How to Study Spanish: Motivation to Study Spanish

Posted on July 16, 2016July 22, 2016 by admin

Studying is straightforward.

Welcome to another entry on how to study the Spanish language! We’ve just finished looking at the various methods we can employ in a study program spaced out over the course of a week. Click on this link to read the last entry (and the ones previous to that). In this chapter, we’re going to look at the issue of motivation to study Spanish.

It can be difficult to find motivation to study…

You may have been doing it a while and stalled. You may have never attempted. You might have even convinced yourself that it will never be an enjoyable prospect. But we need study to improve our Spanish! How do we get around this proverbial thorn?

The Basics of Approaching the Problem

Firstly, you have to come up with some semblance of a timetable or regimen and stick to it. You might have decided to allocate time to one-hour blocks, five times a week. You may have possibly made an agreement with yourself to study everyday for half an hour. It doesn’t really matter. What does matter though, is that you force yourself to sit down and actually do it.

Okay, so you just accept the road in front of you and sit down and do it, no questions asked? It seems like fair advice I suppose, but some people won’t find this enough to motivate them to study, and that’s also quite reasonable!

The Issue of Stress

Many people are hampered by stress. They stress about learning Spanish, and they find the idea of studying stressful, because they think studying itself is stressful. Notice how I said ‘think studying itself is stressful?’ That’s because studying is not really that stressful. People are more inclined to stress about stress, rather than the actual thing that they are stressing about. But once these people sit down and do said thing, they find that it’s actually no big deal. Here’s some food for thought:

“there is nothing to fear but fear itself” – Franklin D. Roosevelt at his inaugural speech.

“There is nothing to fear but fear itself”.

Is Spanish the real Enemy?

Some of you will be thinking ‘yeah right, easy for you to say. When I sit down to study, I don’t know where to start, and it’s frustrating because I can’t retain the information.’ It doesn’t have to be this way either. Instead of pummelling your mind with difficult-to-remember information, and making Spanish your enemy, bear in mind a few things:

Learning a language was difficult before you even decided to learn it. It has been, is, and always will be inherently challenging. So it’s best to forget that part, because it’s already a given reality that you can’t fight. You have chosen to take up learning a language, and it might be beneficial to instead see it as a hobby, and hobbies are supposed to be fun – they’re not tests. Which brings me to my next point.

We have to remember that the vast majority of us are not really being tested on any of this in a meaningful way (this might not be so applicable to university students and kids doing VCE or IB, but hey, the rest of the article has enough pointers to override this shortcoming!). Aside from the odd ‘test’ you might receive in your casual Spanish class, there are no real consequences for failing or not getting it right. There are, however, a million benefits for succeeding! Do I even need to list those? Therefore the only failure is not sitting down and having a go.

Are Long-term Goals really that useful?

While we’re on the topic of distancing ourselves for the idea that learning Spanish is somehow a test, this might be a good time to address the idea of goals. While it is good to have long-term goals, it could be advantageous to not see language acquisition entirely in this way. People spend years learning languages and they all end up at different places. There is no white line waiting for you at the end of your hard work many years from now. Bilingualism is not the Golden Fleece. It is a journey. Have your goals in the back of your mind, but don’t let them crush you before you get started, because there is so much fun to be had along the way…

Applying what we’ve learned…

So we know that Spanish is difficult, we have decided not to stress because it is all in our imagination, and we have resolved to not make the Spanish language our enemy. We’re also looking at Spanish as a hobby rather than an antagonist that wants to destroy us with its testing powers, or its suffocating goal-oriented centre. Furthermore, we’ve settled on having an honest go at the language, just for the hell of it! Now I hear you say “but it’s still going to be frustrating and hard, and I won’t be able to practically apply this information when I sit down to study.” Can’t you? I think you can.

We can bring together what we have discussed along with how we put pen to paper. Think of studying through the lens of a Taoist. The information on the paper, the grammar rule, and the audio exercise floating around somewhere in the ether are not going to kill you. Flow with the information that you read and write, and let it pass through you naturally, and in large volumes (i.e.: doing it everyday). Perhaps this is too abstract… Another way of looking at it is that you sometimes have to become mindless and carefree with your study, because remember, there is no stress, there is no enemy language, there is no test, requirement or need for learning this language, and there are no failures. Distance yourself from these ideas. Don’t think about all the negative and false implications about studying and learning. Instead, just do it. It’s actually simpler.

Bringing it all together practically…

Write out your verb tables a few times and just appreciate them for what they are. Forget everything else – just do them for the sake of doing them. If you get them wrong, forget it. Go and do something else Spanish-related and come back to them later. Remember…there is no stress. Listen to your audio exercises and enjoy the process of being involved with the learning process. If you don’t understand them, don’t worry. Go and do something else Spanish-related and come back to them in a couple of days. Think back…there is no enemy. Write out your compositions about your weekend activities because you like seeing new words, or making novel observations about the differences between English and Spanish. If you make a lot of mistakes or have to turn to the dictionary a million times, who cares? Remember…none of it matters. There is no exam, and there is no finish line – just you and a journey.

This doesn’t mean that you switch off when you study. The tasks you undertake will still be difficult at times, but as I have said, it is the idea of being difficult, or the idea of stress or failure which is more overpowering, but ultimately useless to the study process. Enjoy studying and absorb Spanish, its words, phrases and expressions and all the rest of it for what it is. Relish the volume, bathe in the hard work, and bask in the inevitable making of a million and one mistakes. None of it matters – it’s just you and a voyage through new ways of thinking and fresh insights…

Progress and Success will be yours

It is the process of switching off all the irrelevant ideas which ultimately leads to progress. Your involvement and engagement with the material, coupled with your relaxed attitude and a sense that this should be fun, with no consequences but positive ones, will result in success. Focusing on the journey will lead to the acquisition of new language skills over time. And here is the good part…

In becoming good at something, you will have developed a passion for it at the same time, because let’s face it – we tend to be passionate about the things we are good at.

Next week we will look at some of the day-to-day things you can do to incorporate Spanish into your life. Kind of like ‘studying without the work’!

¡Hasta la próxima!

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How to Study Spanish: Spanish Reading and Listening

Posted on July 8, 2016July 16, 2016 by admin

Spanish reading and listening

Welcome to the Travelling Koala ‘How to Study Spanish’ Series. This article deals with Spanish reading and listening. So far we’ve run with the attitude that many people should approach it with a regular, relatively fixed program and a dedication to sitting down (or standing up, I guess) and doing it. We’ve covered certain things which you should include in any good study program, and roughly divided them into daily ‘sessions’.

Spanish Reading and Listening

The last entry covered writing in Spanish at all costs, and how together with speaking Spanish it can form the basis of a good study program. In this chapter, we’re going to look at some of the other things that students think are the most valuable things of all when studying a language. While they’re great – and that’s why we’re going to look at them – we’re also going to explain why they might not be among the best ways to study Spanish.

We’ve covered the idea that if you speak and write, there must be some intense concentration going on. Writing your thoughts down or actively speaking to someone face to face, over Skype or over the phone forces you to think and engage with your subject matter or conversation partner. Unlike taking in information from a movie that you’re not understanding properly, or reading from a book you’re not interested in, there is no zoning-out when you write down your thoughts on paper, and there is less likeliness to zone-out when you are engaging in conversation (unless the person is boring). The blog entry on speaking looks at active learning in more detail.

Speaking with people is particularly effective, because not only are you forced to quickly come up with ideas and thoughts which you then transform into words, but you are forced to interpret what your partner is saying – your entire line of conversation depends on it. Speaking therefore equals better speaking skills in addition to better listening skills. But this doesn’t mean that things like reading and listening on their own won’t be useful to some degree.

Reading in Spanish

This is probably the best of the two things we are going to cover. While reading is no substitute for speaking and writing in a Spanish study program, opening a book or gazing at the screen still has its place. Reading still forces you to engage with your subject matter to some extent, although you will probably have to read quite often and in large volumes in order to retain anything. Reading short, easy-to-read texts which you find interesting are a good place to start.

Suggestions for Reading Resources

Comprehension books with short texts or stories are valuable. These often have questions at the end of each chapter to test your knowledge on the texts. Easy Spanish Reader by William Thomas Tardy is a great beginner and intermediate book to track down. It sometimes comes with a CD.

Dual language books are great as well. These are books which generally tend to be collections of short stories or comprise of a single novel which are published with the Spanish-learner in mind. There are numerous online shops where you can find these sorts of books, and they will often have the level written on them to guide the student.

Watch Spanish language films with the subtitles on…..in Spanish! You can actually pick up a lot from doing this.

Social media is another option. Join pages that interest you on platforms such as Facebook. Try to fill your news feed with things like jokes or memes in Spanish.

If you’re a news junkie, then read the paper! A lot of the local Spanish rags in Melbourne aren’t that good, but BBC Mundo (http://www.bbc.com/mundo ) is quite good. Surf the internet and see what you can find.

Watching films and television series with the subtitles on can be very helpful.

So what sorts of tips and approaches should you incorporate into reading in Spanish?

Now the following is what you should consider first and foremost – and it’s the point that most people overlook. There is nothing worse than reading something in English that bores you to tears, let alone something that has you going to the dictionary every thirty seconds, so make sure you read something interesting and pitched at your level.

however, while a novel may seem daunting, the advantage of reading a novel is that the author is likely to use the same words over and over again, which is great for reinforcement, and is a major plus point considering that coming across too may new words, and too often can be a bit of a deterrent. I guess you have to use personal judgement as far as weighing up novels and short stories is concerned.

while on the topic of looking up new words, you will definitely have to run this gauntlet. While many texts designed for students come with vocabulary lists foot-noted or written in a side-box, looking up lots of new words comes with the territory of reading in a new language. Study with a good dictionary by your side. There is a post on dictionaries and other books in this link.

you should probably use a combination of figuring meanings out by context, while not shying away from looking up new words, especially those that appear frequently throughout the text.

As mentioned, this can become tedious after a while. If you find you’re looking up too many words (more than two per sentence) then the text might be too difficult for you.

Write down new things that you learn. This is especially true when watching a film with the Spanish subtitles on, because once the next scene is on-screen, that great new expression that you just learned has gone with it, and you’re unlikely to look it up later!

For those really up for it, it is often quite useful to translate texts from Spanish to English – if you have the patience!

Listening to Spanish

Passively listening to something like a podcast or a movie might seem like a great and fun way to learn Spanish, but there’s nothing that will really help you retain large clumps of words or sentences unless you are actively engaging with them. Still, it doesn’t hurt to throw on a Spanish language movie or two.

Suggestions for Listening Resources

Podcasts can be of some value and a lot of them are fun. Studyspanish.com has a podcast, as do many other sites. A little bit of trial and error, combined with selecting what piques your interest will result in the discovery of a few gems out there.

Films are also of value to the student of Spanish. You could watch Spanish language films with or without the subtitles (or with the subtitles in Spanish), or you could even watch films dubbed into Spanish (some of these are hilarious!). Have a look at this entry for a list of Spanish language films.

There are quite a lot of books which come with CDs, online and other resources which are based around listening. A lot of these are interactive as well. Make sure you take advantage of these audio exercises if you have any books which come with additional resources. A couple of good ones are the Nuevo Ven series, as well as the previously-mentioned Easy Spanish Reader (just check to make sure they come with CDs if this is what you’re after).

A really good resource for those who want to read and listen to Spanish.

So what sorts of tips and approaches should you incorporate into listening to Spanish?

Don’t pick something that is going to frustrate you. A lot of presenters on news programs speak very quickly, and this can be discouraging. Remember: listening to the news or sitting back and listening to anything for that matter is not going to dramatically improve your Spanish. Speaking and writing are best for that. Think of the above resources as a mark to gauge where you are. So if you have no idea what is going on when you listen to things in Spanish, just chill out, have a laugh, or find something more easy-going.

Listen for key words and expressions to put things into context. This might seem obvious, but it’s important not to be discouraged because you’re not understanding every word. We don’t do this when we listen to English either…

There is a concept in Spanish called enlace, or encadenamiento. Google these terms and get roughly familiar with them. It might change the way you think about listening to Spanish.

Write down expressions and words that you would like to remember or which you think might be useful for a later conversation. This brings the writing component back into the equation, and we all know how important writing is….

Next Time…

Thanks for reading this exploration into Spanish reading and listening. The whole purpose of the last few entries on studying Spanish has been based around creating a study plan. Now that we’ve covered the bases for a decent weekly plan, please don’t forget to backtrack and follow the links in this article, or do a search for ‘study Spanish’ on the webpage. So I guess that means we’re done right? Nope. Next time around, we will have a look at some of the other things you can do to incorporate language-learning into the agenda, namely getting motivated!

¡Nos vemos!

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Salsa & Latin Music in Melbourne: The Great 90’s Latin Music Scene in Melbourne

Posted on July 1, 2016July 1, 2016 by admin

Welcome to another Episode of a look at the Latin Music Scene in Melbourne

Latin music or Salsa? It’s all the same thing, isn’t it?

We’ve been looking at the origins Melbourne’s Latin music, with a focus on Salsa, and now it’s time to look right at the greatness of the Latin music scene in Melbourne. The last entry focussed on the way that Australia embraced multiculturalism in the late 80s and early 90s, and the way that the country embraced the ‘world music’ boom, in which Salsa was tied up. You can read about it here. In fact in many ways, Salsa had become an umbrella term for a number of different Latin styles. In this blog entry we’re going to have a look at the people who were behind the scenes. Who were these new musicians? Were they all Latino? How was this new music overall embraced by the Australian public? We’ll also look at Latin music as big corporate business and the ways that this played out in Australia with Groups such as Buena Vista Social Club.

Who actually were these Latinos?

A sizeable number of Italians and Greeks, who many people saw as having felt a particular affiliation with Latin music, became a large factor in the development of the Latin music scene, not only as patrons, but as salsa group members.[1] It is also noteworthy that Combo la Revelación was formed by Jorge Aguilar, who was not of Caribbean origin, but rather Peruvian, and the band, like many others at the time, played an eclectic mix of styles such as merengue and cumbia. Furthermore, the songs in the repertoires of such bands tended to be covers of classic salsa and Latin popular songs, rather than originally written pieces.

It could be said then, that in a certain way, many Latinos, and people who identified as being Latinos, who took up dancing and playing salsa and Latin music, were the result of an emerging and in-demand salsa scene, rather than the reason for it, as was the case in New York City. This mixture of Latino and non-Latino patrons and performers, in their various socio-cultural configurations, immersed in and shaping an eclectic mix of tropical Latin music, would set the precedent for the way the scene would unfold in the years to come.

The Rise of World Music

The broad understanding of non-western or ‘world music’ had fully entered the Australian consciousness around the beginning of the 1990s, and it was to have a lasting resonance. Bubacar Diop, of Senegalese world music group Bu-baca spoke of the way that this non-western music had been embraced by countless people.[2] Diop further spoke of the absence of problems, in spite of warnings of racist Australians who would pose a hindrance to his band’s shows, an occurrence that was all-too-common in places such as Paris, another city with a thriving world music scene. In fact, Bu-baca had received nothing but overwhelmingly positive responses, and their concerts from 1992 to 1995 consistently drew huge crowds.[3]

As the decade unfolded, much of the Australian public also continually demonstrated its readiness to move in a direction of cultural plurality with regards to popular music. The Music Hive Festival, promoted as being a multicultural event for all to attend, took place at the Footscray Community Arts Centre in 1994.[4] On the third of August, 1995, The Age newspaper published an article on the forthcoming Latin Stars Festival, and its featured dance group, Orquesta del Barrio, which was renowned for its Cuban-Puerto Rican salsa on the nightclub circuit. The article wrote:

‘…Orquesta del Barrio, which plies the Johnston Street nightclub circuit with its Cuban Puerto Rican salsa, is a good example of the multiculturalism Latin Stars celebrates. The rhythm section is mostly Chilean, the lead-singer is Peruvian, the horn section includes Australians, a Scot and a Russian.[5]

Melbourne’s Great Latin Music Scene…

By the middle of the week preceding the event, over 1,500 tickets had been sold. In addition to Orquesta del Barrio, Los Rumberos, who had by now transformed their image into an Afro-Cuban styled group, stylistically diverse groups Combo la Revelación, Espíritu Latino and Cacique, as well as the merengue group Furia, were among those that performed at the enormous gathering that year.[6]

Latin music, increasingly engaged in the musical experimentation of the era, had truly become a globalised phenomenon by this stage, experiencing commercial success in countries such as the United States.[7] Justo Díaz of Papalote had also observed that Latin music in Australia had flowered from a small-scale scene, frequented by an elitist ‘trendy’ type-crowd, into to a vibrant scene embraced by many of Australia’s music-loving public.[8] Clubs such as Bar Bakka and Copacabana opened their doors in Collingwood, and the Stage and Bolero began operating in the adjacent suburb of Fitzroy. These well-organised and comparatively commercial clubs marked the arrival of a scene unlike that of the one headed by places such as Café Clicquot, the Carlton Club, and Rosatti’s.[9]

The Bullring…

In 1994, a club known as the Bullring opened in Fitzroy. Containing the Spanish quarter of the city in the Iberian sense of the word, Fitzroy had been home to a developing Spanish music scene, with Flamenco events regularly taking place.[10] This direction was to change, however, when the owner, who had recently bought the venue, decided to convert it into a beacon for the new Latin American music scene. The Bullring fostered Melbourne’s Latin American culture throughout its blossoming years, and the nightclub subsequently became a Melbourne landmark, with its wrought iron Spanish-style gates, neon sign, its enormous gigantic wooden eye which spanned the staircase, along with its numerous mounted wooden bulls’ heads.[11] The Bullring also gained somewhat of an international reputation, with Chilean sailors frequently heading in the direction of Fitzroy after disembarking from their voyages.[12]

The Night Cat in Fitzroy. Credit: http://melbournepubguide.tripod.com/

Another venue which also developed into an institution was the Night Cat, which had opened in Fitzroy the following year. Los Cabrones, a fourteen piece Afro-Cuban band, began to play on Sunday nights to a capacity crowd in 1998, and they have not stopped performing since.[13] From the mid 1990s onwards, these venues and countless others were hosts to a circulation of regular local as well as international live acts. Located in the same geographical area, these places formed the backbone of a vibrant live music scene which lasted from the middle of the 1990s, up until recently.[14]

Melbourne’s Latin Dance Schools

With Latin music taking hold, and the establishment of a live music scene, the mid-1990s marked the rise of the now ubiquitous Latin dance school.[15] The Bullring and the Night Cat, merely two among many other venues, actively catered to the tastes of their generally non-Latino clientele by offering dance lessons. In fact, the classes were often taught by dance instructors heralding from anywhere but Latin America, a trend which kept in tune with the diverse socio-cultural makeup of the scene.[16]

The Bull Ring in the 90s. Anyone know what stands there now? Credit: http://melbournepubguide.tripod.com/

The Bullring had seen hundreds of students learning to dance on a weekly basis, and at its highest point, the dance floor could be seen with up to five hundred people learning to dance such styles as salsa and merengue.[17]

Latin Music and the Worldwide Boom

The late 1990s brought yet another phase in the development of the Latin music scene. Melbourne’s rising numbers of Latin American immigrants contributed to the scene’s ongoing growth, yet if the corporate developments of the late 1980s had caused a tremble in the music scene, the late 1990s would cause an earthquake.

The release and enormous success of German film maker Wim Wenders’ Buena Vista Social Club, a documentary which chronicled the reuniting and the return to the stage of several retired Cuban son artists had a huge impact. Around the same time as the film’s release, successful international Latin popular music artists who incorporated salsa music into their performances, such as Ricky Martin and Jennifer López, had begun to appear. Progressions such

J- Lo in the 90s.

as these could be seen as part of an extension of the era marked by the emergence of the world music and non-western music scenes, insofar as these artists emanated from western countries, in this case, the United States. Martin, a Puerto Rican, had signed a contract with Sony, and López, a U.S.-born Puerto Rican, was reported to have a net value of thirty million U.S. dollars by the end of 2000.[18]

The worldwide boom in Latin music, erected on a massive Spanish speaking audience, had become a lucrative business, and consumption of all things Latin hit unprecedented levels in Australia during the following years.[19] Aside from the high record sales achieved by Latin popular music stars, salsa classes in one school in Perth, predominantly attended by non-Latinos, trebled from

Buena Vista Social Club: a phenomenon.

40 to 120 people within the space of one year.[20]

That concludes our exploration of Melbourne’s 90’s Latin music scene. Next time we’ll venture out of the 90s and have a look at where Latin music ended up during the beginning of the Millennium.

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Hispanic Culture & Language: Ordering Food in Spanish

Posted on June 27, 2016June 28, 2016 by admin

Be careful of what you ask for in Spanish…

Welcome to the final chapter on food in the Hispanic world. We’ve covered the history of Hispanic foods, from their journey from Latin America to Spain, and vice versa. We’ve explored street food around the globe and reflected on rituals and customs from the everyday to the religious and sacred. Now it’s time to address the issue of ordering food in Spanish!

Getting Started: an Approach on how to order food in Spanish

It seems that there are a heaps of pages dealing with how to order food in Spanish. We’re only going to cover the basics, but we’re also going to add a few details that you might not find on other pages.

It would be very time consuming (and quite boring) to dissect each and every country according to the types of food-ordering expressions they have, so we’re going to do something different. Take a look at the below table which covers a generic overview of the sorts of expressions you might be likely to hear in the Spanish-speaking world when you go out and order food. There are going to be all sorts of minor differences over the Hispanic globe, whether it’s the preference of one word over another, or even the manner in which you ask for things. There are far too many differences to take them all into consideration, but what we can do is work some of the key differences into the equation. All of the examples are written in first and second person, and could refer any number of different situations in restaurants, markets and food stands.

Ordering Food in Spanish

Greetings
buenos días/tardes/noches bienvenido/a	good/morning/afternoon/night welcome
¿quiere Ud. una mesa al lado de una ventana?	do you want a table next to a window?
¿afuera o adentro?	outside or inside?
¿en la terraza o adentro?	outside or inside? (when the restaurant has a terrace or garden)
¿tiene Ud. una reservación?	do you have a reservation?
tome un asiento por favor /siéntese por favor	take a seat please.

Ordering
me trae la carta, ¿por favor?	can you bring me the menu please?
¿algo para comer/para tomar?	something to eat/drink?
¿qué desea?	what do you want?
¿qué le traigo?	what can I bring you?
¿qué me recomienda Ud.?	what do you recommend?
recomiendo…	I recommend
¿me da un poco más de tiempo por favor?	can I have some more time please?
¿qué va a pedir Ud.?	what are you going to order?
como plato principal, quiero…	for the main dish, I want…
como postre, quiero…	for dessert, I want…
como entrada, quiero…	for entrée, I want…
quisiera un/a…	I would like a…
me trae un/a	can you bring me
me da un/a… por favor.	can I have … please.
para mí, un/a… por favor.	for me, a…please
¡buen provecho!	bon appétit!

Miscellaneous
soy alérgico/a a	I’m allergic to…
soy vegetariano/a	I’m vegetarian
¿qué trae este plato?	what does this dish have in it?
poco hecho	rare
al punto	medium rare
bien cocido	well done

Finishing up
¿cómo estuvo la comida?	how was the meal?
¡muy rica /deliciosa!	very nice /delicious!
¿podemos pagar por separado?	can we pay separately?
la cuenta, por favor.	the bill, please…
¡muchas gracias!	thanks a lot!
hasta luego /buenas noches	see you later /good night

Differences between English and Spanish

In Spanish, the expression which is best translated from ‘can I have’, me da, translates literally into ‘you are giving me’. ‘What’s this?’ you say, I mean, who goes into a restaurant or stands in front of a food stand and says “you are giving me a beer…..please”? Rest assured, this is fine in the Spanish-speaking world. In fact, if you use the direct English to Spanish translation of ‘can I have’, which is puedo tener, you will sound ridiculous! Puedo tener sounds like you want to have something in your possession. What does that imply? I don’t know…. your guess is as good as mine.

The other expression which might sound odd to an English-speaker’s ears is me trae (literally, ‘you are bringing me’). You’re bringing me? Really? Yep! That’s the way it is, and it sounds absolutely fine, so go ahead and say it as much as you want. Within reason, or course.

Out and about doing the shopping.

Some Differences between Hispanic Countries

While ¿qué le traigo? (what can I bring you?) is a commonly understood expression when ordering food, you might hear a Spanish waitress or waiter say ¿qué le pongo? (what can I put you?), to which one’s response would be: me pone un/a… (you are putting me a…..). Now if me trae un/a… (you are bringing me a…) sounds weird to English ears, me pone un/a… (you are putting me a…) sounds odd even to other Spanish speakers living outside of Spain.

The Colombians have a novel way of ordering food. They don’t ask you to bring it, no, they request that you give it to them for free. Yep, you heard right. The expression me regala un/a is made up of the verb regalar (to give a gift), thus seemingly indicating that the person ordering the food would like you to give them the food as a gift. At least that’s how it sounds outside of Colombia. Another uniquely Colombian expression is a la orden (at your command), which is used as a stand-in for the ubiquitous Spanish language phrase no hay de qué (that’s no problem) or de nada (you’re welcome). Where did this come from? Not sure, but it might be a left-over from colonial Spanish which now sounds outdated in many parts of the Hispanic world.

In certain countries – Argentina springs to mind – the expression me da (‘can I have,’ or literally ‘you are giving me’) appears to be not quite direct enough. It is not uncommon to hear dame (give me), followed by the words por favor (please).

What about the names of the food themselves? There is one particular food that comes to mind, which might cause a bit of confusion or amusement when asked for in Cuba. That word is papaya, which in non-Cuban Spanish means ‘paw-paw’. A pretty innocuous thing to ask for for right? Well that depends on when, where and how you’re ordering it. The word papaya is the slang word used in Cuba for the female genitalia, so how have the Cubans gotten around this interesting difference? ‘Paw-paw’ is known as la fruta bomba (the bomb fruit) in Cuba. I love it!

Churros in Spain.

As with all cases of learning expressions and vocabulary in a new language, it’s probably advisable to keep it quite neutral and basic before getting adventurous. If you have a very good grasp of the language and have been living in a particular region for some time, sure, go crazy with the ‘GIVE MEs’. Do as the locals do, but when in doubt, order using what you know best.

That concludes our entry on how to order food in Spanish and our journey into food in Spain and Latin America. Stay tuned for more articles. This is our passion, and there are an almost infinite number of topics out there! Until next time…

¡Adios!

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Hispanic Culture & Language: Food Customs in the Hispanic World

Posted on June 23, 2016June 27, 2016 by admin

Siesta time!

Food Customs in the Hispanic World

Everyday food in the Hispanic world

So here we go with the third of a four-part look at food in the Hispanic world. Missed the last one? Not to worry – you can check it out here!

A lot of customs revolving around food in the Hispanic world are based around the notion of friends and family. While we have to of course account for the fact that the world is changing – people are living more individualistic lives and the family unit is in some regards becoming less relevant to many people’s situation, food-wise many basic things remain in the Hispanic world, or have been reincorporated into the fast pace of modern life.

In many Latin American countries, meal preparation is traditionally women’s work. In middle to upper class households in places like Colombia, Mexico and the countries of Central America (but far from limited to these places) a maid typically prepares the main meal, the biggest of which is usually lunch. For those living life in the fast lane, or those who live in very rural areas, a maid may not be present to prepare a large meal, but lunch still remains a big deal!

Lunch, known as comida in places like Mexico and Spain, Almuerzo in Colombia or either of these two terms, depending on the region, often makes an English, Australian or North American lunch look like leftovers.

‘Bandeja paisa’ – a hearty lunch dish from Colombia. This was my failed attempt. Actually I’m usually not a bad cook. Really!

So what do people eat throughout a very typical day in the Hispanic world? Many people living in these countries like to eat out, but you can’t eat the foods mentioned in the previous entry all the time. Well, you could do I guess. You could live on tapas or enchiladas and other assorted street food, but unless you’re a tourist, it would be kind of weird. There is of course going to be some crossover between what is street food and what is just plain old ‘day food’, but food in the home or in a typical daily setting could consist of several things we haven’t gone into much detail over, and these staples may just not be so apparent to first time visitors or causal observers of Latin America and Spain.

Some common menus in the Spanish-speaking world

In Spain, breakfast starts with any combination of things like café con leche (coffee with milk), crackers, magdalenas (a type of cupcake) or toast and jam. The large lunch consists of fish, chicken or seafood, and is served with vegetables or salad, followed by a dessert such as flan. This big meal is followed by the world famous siesta, in which practically the whole country stops and takes a massive break, generally from about 1 pm to 5 pm. But hey, this doesn’t just mean that everyone dozes off. The widely misunderstood siesta is really just an extended lunch break, in which one can chat with friends, get additional work done, or simply escape the fierce heat of the day (especially in the brutal southern summer!). Dinner is usually pretty light, and consists of a simple fish or meat dish with rice.

In Mexico, huevos rancheros (tortillas filled with eggs) are a common breakfast staple, as are cereal and yogurt. For the almuerzo, beans, rice and some kind of fish or meat dish are quite common. Central America is fairly similar, with beans and rice also forming the basic staple.

In countries like Colombia, a typical family meal might consist of a regional variation of the arepa (a type of grilled flat bread made with corn flour) along with chocolate caliente (hot chocolate) or tinto (black coffee, sort of like a long black) for breakfast. The almuerzo would be the biggest meal of the day, consisting of sopa (soup) with ‘dry’ ingredients (el seco) such as arroz or lentejas (rice or lentils) on the side.

What happens down south? In Chile, a typical breakfast might consist of toast with tea or coffee. A lunchtime classic is cazuela (a broth of potatoes, rice, corn and meat). For dinner the typical Chilean might prepare a parrillada (a type of barbecue common in Argentina and Chile), normally with chicken, sausages or lamb.

Packaged alfajor. Not as good as the ones I make, that’s for sure.

Neighbouring Argentina is of course very similar. Breakfast tends to be a light affair of tea, coffee and a media luna (literally a ‘half-moon’…….it’s a croissant!), or perhaps a factura, a pastry found in the River Plate region, and made famous by the argentines. The large lunchtime meal could be a milanesa con puré (a type of schnitzel with mashed potato) or sandwiches (which are often served without the crusts!). You might get your hands on a cheap, bland, pre-packaged alfajor (a type of biscuit) if you’re on the run (pictured here) during the late afternoon (Then again, you might find a nice one. Who knows? Hey, this article has to cover all the bases!) Like the Spanish, the Argentines eat dinner very late, often after 9 pm, and dinner is again very reminiscent of Europe, with lots of meat, pasta or rice in any number of variants.

The Religious and Traditional in Food

Customs revolving around food in the Hispanic world can be said to have a strong festival or religious focus. Let’s have a brief look at a few festivals and customs – both religious and non-religious the world over.

In Spain, the residents of Mallorca hold a festival in October called la fiesta de la butifarra, named after the eponymous sausage, in which gazillions of the things are sold in stalls. What else is there in Spain? Too much to mention! But who could go past the Tomatina? This festival takes place in Buñol in August every year, and most people know what happens next…tomato purée here, there and everywhere.

The Day of the Dead in Guatemala – not quite the same as the famous celebration in Mexico, but still worth mentioning. Oh, and also because I don’t have a photo from Mexico.

Mexico is known for its reverence to food and the way in which they tie it to religious traditions. Mole, (pronounced mo-le, not the small subterranean animal) a sauce made with a chocolate base, is slaved over for hours and is saved for the most important days of the year – Christmas, Day of the Dead and Easter. Food is so intricately tied to tradition and religion in Mexico, it’s difficult to know where to begin, but a brief exploration of el Día de los muertos (Day of the Dead) might be a good start. Most of us have heard of this festival, right? For those who need a refresher, the Day of the Dead is a special period celebrated every year at the beginning of November in Mexico, and to a lesser degree in Guatemala, to welcome dead loved ones and friends back to the Earth for a short while. Food symbols are varied, complex and multi-layered, but things such as the sweet pan de muertos (bread of the dead), skulls made from sugar, alcohol, tamales and a whole range of other foods are either given as gifts to represent the vitality of life, offered to the dead to help guide them back to the place of the living, or are simply there to represent a facet of life or death in the Mexican world.

South America also has a huge variety of festivals related to food – far too many to mention here – but we could give a brief mention to el mes de los morados (the month of the purple ones) in Peru, since this country is so renowned for its food. In el mes de los morados, thousands take to the streets of the capital, Lima, dressed in purple in honour of el señor de los milagros (the Lord of Miracles). While devotees visit a church and make off down the street with a huge float bearing the image of Jesus, people eat typical foods such as anticuchos (skewered beef heart), turrón de doña pepa (a sweet pastry) and make offerings to the señor.

Popular in rural Perú, as well as Bolivia and the Andean regions of Chile, Argentina, Ecuador and Colombia, is the consumption of hojas de coca (coca leaves). Coca leaves form the backbone of many cultural, religious and day-to-day activities of the indigenous people from these parts. Dating back to pre-Inca times, coca leaves have been associated with barter and trade, medicinal uses for diminishing the effects of hunger and altitude sickness, as well as religious meaning. Coca leaves are given as offerings to Andean deities such as pachamama (the Earth) and Inti (the sun).

“So how do I get high on this?” you might be asking. Well, coca leaves don’t exactly get you ‘high’. Rather, the effect is somewhat similar to an espresso without the jitters that some people speak of, although this is only one interpretation among many, I’m sure! The leaves themselves are not that active when added to tea, or even when ch food and customs in the hispanic world ewed on their own. For anything to take effect, a catalyst needs to be added in the form of the ash from the quinoa tree, which goes by a number of names. This ash contains an enzyme which activates the narcotic. After chewing the leaves for a few minutes, the leafy, slimy mass is left between the gums and the cheek and…your mouth will go really numb, you may not want to eat for a while, and you may feel slightly more energetic. Just don’t kiss anyone whilst you’re doing this.

Moving back into the more secular side of things, one of the most common sights you will see in places such as Uruguay, Paraguay and Argentina is the drinking of mate (pronounced mah-teh…remember, this isn’t Melbourne mate!). Mate is a very bitter herbal tea made from the mate plant found in that part of South America. The ground leaves are steeped in a hollowed-out gourd (also called a mate!), usually small enough to fit into someone’s hand, and then drunk through a wooden or metal straw known as a bombilla. The gourd is then refilled with hot water from a thermos as it is drunk – the herb is bitter enough that the gourd doesn’t usually need to be reloaded in the same sitting.

yerba What’s unique about this tea is the customs and traditions built around it. Gourds come in all shapes, patterns, designs and sizes, and some of them are real works of art, as are the bombillas. Argentines and Uruguayans take a lot of pride in the daily ceremony of filling the gourd with the herb, steeping it in any number of idiosyncratic ways, before heading off to work, school or university, gourd and bombilla in hand, thermos in the other. Hordes of commuters can be seen in the morning on buses and on the metro, all sipping mate. Social events have a similar ritualistic atmosphere, where a single mate and bombilla are often passed around between friends.

Want to learn some Spanish? For the fourth and final article on food in the Hispanic world, we’ll cover travel Spanish with regards to ordering food. It’s normally fairly straightforward, but there are an enormous number of ways to go about it, with each region or country often having its own unique way of surprising the visitor with its numerous food-ordering expressions. Check it out here!

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How to Study Spanish pt 2: How to Write in Spanish

Posted on June 14, 2016June 17, 2016 by admin

How to write in Spanish and incorporate it into your study sessions:

How important is writing Spanish?

In our last entry on Spanish study sessions, we covered the topic of speaking, and how it is one of the most valuable things you can do as part of a program. We also mentioned that writing was perhaps equally important (give or take) for the same reasons (refer to above topic for an in-depth explanation of this) and that’s why we’re including “how to write in Spanish” as the fourth study session for the confused Spanish beginner.

“I don’t know how to write Spanish! I don’t know what to say! I get stuck! Plus I don’t have any time!”

These are some of the things students say when faced with the prospect of sitting down and actually putting pen to paper. Guess what though? You’ll have to overcome all of these things because you won’t get far without writing! Luckily, none of them are particularly hard.

Not having time is not a valid excuse. As we have already covered in a separate blog entry on how to make a study plan, there is no such thing as not having time. Time is everywhere you look. The question is: “how do I allocate my time, and how important is learning Spanish?” Very important? Ok, read on…

Not knowing what to say when you sit down and write in Spanish could be a minor hurdle, but here are a few ideas to get you started.

Getting stuck is something that is bound to happen. This might be because you only know the present tense, but this is not a problem. You’ll learn the past tenses soon enough, and then you can expand on the sorts of things you can talk about. You don’t want to wait? Here are a couple of ideas: write everything in the present tense (this is better than nothing, and it will get your mind thinking in Spanish). Alternatively, look up the ‘preterite’ in Spanish (simple past) and see if you can work it into your descriptions. Again, while your knowledge of the simple past will be basic and possibly full of mistakes, there is no substitute for actual pen-to-paper.

It doesn’t matter what you use, a computer or a pen, the important thing is to write.

Another sticking point might be a lack of vocabulary or grammar (with regards to putting accurate sentences together). Not to worry, just head for the dictionary! It can be slow and laborious stopping every minute (or more) to look up words you have no idea how to say, but trust me, this is how you acquire those words – this is how you improve. Have a look here for one of the earlier articles related to books and dictionaries in Spanish. Vocabulary should be the least of your concerns though. What about getting stuck on sentence structure and grammar? Again, don’t worry. This too can be laborious, slow and even boring at times, but again, it’s the only way to learn! Word Reference forums is a very good site where you can have a look at peoples’ posts and queries on how to say things in Spanish. It’s a goldmine, and much better than online translators. There is an article about the value of this site if you follow this link.

In any case, don’t be too concerned about how much or how little you know. Every student of the Spanish language will gain some value out of writing in Spanish, and there is no such thing as a person who is at a severe disadvantage over someone else who might know a lot more than them when it comes to sitting down and writing. There are no absolutes here, just a sliding scale of people who experience differing levels of difficulty when it comes to sitting down and writing something. What I’m getting at is that it happens to everyone, no matter what. Whether it’s the accomplished writer with writer’s block, or the expert blogger who has to look up the occasional word, or who stresses over playing around with the sentence and paragraph structure, writing is difficult for everyone at some time or another, and the sooner you accept this as part of ‘just what you have to do’, the faster you will make progress. Furthermore, if you really are a novice to learning a language, look on the positive side – your learning curve is going to be a fast one. These are some of the most exciting times for learning a new language. Writing relatively frequently is going to bring about some rapid changes, and ones that will improve the richness of your life. Look on the positive side!

So what do you write about? Here are some ideas to get you started:

Keep a diary. Yes, this article relates to how you can incorporate ‘writing’ into a one-hour session per week, alongside all the other important sessions (grammar, vocabulary. etc.), but no one mentioned anything about not playing with the programming. These are just some ideas, so you might have two sessions per week where you write, and therefore have two diary entries. It’s up to you how you configure your time.
What sorts of things should you write about in the diary? If you are only familiar with the present tense, then skip to the next point. If you are familiar with the present, the informal future (ir a + verb or location) and the past (preterite and imperfect), you can talk about what you did over the last few days (or however long it has been since your last entry). Then you might describe a few things in the present (what the weather is like at the moment, what the cat’s doing, what your partner or flatmates are doing). Finally, you might want to use the informal future to say what you are going to do later, or tomorrow. Next time you open the diary for an entry, you could start by talking about the previous entry’s ‘future’ remarks, but now they will be in the past. Then you would give another description in the present, and then another one in the future….each subsequent entry would rely and reflect on the previous one. Effectively, you would be saying very similar, if not identical things in each entry, but shifting the tenses between the various activities. This might be very repetitive, but the advantages of this are that you are not only practising the different tenses as you describe the same activities, and therefore practising using the same verbs in different tenses, but you are also making the everyday and the often mundane second nature – you are creating a new language reflex.
So, if you only know the present tense, this one is for you. If you know several tenses and you got a few tips from the above point, then skip the following: Talk about things you have observed in the day. How is the weather? What are the people in your work like? Is that too boring or not challenging enough? Then as mentioned earlier, have a go at writing in the past. See if you can Google the ‘preterite (simple past)’ in Spanish.

“Diaries are boring” you say? Another thing you might like to do is write a letter to a friend. Tell them about everything you can (or at least using the range of things you have learned in class).

Grammar and exercise books are loaded with writing activities, and a lot of them are quite varied. Find the ones that appeal to you and get writing!

A couple of final points: what sorts of materials should you use for writing? Aside from the things already mentioned, such as word reference forums, a grammar book and a good dictionary (either physical or online), a question that is sometimes asked is whether a computer is better than using a pen. I actually don’t think it makes any difference. The only difference I can see is that using a pen and paper will be good practice for improving your handwriting, but that’s about it! Pick your weapon of choice and go for it, it doesn’t matter. The only thing that counts is your immersion in the language and the hard work you put in.

Next up, we will look at the fifth and final study session and how to plan it. We’ve covered vocabulary, grammar, speaking and writing. Now it’s time to look at the idea of watching, reading and listening and how we can incorporate those things into a session of one hour. But that won’t be the end of this series on how to study Spanish. After we wrap up the overview of the study sessions themselves, we’ll turn to a number of important issues and how they relate to study, such as motivation, dealing with stress, and developing a passion for language, among many other things.

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Salsa & Latin Music in Melbourne : Salsa Dancing Lands !

Posted on June 9, 2016July 2, 2016 by admin

Salsa dancing lands in Melbourne! For the fourth chapter on Salsa and Latin music in Melbourne, 1970 – 2008, we look at Latin music and Salsa as an identifiable phenomenon. To read about what led up to the events discussed in this blog entry, check out the previous post.

Salsa Dancing in Melbourne takes off…

The falling of the Berlin Wall brought about new freedoms in the world.

It could be argued that the new acceptance of cultural diversity was symptomatic of change within the larger global system. The late 1980s were characterised by distinct political, social and economic features, such as the breaking-up of the Communist Bloc, the resurgence of numerous ethnic groups, international migration, and the heightened issues of multiculturalism and poly-ethnicity.

Moreover, the decade was marked by an increasingly more fluid international system, the reconfiguration of the world economic order, and the consolidation of the global media. The late 1980s, and the following decade, truly marked the triumph of neo-liberalism in the post-Cold War era, and the end of a bi-polar world had brought greater mobility and transience, along with urbanisation and rapid technological change. These developments foresaw greater possibilities in terms of what was possible in popular music. [1]

Record label ‘Earthworks’

The Arrival of World Music

From several of Beethoven’s symphonies to the music of Santana in the 1970s, the non-western has appeared in music heard by western audiences for centuries. Yet the late 1980s was a delineator of the ways that this took place.

Originally a marketing tag which referred to popular music outside of the normal Anglophone realm of popular music, world music sprung into existence in 1987, and it was primarily marketed by eleven British, American and European record labels, among them Globestyle, Charly, and Earthworks.[2]

While the ‘genre’ New York salsa fell within the marketability range of world music, the latter’s influence on Melbourne’s forthcoming salsa scene itself came not towards the end of the 1980s, but rather during the early 1990s. Despite this, the early years of world music ran concurrently with an era in which more commercially marketable and internationally popular styles of salsa had been on the rise.

The commercial era of Fania records had foreseen the emergence of new styles during the early 1980s, such as ‘salsa romántica (romantic salsa)’, headed by artists such as Oscar D’León, and which highlighted the music’s history of constant evolution, as instruments such as synthesisers, while not altogether new in salsa, rose in ubiquity. The end of the decade witnessed fusion and cross-over styles such as Latin hip hop and Latin house music, which were performed by the group Latin Empire and artist Rae Serrano, respectively, and which both liberally incorporated salsa components.[3] The late 1980s’ socio-political and economic state-of-flux had offered new possibilities in terms of cultural diversity.

In the same way that a humanistic approach of ‘one race, many cultures’ was being expounded in the philosophies of world music, similar attitudes towards celebrating non-western music as popular culture foreshadowed a new era which desired cultural diversity within music.[4]

La Fania, the famous salsa record label from NY

Exploitation in World Music

There were, of course, other factors which drove people’s desire for cultural diversity within music during this era. World music, and its more up-tempo cousin world beat, wielded considerable power in terms of image in the marketplace. Both had become conflated to the status of genres, and the former, the most commonly known of the two, tended to appropriate musical styles from the third world, which ranged from the Algerian rai, to the Nigerian afrobeat and juju, as well as manufactured hybrid styles such as Anglo-Indian bhangra.[5]

Similarly, there existed 1980s’ popular quasi-world music fads, such as the French-Spanish Gipsy Kings, and French group Kaoma’s release, Lambada, a revamped copy of Bolivian folk group Los Kjarkas’ 1981 song Llorando se fue (He left crying). Lambada appropriated salsa dance moves into its pop music pastiche, creating anew ‘the Lambada’, otherwise known as the ‘dance craze from Brazil’.[6]

Around the same time, the expansion of the market for Latin music in general saw an increase in its popularity, with U.S.-marketed artists such as the Cuban Gloria Estefan being embraced by a broad spectrum of people.

Latin music, along with ‘world music’ was being pushed onto an Anglo market in a general sense towards the end of the 80s and into the 90s.

Latin Music Grows…

With various styles of Latin music emerging from migrant groups in Australia, and a general shift in attitudes towards immigration and cultural diversity, all reinforced by the late 1980s state of transition, Latin music began to creep into the popular culture imaginary of a number of non-Latinos Australia-wide.

Caribbean music styles which bore a resemblance to salsa, such as chachachá and merengue had begun to gain popularity, but it was not long before salsa had appeared, and it was to take the lead in terms of popularity and ubiquity. While the large proportion of this salsa scene was taking place in Sydney,[7] Melbourne too, was to have its scene, and it was not long before the strident horns and the fast-paced syncopated rhythms of the Caribbean blend were being heard in a number of Melbourne’s venues.

The First Major Players in the Melbourne Scene

One of the biggest, and perhaps first proponents of salsa music in Melbourne was the group Combo la Revelación. Formed in 1986, Combo la Revelación began playing in venues such as the Carlton Club on Gertrude Street, Fitzroy, Billboards on Russell Street in the city centre, whose weekly night was known as Fiesta Fridays, the nearby Rosatti’s Italian Restaurant on Flinders Lane, and later at Café Clicquot on Lygon Street in Carlton. [8]

Initially embraced by the ‘punters’ on a relatively small scale, a leading Melbourne record shop owner recalls playing alongside ‘Combo’ on numerous occasions as a disc jockey, to a room crowded with dancers. Rosatti’s had exuded an atmosphere of improvisation and freshness. Chaotic and disorganised, Sunday nights in the basement of the restaurant witnessed chairs and tables being frantically thrown aside to create space for the makeshift dance floor.[9]

Combo la revelación, one of the first true salsa groups in Melbourne.

Diversity in the Scene

Given the diverse reasons for the emergence of the Melbourne salsa scene, there was also a diverse cross-section of the Melbournian public who attended the venues. There were those who were salsa aficionados; those who understood what salsa actually was, especially those of the generally middle-class and musically-educated stratum of the scene, or those who had perhaps travelled.[10]

Groups such as Combo la Revelación and Bahía, one of the many groups to follow in the stead of the originators, saw numerous Australian members moving through the ranks of their brass sections over the years, and Kenny López’s Sex Mambo, a group which used to draw heavily on salsa influences and which had played at Café Clicquot over the years, was described by its creator López as a ‘Latin-comedy band’, one which consisted of musically-educated Australians such as the highly-regarded Sally Ford and López himself.[11]

Salsa or Latin Music?

It was equally true, however, that the term ‘salsa’ was quickly becoming an umbrella term which referred to various styles of tropical Latin dance music. While salsa tended to make up the larger part of these styles, the term was often used irrespective of whether merengue or the chachachá actually were part of the spectrum. Many people at the early venues, which were essentially some of the first ‘Latin night’ institutions, were laymen who were attracted either by the mounting hysteria of commercially-marketed Latin music, or by the excitement and unique ambience that such clubs had to offer.[12]

Places such as Café Clicquot, which often had a line of people stretching down the busy urban thoroughfare on weekends, reflected the interest in music identified as non-western, and it featured groups such as Los Rumberos, who were, at that time, a cover band of the Gipsy Kings.[13] The final years of the 1980s witnessed the beginning of the trend of various radio stations hosting programs and specials based around Latin-themed music, a development which would foreshadow the arrival of the ‘Latin music’ boom.[14]

In the next episode of the history of Salsa and Latin music in Melbourne, we’ll look at the famous 90s Latin music scene in Melbourne alongside the worldwide explosion of Latin rhythms in the 1990s. How did this effect the city of Melbourne? You can read about it here!

An ensemble of musicians from la Bahia, los Rumberos and other groups perform in 1992 for Nelson Mandela.

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