I see what you're saying . . .

 

 

 

When you come to think about it, it's a ridiculous question.

But, how would it be, if you could see what people were saying.

I bet you've all entertained the thought 'Spanish doesn't look so scary when it's written down, but I just can't pick out the words, when it's spoken'

 

Well, help is at hand,

Ever heard of subtitles?

I'm not talking about watching a film in Spanish, with English subtitles.

I don't know about you, but my mind rebels, at trying to read in one language, and listen in another, so I either end up reading and not really listening, which defeats the object, or ignoring the subtitles, and struggling to keep up with the dialogue.

 

Then I had a breakthrough.

I was watching a Chilean film called 'Santos' last week, via a rent-online service called Netflix.

The English subtitles were bugging me, so I brought up the subtitle menu, to turn them off.

At that point I noticed an option to switch subtitle languages.

Guess what?

One of the available languages was Spanish.

That's right, I watched a film in Spanish, with Spanish subtitles.

 

Not all of the Spanish language films on Netflix have Spanish subtitles, and I haven't found any English films with Spanish subtitles, but I've got to wonder what subtitle languages would be available on, say DVDs or BluRays purchased in Spanish speaking countries?

 

Sadly, when I picked a few DVDs from my (UK) collection at random, most only had English subs for the hearing impaired, although some did go as far as Dutch, Danish, Czech, Italian or Polish. No Spanish :¬(

If you come across any, let me know.

 

This week wasn't without its successes, though.

Profesora Ximena introduced me to the music of a Mexican group, called Maná, and we studied one of their songs in class.

Called 'El muelle de San Blas', it's based on the true story of Rebeca Mendez, whose death was reported in the following News article http://www.elsoldenayarit.mx/?id_nota=8&mpio=12

You can see the video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teprNzF6J1I

I was so taken with the music, that I sought out a couple of albums on Amazon.co.uk.

I bought 'Sueños liquidos' and 'Revolución de Amor', both second-hand, for under a fiver for the pair! And they were from UK sellers!

 

Finally, I came across this little diversion, to help practise the difference between the Preterite and Imperfect past tenses.

It's a simple game of Battleships but, each time you get a hit, you have to correctly answer a question, or your shell is a dud.

Nothing too hard, but you will require Flash to play it, so that may exclude some Tablet users, sorry.

http://www.quia.com/ba/31465.html

 

Well, that's all for now.

¡Hasta Pronto!