Spain injecting billions of euros in revenue into its economy. Approximately 58 million foreigners visit Spain each year, making the country the third-most popular tourist destination in the world after France and the United States. However, in recent years the tourism sector has been hit hard by the global recession.

It’s been a long time since Turespaña, Spain’s tourism board, has come up with a new advertising slogan. With the industry in a collective slump, this year is considered a good a time to start reminding the world that Spain remains an ideal tourist destination.

Its classic marketing phrase created back in the 1960s,( “Spain is Different”), was officially retired long ago. However, it remains an iconic phrase that people still use to this day.

The new slogan, which was announced last month, is “Necesito España. (I need Spain).” When I first heard of this marketing campaign I was excited to see the ads, but I was a little disappointed once I saw them.

The ads look great but something is…missing. The commercials are about the foreign traveler’s experience in Spain but two of the four ads seem kind of generic in terms of imagery. You don’t come away with a strong sense of the distinctive personality of the people and the culture of Spain. It’s all rather safe and bland.

And I think I know a possible reason why. The ad agency behind the campaign is McKann Erickson, a U.S. advertising firm, famous for many big ad campaigns and well-known ad slogans. But perhaps it would’ve been better if Turespaña had gone with a homegrown “Made in Spain” ad agency to get a more unique flavor to the ads.

The first ad of a young family on a beach vacation looks like they could be in Florida. Yes, there are brief shots of La Ciudad de las Artes y las Ciencias in Valencia, a dish of paella and of a volcano on the Canary Islands, but the overall imagery isn’t distinctive enough.

With the exception of a few shots, there is little one-on-one interaction between tourists and Spaniards. (Although the very brief clip of the two old Spaniards giving the family conflicting directions by pointing in opposite directions made me laugh. Blink and you’ll miss it.) The foreigners are having fun but in a bubble where they don’t need to rub elbows with the natives.

The second spot, the one with the three young friends, works because it does represent what pretty well what a young single person’s vacation would be like in Spain. Also, I appreciate that the female in the group looks like she could be Spanish. It appears that the two guys are foreign friends who have come to visit, perhaps not for the first time because the closing line is “necesito volver a España.”

But the best commercial, in my opinion, is the last one with the Asian couple because it gives a good sense of place, mixing images of narrow streets with famous monuments and beautiful landscapes. It’s romantic, dreamy and glamorous and I feel like I’m in Spain when I see that particular spot.

But I think my biggest problem with the ads is that they’re all in Spanish. Comments on YouTube from Spaniards are uniformly positive about the ads. But they’re not the target audience. Turespaña claims that the target audience for this ad campaign is an international one, residing outside of Spain. They specifically wish to increase the number of visitors from Asia and North America.

However, it’s been a little over a month since they announced the campaign and they still haven’t released any versions of the commercials in English or any other language. There’s no info on their website as to when they will launch the campaign in English and what other languages will be included. C’mon Turespaña, that’s Marketing 101: Know your audience and cater to it.

To those of you have been to Spain or live in Spain, what do you think of these ads? Do they effectively capture what it’s like? And to those of you who have never been to Spain, do these ads make you want to pack your bags and come for a visit? Tell me what you think in the comments below.

If learning Spanish (or improving your level) was on your list of 2010 resolutions and you haven’t made much progress in that area, it’s not too late to get back on track.

Luis & Joan Rojas of La Casa Rojas are releasing free video Spanish lessons weekdays covering everything, from Spanish phonetics to Spanish grammar and idiomatic expressions. They explain:

“Here’s how it works. Each day, Monday through Friday, we publish a new Spanish class in the format of a 10-minute video. Each class builds on the one of the day before. We ask you to do some stuff on your own and if you follow along with us, by December 31, 2010, you will have made new friends, expanded your knowledge of your world and probably be planning a trip to some great Spanish speaking local, just to show off a little.”

They have already posted more than 50 videos on their web site but if you already know some Spanish you can take an a la carte approach and pick and choose the topics that are of most interest to you.

Day 50 Spanish Video Journal: An introduction to Indirect Object from Luis Rojas on Vimeo.

As many of you already know, I’ve been posting podcasts of short stories read by different bloggers. In the past two weeks there have been six different episodes published. The initial reception and reaction from listeners has been positive. So imagine my surprise to see the number of subscribers to the podcast dramatically drop last week.

Could there be that many people who were turned off by the short stories that they then took the extra step of canceling the subscription? A handful of people, sure. But hundreds? It didn’t make sense.

Then I remembered….iTunes will suspend a podcast subscription when the user hasn’t listened to any recent episodes. The magic number appears to be 5. If you have five or more unplayed episodes of a podcast on your computer, iTunes automatically stops downloading new episodes. The way to reactivate the podcast is to click on the exclamation mark next to the podcast name and manually inform iTunes that you wish to resume your subscription.

Since there have been six new podcasts issued in the past two weeks, it makes sense that  there might be a drop in the number of subscribers who appeared to have unsubscribed.  Actually, they probably haven’t. They’re just not listening.

I know that some people like to build up a bank of podcasts, especially when the episodes are short, and then listen to them all in one go. Here’s a solution: Whenever a new episode downloads to your iTunes account, go ahead and just click on it. You don’t actually have to listen to the entire episode at that time. Having the podcast play for even two seconds counts as a “partial play” and makes the iTunes software believe that you’ve listened to part of the podcast. Listening = Acknowledgement = Interest, which means your subscription stays current and future episodes will continue to download automatically.

By the way, if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast and would like to, click here to subscribe through iTunes or here to subscribe via Google Reader. Both options are free and you can cancel at any time with no further obligation.

Podcast: Download

1. Something interesting in your local culture, local slang, or an interesting place in your city or country

2. Your favorite…book, movie, hobby…(you decide)

Members of the Lenguajero community will vote for their favorite audiocasts, and the two winners (one English speaker and one Spanish speaker) will each receive a $75 USD gift card to the winners choice of Amazon.com, iTunes, or Mercado Libre, as well as several fanastic language learning programs. Voices en Español is one of the sponsors, so the winners can get a free packet of Cody’s Cuentos story transcripts, if they’d like.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Benny Lewis, multilingual blogger, translator and globetrotter, is the reader of “La partida,” today’s microcuento. Benny es un crack con los idiomas. (Un crack is Spanish slang for saying that somebody excels at something.) Benny excels at speaking foreign languages and his enthusiasm and passion for learning new languages is inspiring.

Check out his blog Fluent in 3 Months, which he frequently updates with creative ways to stay motivated and focused when learning a foreign language.

Unfortunately, the story I selected for Benny was truly a minicuento, so it didn’t give him much of a showcase to speak Spanish. To make up for that, I’m posting a humorous but very practical travel video in Spanish he did for his other blog, Irish Polyglot, explaining how to pack light for a trip.

For the next month, Voices en Español will be podcasting a series of very short stories in Spanish. The readers are an international line-up of voices, (both native and non-native Spanish speakers), from Canada, Colombia, Holland, India, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, Spain and the U.S.

I wanted to showcase the variety of accents that exist among Spanish speakers, although I’ll tell you upfront that what I will be podcasting is just a very small sample of the diversity that exists en el mundo hispanohablante. (By the way, if anyone out there with an Argentine, Cuban, Dominican or Puerto Rican accent reads this and would like to participate in a future podcast, please email me.)

There will be at least 12 different stories podcast during the next four weeks, so if you haven’t subscribed to the podcast via iTunes or via Google Reader, now is the time to do so. The complete texts of each cuento will also be posted on this web site. In some episodes, there will be music and you just need to check that epsiode’s “show notes” on this blog for the name and link to the singer or musical group.

First in the lineup is Cristina from Barcelona, Spain reading “Instrucciones para llorar” by Julio Cortázar. Enjoy!