Mango Languages

A Taste of Mexico

What Mezcal was served in for the tasting

Last month, I was invited by Vicente Sanchez the consular of Mexico for Michigan and Ohio to a Mezcal tasting event for a celebration of the 2010 Mexican bicentennial anniversary.

The tasting was a truly unique and fun experience. I learned so much from the host at Migual’s Cantina. If you are wondering what the difference is between Mezcal and Tequila there are many including how many times it is distilled and even the use of the worm is in debate.

Fried Grasshoppers, salted and served with nuts

What I found interesting is the how you taste, with what you taste and how the traditional drink got its start. Here are a few of my non-scientific findings:

• Mezcal got its start with the Spanish Conquest and was used to convince the native Indians to work in the mines.
• There are over 200 different kinds of Agave plants and at least 150 are grown in Mexico
• When drinking Mezcal you should make a kissing face with your lips and sip.
• Before drinking Mezcal, you should produce a bit of saliva and when the sip is taken you should move the liquid across all your taste buds.
• Mezcal has a strong smokey flavor and can make you cough the first time you drink it.
• Mezcal is usually served as a shot, with a side plate of fried larvae ground with chili peppers and salt and cut limes. (notice picture of the grasshoppers – yes I tried them and am not a fan but I tried it! )
• Supposedly Mezcal is one of the only alcohols that will not give you a hang over. It comes from a polycarpic plant which starts to digest as soon as it hits your tongue.
• Just like with other drinks here are high end and low end Mezcals.  But note many are handcrafted.

This was a fantastic opportunity to learn about the very rich and old culture of Mexico.  I am so glad I was able to attend this unique experience and taste at bit of Mexico.

Do you have a drink or food that is a tradition for you and your culture?  Please share with us!

Stages of Language Learning

I recently read an interesting article on the Stages of Second Language Acquisition.

I found this to be really helpful to understand where I am in the different languages that I speak. I have always said that because I studied Spanish and lived in Spain for a summer that I understand far more Spanish than I can speak. I always feel a bit inept when it comes to communicating exactly how I feel in Spanish.

Here are the stages she discusses in the article:

1) The Silent Period: in this stage, most students understand more than they can produce. They can understand when someone speaks to them but they cannot express their ideas in the same way. They can answer “yes” or “no.”

2) Early Production: learners can answer some “yes” or “no” questions.  They use repetitive language patterns to express ideas and they try to express concepts by using one or two words only. They cannot find the words to make complete sentences.

It is important to bear in mind that comprehension precedes production. This is especially true in Second Language Acquisition. You can always understand more of a language then you can produce.

3) Speech emergence: In this stage, learners can communicate with simple phrases and sentences.  They will ask simple questions that may or may not be grammatically correct. It is common to see that they will start some short conversations.

4) Intermediate Fluency: at this stage, learners are using more complex sentences when speaking and writing. They can express opinions and share their thoughts. They also have the ability to formulate questions in order to ask for clarification.

5) Advanced Fluency: a student at this stage will be near-native in their ability to perform in the second language, although there may be some gaps,  especially when it comes to idiomatic uses of the language.

First, I should say, I am not a native Spanish speaker, but I want to be able to communicate exactly how I do in English. I know…this is asking a lot. The great thing about Mango is that we teach conversation right away. I really enjoy the practice I get from using our conversations to help maintain my language skills. In addition, I watch Spanish television and movies. I love Spanish music and even read an occasional People magazine in Spanish.

What stage are you at in your language learning journey and how are you getting to the next stage?

10 Reasons Why You Should Learn Spanish

Spanish has become very important to the U.S. and our culture.  Did you know?  More than 1.4 million university students were enrolled in language courses in autumn of 2002, and Spanish is the most widely-taught language in American colleges and universities.  Of all students enrolled in a foreign language course, 53 percent study Spanish, followed by French (14.4%), German (7.1%), Italian (4.5%), American Sign language (4.3%), Japanese (3.7%), and Chinese (2.4%).  The totals, however, remain relatively small relative to the size of the total U.S population.

Here are 10 Reasons Why You Should Learn Spanish:

1. Spanish is the second most-common language in the United States after English.
2. There are more Spanish speakers in the U.S. than there are speakers of Chinese, French, Hawaiian, and the Native American languages combined.
3. According to the 2007 American Community Survey conducted by the United States Census Bureau, Spanish is the primary language spoken at home by over 34 million people aged 5 or older.
4. There are also 45 million Hispanics who speak Spanish as a first or second language.
5. There are 6 million Spanish-speaking students of all ages
6. The U.S. is the world’s second-largest Spanish-speaking community, only after Mexico and ahead of Spain, Colombia, and Argentina.
7. Roughly half of all U.S. Spanish speakers also speak English “very well,” based on the self-assessment Census question respondents.
8. In total, there were 34,547,077 people in the United States who speak Spanish as their primary language at home, including 3.5 million in the territory of Puerto Rico, where Spanish is the primary language.
9. Over half of the country’s Spanish-speakers reside in California, Texas, and Florida alone.
10. Spanish is the most widely-taught, non-English language in U.S. secondary schools and of higher education, thus establishing its importance to non-Hispanic Americans.

Source: Wikipedia

Guest Post: Preventing Cognitive Overload

I am pleased to introduce Christopher Craft our Guest Blogger this week. He teaches kids Spanish and Latin at CrossRoads Middle School. He is also nearing completion of a PhD in Educational Psychology and Research at the University of South Carolina.  Christopher has a B.A. in Spanish and a Master of Education degree.  He speaks fluent Spanish, his wife is from Peru, and he has two bilingual daughters (ages 8 and 4). Find out more about him here.

Learning a new language can be overwhelming.  As a foreign language teacher I have seen students get quickly overloaded resulting in a mentality that “I’m just not good at Spanish.”  This mindset can effectively hinder the learning of a foreign language.  If you are embarking on the journey of learning a foreign language as a self-directed learner, you must take into account some principles inspired by our knowledge of the human cognitive architecture to make sure you don’t fall victim to the same mindset.

People often tell me that they wish they spoke Spanish.  When I offer them the many resources online to help them do just that (i.e. Mango Languages) they are often excited.  When I follow up with these folks they often cite a lack of time or motivation for the lack of fluency in the desired language.  Underneath it all is likely a sense of overload.

To prevent cognitive overload there are certain principles that you can implement when attempting to learn a foreign language.  First, it is necessary to practice “chunking.”  Chunking occurs when you take information in chunks to avoid overload.  This is precisely why phone numbers and social security numbers are chunked; to make them easier to remember.  Applying this to the learning of a new language is easy; simply make sure that you don’t take in too much at once.  Start slow, and make sure you really learn the first few lessons.  It can be daunting to see that there is so much that remains before you are “finished” learning.  You must remember that the learning of a foreign language never ends.  In order to prevent cognitive overload, first consider chunking your information and taking it slow.

One way to aid your chunking is to rehearse the information you are learning.  Find ways to practice the language.  Find reasons to say the words you are learning.  Teach someone else the new words and phrases you are learning.  This mental rehearsal will aid the information to be transferred into long-term memory and retained for a long period of time.  You have likely experienced this rehearsal before; perhaps when learning a phone number.  When someone tells you their phone number, you have likely found yourself repeating it in your head until you can write it down.  This is rehearsal.  The more you rehearse the basics of a foreign language, the better foundation you are laying for future learning.

A third principle to take into account is the need to take breaks.  Consider your working memory to be a bit like a water glass.  If you are adding water at a steady rate, at some point you will reach the top and water will no longer be able to enter the glass.  Your working memory functions similarly, in that when you reach a level of “fullness,” no more information can enter.  Even more troublingly, if you do not take care to take a break now and again, you can reach cognitive overload.  When this happens, the working memory empties and all the learning that had recently happened will be lost.  It is as though when reaching a level of our glass being too full, instead of just spilling over someone were to dump the entire glass of water out.  This can leave you frustrated and without desire to continue.

Using the principles of chunking, deliberate rehearsal, and regular breaks you can maximize your chances of developing fluency in a target language.  Just as your body needs rest when doing work, your mind does as well.  Take care to be mindful of your learning and adjust as needed.  I wish you the best of luck on your continued journey towards foreign language learning.

How do you prevent Cognitive Load?

Learn Spanish

Spanish is the native language of 339 million people in the world. In addition to Spain, Spanish is the official language of Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cuba, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador, El Salvador, Equatorial Guinea, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela. In addition, it is widely spoken in several other nations, including Canada, Morocco, the Philippines, and the United States.

Mexico contains the largest population of Spanish speakers. Spanish is one of the six official languages of the United Nations. While all Spanish dialects use the same written standard, there are important variations spoken among the regions of Spain and throughout Spanish-speaking America. One major phonological difference between Castilian, broadly speaking, the dialects spoken in northern Spain, and the dialects of southern Spain and all the Latin American dialects of Spanish, is the absence of a voiceless dental fricative (/θ/ as in English thing) in the latter.

Spanish is one of the Romance languages in the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European language family, and within Spain, and has two major dialects: Andalusian and Castilian. Many other dialects exist in other geographical areas, namely North and South America. Spanish, French, Italian and Portuguese are essentially dialects of the same language. If you learn one, you can learn the others. If you learn Spanish, you open the door to the culture, music, history and possible business dealings with 800 million people in 60 countries, including the US and Canada.