Beginner Spanish Conversation Meeting Highlights

Tuesdays are for OKC Spanish meetings!

I did not think to take a pic of the Conversation Pit on Tuesday 😅 but it is a pic of our bookstore!

For the last two weeks, we have been meeting in the bookstore's new Conversation Pit! It features four theatre chairs, two big wicker chairs, room for a few folding chairs, a coffee table - and best of all, we are tucked away from the cafe noise! I also feel like we will have fewer wandering booklovers passing through. In the previous space I think we once squeezed in almost 15 people. Here, I think we can squeeze 10. Which is ideal, since we get into a little bit of a time-crunch with 10 people taking turns talking. So all in all, I am happy to see how well our new nook is going to work for us!

The Members Area has audio readings of La Lectura!

¿De qué hablamos?

The Beginners this week were enthusiastic, prepared, and curious! We had a group of 7, including myself, and through their curiosity we talked about a wide - WIDE - range of topics via the official content topic of "Jobs & Occupations". Being a big proponent of "exposure learning", I loved the way we ping-ponged from new vocabulary to noun gender to to pronominal verbs to language flexibility! I couldn't definitively answer every question that came up, but I did provide guidance on what I would do - the idea being that since I have friends with whom I do not speak English, anything I can get away with is not the worst advice. And now I've got a little list of dudas to make my own Spanish better!

¿Qué aprendimos?

As usual, we started the meeting with our presentaciones (introductions). We had a number of learning opportunities here! La lectura had fewer questions, but bigger words - luckily, there were a lot of cognates! 😄

Cognate: a word that has the same meaning and similar sound in both languages. False cognate: sounds the same, but does not mean the same!

One of the prompts for our introductions is "What are your interests?". One person introduced us to the phrase for "scrapbook", which is albúm de recortes. This is different than un albúm de recuerdos, which is understood to mean a photo album. The word recortes indicates an artistic quality, since the verb recortar means "to trim, cut away, cut out," according to SpanishDict.com.

During our introductions, we also talked about noun gender, inspired by el ballet. Statistically, most nouns that end in a consonant are treated as masculine, and especially foreign words (but it's always worth a check!). According to typical Spanish pronunciation, we would pronounce the final t in ballet - and I have heard some native Spanish speakers say it that way. But after some forum-searching, the advice is to pronounce it in the French way, without the t sound. The pronunciation should look like: balé. Which sounds an awful lot like baile! So be sure to practice your bai vs. bah sounds 😄

Meeting Content Update

For beginners, the introduction prompts include "What are your interests?" and "What do you like to do?" This is to help you practice nouns and verbs, separately, as well as provide practice using definite articles to indicate a subject or topic.

Even though it inspires you to learn vocabulary, the phrasing of this question is not very natural so I've decided that starting with the September content I will update the question to something else. I'll probably replace it with "No me gusta," to provide negation practice and additional verb vocabulary.

HOWEVER...

If you are interested in the grammar function I was going for with "Mis intereses son...", and the nerdy lesson behind it:

If you like to sing, in English you would say that you are interested in singing. This -ing use of a verb is called the gerund. In English, we use the -ing form of a verb to name an action and use it as a noun. The English present participle and gerund share the same form:

Present participle: I am singing Gerund: Singing is my passion

If you can replace the -ing form with the infinitive, then you are probably using the gerund (noun form) of the verb: To sing is my passion ✅ I am to singing ❌

How does this translate into Spanish?

In Spanish, the infinitive takes on the role of becoming a noun, and the present participle stands alone.

Present participle: Yo estoy cantando Infinitive verb: Cantar es mi pasión

Alright, so what does this mean for the two introduction prompts?

To answer I like to..., verbs are required. When answering what your interests are, we have to find nouns. While the infinitive cantar can act as a noun, the goal of the prompt is to name the activity as a standard noun: el canto. Using the definite article in response to this question shows we are talking about an area of interest, a category, a general subject. You can phrase it in your mind as:

I am interested in the (topic of) singing. Mi interés es el canto.

However, like I said at the beginning of this section: this phrasing is clunky, academic, and not very natural - even though it is grammatically correct. So, I'll get that question updated for our September content (since August has already been posted).

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Al fin y al cabo

There were so many more questions and discussions we had in the meeting that we very nearly ran out of time! We discussed vowel phonetics, diphthongs, the y/e conjunction, pronominal verbs, phrasing, semantic nuance, ser vs. estar - a fun mix of beginner and more advanced topics. Remember: You speak English very well because you've had many years of speaking it. A four year old kid can't accurately tell you every thought they want to express - think of your Spanish in the same way. Water down your self-expression to help you get the basic concepts, and we'll add more detail and complexity to your thoughts as your skill grows.

And after the discussion of ballet and bailar, everyone seemed interested in going out to a Latin dance party - I already have a couple of places in mind, so look for that on the calendar!

Speaking of events - in the last blogpost I mentioned a potential field trip to a winery. I've created a form to collect winery suggestions and event preferences that I'll be sending out to our Whatsapp community and our newsletter subscribers. I'd hate to create an event that nobody can/wants to show up to, so I will super appreciate it if you help me narrow down what criteria to use when looking for fun stuff to do.

My 2017 office was tiny, but I got lots of positive feedback and tons of important experience!

Do you like my vibe, but wish I taught "real" classes? Me too - and your donations are helping me get there!

My long term goal is to create my own curriculum and eventually offer 8-week courses. I learned a lot from my successful 2017 run, and I am excited to give it another go in the future 💪