Talking the talk...

To be honest, I never really get a chance to talk any Spanish... except to myself, or when I'm ( quietly) singing the odd Spanish song, or answering Mr. Thomas' questions .

And being even more honest, I'm probably never going to go to Spain either.

SO... how do you get to speak more Spanish?

[a] Well, as above, you can sing along to Spanish songs....this is really good because it's enjoyable, you can copy the exact pronunciation of the singer, and you can get confident at saying all those words and sentence patterns.

Here's a song specially designed for you to sing along to...



[b] You can read Spanish out loud from a book... this is a good way to start when you haven't the confidence to think up any Spanish... it's quite a challenge to actually get your gob around those lovely pure vowels, the tricky consonants and so on...
So, you can just read out loud, or even better you can read into a tape and play it back.

Over time you should hear yourself improve.Excellent.

[c] You can read plays.. you can even take the different parts. Plays are good, as I might have mentioned before, becasue they are ALL SPEAKING... so you are using real sentences which you can use.Again, you can tape your efforts.

[d] There are books with ready-made speech/dialogues in them, such as Spanish Among Amigos... dreadful title, rubbish cover.. but it is pretty good, with 21 little playlets/chats between the two characters, Pepa and Pili.



The book is really a guide to colloquial usage, but the dialogues are very good, pretty short.. plus there are translations at the end of the book.

[e] When you get more confident you can try to think up your own Spanish by talking about what you can see around you, what you are thinking about, your plans for the day, what you did yesterday etc. you can argue with the TV news in spanish, you can translate little bits of Corry while you watch it ....

[f] I do sometimes hear people talking Spanish when I am out and about. I haven't actually spoken to any of them yet, but I will do.I do know that some Russians have a little badge they can wear to show they speak Russian... and they get into a lot of conversations that way. Is there a Spanish signal as well? I've tried to find it on the net with no luck.

[g] To help you with speaking there is a book designed for people doing their GCSE oral exam called Bravo... it has loads of ideas, vocabulary, sentence frames and grammar help for students needing to speak simple Spanish and answer simple questions... it's cheap as well....





[h] Some places have informal Spanish-speaking sessions... for example, in Kendal , at the Brewery cafe, one evening there is an informal Spanish session where people just turn up and they speak Spanish for an hour or so in the cafe. Every evening a different language. You could find out if there is anything like that round your way.

Here's some people speaking Spanish in a simple way....



That's enough for now... here's some music...

This lovely song is Zahara with Funeral.... again, lots of smashing performancesof this song on the net.... this is one of the best.



These words are from Que de letras.com....

Trato de alcanzarlos,
pero corren mucho más deprisa.
Tiemblan mis cimientos rotos tras el terremoto,
y está todo echo trizas.
Con la sensación de haber echo demasiado
y sin embargo, sentir que todo en vano.

Me pilló de imprevisto no supe decir lo que quería hablar.
Ahora que sé como hacerlo tú no quieres escuchar.
De haberlo sabido habría sido distinto, lo dudo.
Quizás esto no tiene remedio,
ha empezado el funeral.

Trato de arrancarlos,
pero siguen mucho más adentro.
Con la sensación de estar haciendo lo incorrecto,
y sin embargo, no poder dejar de hacerlo.

Me pilló de imprevisto no supe decir lo que quería hablar.
Ahora que sé como hacerlo tú no quieres escuchar.
De haberlo sabido habría sido distinto, lo dudo.
Quizás esto no tiene remedio,
ha empezado el funeral.

Sólo me arrepiento de haberme dormido.
Sólo me arrepiento de haberme perdido.

Me pilló de imprevisto no supe decir lo que quería hablar.
Ahora que sé como hacerlo tú no quieres escuchar.
De haberlo sabido habría sido distinto, lo dudo.
Quizás esto no tiene remedio...

Ha empezado el funeral (x2).
Funeral (x3).