Monthly Archives: August 2011

The Beth and Jim Conversations 12

Posted by Jim on August 31, 2011 Comments Off

[Jim] Obviously, living here in the south of Spain I am surrounded by Spanish people, and so I have as many opportunities as I need to practice the language. Since you live in Florida, I wonder if you could explain to me and readers what sort of a Spanish community you have around you…

[Beth] I live in Tampa, Florida which reports 1 person in every 4 is of Hispanic/Latino origin.  That means I come across people EVERY day in my travels throughout my community who speak Spanish and kindly provide me the opportunity to practice my Spanish.  My neighbor is from Ecuador, and he comments often on how my Spanish is so fluid (and I believe he has made me his mission to maintain my fluency!).

We have a place in Tampa called Ybor City where a high Latino population lives, and their language and culture are reflected in all areas – be it the markets to shop for food indigenous to the Spanish culture, be it the restaurants and travel food buses that serve Puerto Rican fare to Mexican fare to Spanish fare and beyond!  It’s fantastic to live in a community where the two, Anglos and Latinos, exist on a very harmonious level.

I am humbled when my Latino friends and new acquaintances accept me and my efforts with my Boca Beth bilingual program…it’s as if they say to themselves, “Oye, if this blonde hair, blue eyed Irish/Greek girl loves our language enough to help little children learn it, then let’s give her a big BIENVENIDOS!”  And they do.

Happy Educating! ¡Sea feliz educando!

[Jim] Gracias, Beth (-;

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Speekee TV is available at http://www.speekee.co.uk/online.php – the first two weeks are absolutely free. Subscriptions are $7.50 per month thereafter, and you can cancel any time (-;

Boca Beth Bilingual Products are sold online at http://www.BocaBeth.com – we offer award-winning CDs, DVDs, coloring/activity books that are presented in both Spanish and English with FREE shipping available.

The Beth and Jim Conversations 11

Posted by Jim on August 22, 2011 Comments Off

[Jim] ¡Hola Beth!

This week I’d like to get your take on Spanish as a language to learn – as opposed to other languages. I mean, how do you rate its level of difficulty? 

As a sometime teacher of English as a Foreign Language to Spaniards I hear my students say either 1) Spanish is easier to learn than English or 2) the other way around! So which is it?!

My personal experience of learning Spanish says that for me, a native English speaker, picking up Spanish is not especially difficult. It happens that I can roll my Rs, though not quite in the way the Spanish do, and the rest of the pronunciation is not really tricky for a mouth which has developed with English for so many years (of course, we know that children are sponges and they learn to speak like natives; it’s different for us adults!).

Where I found Spanish very difficult indeed was when I came across the subjunctive for the first time. Why? The answer is simple: there is no subjunctive ‘mood’ in English, so if converting a Spanish verb into its subjunctive form didn’t tax me enough, knowing when to use that form sure did!

Now using the subjunctive in Spanish is quite natural, but it has taken many years of listening and speaking practice to get me to this stage.

As to the level of difficulty when it comes to elarning english, I think it is the phrasal verbs, such as look in; look up; look up to; look out; look out for; wise up; play down etc that give learners of our language the biggest headache. Not only are they hard to memorise, many of them have more than one meaning!

What has been your Spanish learning experience, Beth? 

[Beth] Learning Spanish ROCKS in the ease department!

Every time you see an ‘a’ it ALWAYS sounds the same in the Spanish language.  The same is true in the Spanish language for the ‘e’ and the ‘I’ and the ‘o’ and the ‘u’ while in English there are so many nuances and quirks and weird ways the vowels sound not to mention different consonant blends sounding different in various words in the English language.

It’s so true what you say Jim about the native or near-native accent a young child can develop when learning a second language in the very early years of life.  Most experts agree that birth – age five is the prime ‘window of opportunity’ for a child to acquire a second, third and fourth language.  Yet, it’s still quite easy for children to learn a new language all the way through about age 10-12 simply based on the way in which the brain segments language learning.

So there you have it my friend / amigo mío … learning Spanish is much easier than learning English in my eyes, particularly when a person begins before the age of ten!

Happy Educating! ¡Sea feliz educando!

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Speekee TV is available at http://www.speekee.co.uk/online.php – the first two weeks are absolutely free. Subscriptions are $7.50 per month thereafter, and you can cancel any time (-;

Boca Beth Bilingual Products are sold online at http://www.BocaBeth.com – we offer award-winning CDs, DVDs, coloring/activity books that are presented in both Spanish and English with FREE shipping available.

The Beth and Jim Conversations 10

Posted by Jim on August 16, 2011 Comments Off

[Jim] Hi Beth!

I don’t know about your experience with different Spanish accents, but here’s what happened to me this morning…

In addition to working on Speekee, I also own a guesthouse in the town where Speekee was filmed: Arcos de la Frontera in southern Spain. This weekend there is a music festival going on in nearby Jerez and we have music-loving guests staying in the house from various regions of Spain.

Now, this is going to sound ridiculous I know… but after 20 years of learning Spanish, I found myself asking someone from Madrid – of all places, the capital of Spain, where they speak a pretty standard and accentless form of Spanish – to repeat what they had just said to me.

Oh, and we are not talking about obscure words or complex grammatical constructions; it was a simple enough sentence, but so attuned have I become to a strong Andalusian accent, I just couldn’t ‘hear’ right what was being said to me. I guess the Spanish was too pure!

Beth, do you think a child with just a few years of laerning Spanish would have similar trouble tuning in?

[Beth] As a native English-speaking woman who studied her Spanish in American schools followed by living in Chile to live the language I am very, very aware of the various accents and dialects within the Spanish language.  (Not to mention mixing in my summer in Mexico and being married to a man with a mother from Cuba and a father from Spain!)  I have received praise for my ‘near-native accent’ from hundreds and criticism for my ‘gringa accent’ from several.

Jim, I have found that most Spanish-speaking people simply applaud the fact that a Florida-born gal would take the time to really learn and live their language as her own second language.  As for a young child learning a second language that has such a wide spectrum of accents and dialects I am a firm believer that he or she will not be hindered in their language acquisition when presented with a word they don’t recognize or a sound they don’t find familiar in that target language.

Why?  It all starts at home as we know – be it discipline, learning a language or learning common courtesy.  Whatever the child is learning via the home front is what the child will gravitate towards.  The understanding of the nuances of the target language might throw them for a loop at times, but it all shakes out in the end.

Happy Educating!  ¡Sea feliz educando!

____________________________

Speekee TV is available at http://www.speekee.co.uk/online.php – the first two weeks are absolutely free. Subscriptions are $7.50 per month thereafter, and you can cancel any time (-;

Boca Beth Bilingual Products are sold online at http://www.BocaBeth.com – we offer award-winning CDs, DVDs, coloring/activity books that are presented in both Spanish and English with FREE shipping available.

The Beth and Jim Conversations 9

Posted by Jim on August 9, 2011 1 comments


[Beth]:  Jim, I have been wondering since first seeing SpeeKee, how did the character evolve, who makes him and his friends/amigos for your productions?

[Jim] Hey Beth. Thanks for asking that one.

I have to cast my mind back a way to remember how Speekee the character was born…

Many people ask if Speekee is a boy or a girl, and I give two answers: 1) Neither or 2) Both. We didn’t want Speekee to be gender specific (I trust that doesn’t sound too politically correct!); and to appeal to boys and girls. So in the script Speekee is once referred to in the feminine and then again in the masculine. Keen Speekee fans sussed that out early on (-;

The puppet was made by a veteran of BBC puppet shows. It was interesting… he said he wasn’t so much in demand these days due to the amount of cartoon programs which were surfacing in children’s TV. He added that puppets, such as Speekee, had a great impact on children and that he thought it a shame – not just because he was a puppet maker – that they had gone out of fashion.

Since then we have learned from experience that Speekee as a puppet sure does appeal to children – and over quite an age range (although the tiny ones do sometimes find Speekee a bit scary).

As for sock puppets Dino and Lupi, they are home-made creations (-; (-;

See you next time Beth!

[Beth]: I loved finding out about SpeeKee.  I tried so hard NOT to make BOCA (our hand puppet) a boy or a girl.  I tried not to ever classify him as a chicken or duck or bird – just simply BOCA, the language friend of children around the world.  But then, when I wrote the song Hola amigo/Hello friend we also teach amiga, and that is when I finally gave in and deemed BOCA a boy and deemed a Dollar Store parrot/bird puppet a girl / amiga for my performances!!!!!!

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Speekee TV is available at http://www.speekee.co.uk/online.php – the first two weeks are absolutely free. Subscriptions are $7.50 per month thereafter, and you can cancel any time (-;

Boca Beth Bilingual Products are sold online at http://www.BocaBeth.com – we offer award-winning CDs, DVDs, coloring/activity books that are presented in both Spanish and English with FREE shipping available.

The Beth and Jim Conversations 8

Posted by Jim on August 8, 2011 Comments Off

[Jim]

¡Hola Beth! Tengo una pregunta para tí (I have a question for you)

Other than finding Boca Beth very easily on the Internet, what initially drew me towards your product was you and your amazing energy. I am wondering if you can put me and our readers in the picture… where does all that energy come from?!

[Beth] Thank you Jim / Gracias for your kind words about my energy!  My passion for Spanish as my second language is the driving force behind my endless energy to share my bilingual product line!  My philosophy is to help any parent and teacher who truly want to raise future generations of bilingual children.

It’s one thing to say, “Oh I wish I were bilingual.” or “Why didn’t I study that foreign language a bit more seriously in high school?”  It’s another thing to really appreciate the many benefits associated with knowing more than one language!

So, Jim and friends, I get FIRED UP when I get in front of a YouTube video camera, an audience of homeschooling families, or my weekly online show viewers!  I want them to realize we can no longer get by with a mentality of “one language is fine to get by.” I make sure that through my energy they become motivated to learn Spanish right alongside their English.  (That way is there is no room for the excuse of not being able to do this 2nd language introduction since I know the adult in the room speaks at least one of the 2 languages being spoken or sung in my DVDs or songs.)

[Jim] ¡Qué pasión! 

Speekee TV is available at http://www.speekee.co.uk/online.php – the first two weeks are absolutely free. Subscriptions are $7.50 per month thereafter, and you can cancel any time (-;

Boca Beth Bilingual Products are sold online at http://www.BocaBeth.com – we offer award-winning CDs, DVDs, coloring/activity books that are presented in both Spanish and English with FREE shipping available.

The Beth and Jim Conversations – 7

Posted by Jim on August 4, 2011 1 comments

[Jim] ¡Hola Beth! I’m going to give you a week off this week by summarising the immersion tips for readers from our last conversation (-;

I’ll use Spanish as the target language in this case, but these tips apply to any second language you may want to learn:

- Learn Spanish at school / college / university

- Live in a country where Spanish is spoken

- Live with a Spanish speaking family

- Attend school with Spanish-speaking students

- Do an intercambio (exchanging English and Spanish conversation with a Spanish speaker who wants to learn English)

- Be fascinated by Spanish

- Watch TV in Spanish (especially programs with language content you are already familiar with – such as football matches, weather forecasts – so you can pick up the words and phrases faster)

- Keep a vocabulary book;
– Memorise the words and phrases you hear and think are particularly important to learn

- On returning to your country continue studying Spanish

- Maintain contact with Spanish people you met previously

- Maintain contact with people in your own community who speak only Spanish

- Start a business which involves Spanish!

- Marry a Spanish speaker!!

Speekee TV is available at http://www.speekee.co.uk/online.php – the first two weeks are absolutely free. Subscriptions are $7.50 per month thereafter, and you can cancel any time (-;

Boca Beth Bilingual Products are sold online at http://www.BocaBeth.com – we offer award-winning CDs, DVDs, coloring/activity books that are presented in both Spanish and English with FREE shipping available.

Hola Speekee, Dino and Lupi

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