Interesting Book Finds at El Dia Del Libro 2013

The first few novels I read as a kid were by mystery writer Agatha Christie, so I was a bit excited when I saw one of her novels today, translated into Spanish, in the Spanish book fair at BHS today. As for Graham Greene's novel, I've seen the movie version and the English translation used the word 'quiet' while this translates to 'impassive'. Now, my Spanish 'library' is growing bigger and bigger!! I just hope Laura and Dylan do decide to learn Spanish in the future so someone will read this books =)

Conjugo Los Verbos Pretérito

Finalmente, hemos comenzado conjugar los verbos pretérito hoy!  He sido esperar para este desde qué quiero lo usar en mi diario.  No es facil porque tenemos que memorizar los tipos de los verbos.  Entonces es muy importante que practico todos los dias para una hora. 

Related articles

• Capturing the CCP at Night
• Nicki Minaj Concert Setlist for Her Manila Tour
• My #6 to #10 Favorite OPM Songs of 2012 (As of June 30, 2012) @theitchyworms #opm #10FavouriteBands @tanyamarkova @ginilingfest @anakarylle #popsfernandez

Leccion Espanol Day 4: Conjugating The Spanish Verb -ar

This is our fourth meeting today for my level 1 Spanish lessons and we have really buckled down to business.  After simple greetings and the Spanish alphabet and spelling in Spanish, today, we started conjugating the present form of all Spanish verbs ending in -ar.  For example, cantar, which means to sing, is conjugated as canto (I sing), cantas (You sing), canta (He sings), cantamos (We sing), cantais (You sing) and cantan (They sing).  We were told that we did not have to put the pronoun in front, anymore, since the language is designed in such a way that the form of the verb will tell you who the subject is.  Tres cool, don't you think? We did a lot of conjugating today, and after that, we had to translate several sentences into Spanish.  The good thing is, it wasn't so difficult to translate them!  Next meeting, we will do the verbs ending in -er and -ir.

Related articles

• 11-11-11 Not a Scary Ride
• Three Things I Liked About The Cold Light of Day
• US journalist in the Spanish-American war cites Filipinos' strong sense of justice

Leccion Espanol Day 3: Spelling and the Spanish Alphabet

Today, Mila grilled us on the Spanish alphabet, especially emphasizing the letters g and j which both had that annoying guttural sound - a sound which she says, approximates a taxi driver who is about to spit!  What a metaphor!  We also got each and everyone's cell number and name.  We had to say our cell numbers in Spanish and we had to spell out our name to each person we met.  It was a good exercise since that way, I could clearly recall the sound of each letter of the Spanish alphabet.  In my French alphabet, up to now, I still could not distinguish if the sound [zhi} is for the letter g or the letter j.  How annoying!

Related articles

• Tulfo: Another Spanish Basher #ramontulfo
• 11-11-11 Not a Scary Ride
• Inigo Cervantes: Player Ranked Outside the Top 100 Who Reaches the Second Round of Wimbledon 2012

Leccion Espanol Day 2: Meeting Our Real Teacher

Today, our class of 24 was divided into two groups of 12 each.  I stayed in the same room with Anna, who is a 3rd year college student from La Salle.  Our teacher for this module is Mila Vieco and she's from Spain on the northern part.  She really is a teacher for beginner's class since her pacing is so relaxed!  Today, we did the greetings, and she really encouraged us to talk in front of everyone and do the dialogues.  That way, we could build our confidence in speaking in Spanish.  I like her method very much!

Related articles

• Three Things I Liked About The Cold Light of Day
• 11-11-11 Not a Scary Ride
• Tulfo: Another Spanish Basher #ramontulfo

First Day of Spanish Class at Instituto Cervantes

It's a pity I only took Spanish now.  It's a pretty language to learn and I think, a walk in the park compared to my French lessons before.  No surprise there for obvious reasons - my dialect, Bisaya, has so many Spanish words, add to that some Spanish words in Tagalog, I'm set to learn the stuff quickly.

The Instituto Cervantes here in Manila is really built like a language school!  The classrooms are equipped with all the audiovisual equipment needed to teach a language and are well-lighted and conducive to study.  I haven't been to the library yet since I'm still in level 1, but I should explore that place as I go higher.

We were lucky to get a Spanish teacher for the first day, but unfortunately, he said he was just the substitute and we will meet our real teacher next week.  Also, our present class will be divided into two since we were more than the allowed number of 20 students.  Oh well, I hope Kevin and Anna, my seatmates go with me to the new section.  Anyhow, time to meet interesting people once again!

Related articles

• Inigo Cervantes: Player Ranked Outside the Top 100 Who Reaches the Second Round of Wimbledon 2012
• Three Things I Liked About The Cold Light of Day
• Concert Pictures: Gym Class Heroes in Manila

Leccion Espanol Day 1: Simple Greetings, the Alphabet and Nationalities

Finally, today, I had my first day of Spanish classes, after planning to study it for a long, long time.  We were assigned our rooms today and it was on the second floor, Aula 8.  We were so many in class, about 24 students, more than the required quota of 20, so they are planning to divide is into two groups next meeting.  Our teacher for today was Jorge Mojarro Romero and he said he was just substituting for today since our teacher was sick.  Jorge comes from the south of Spain so his accent is very thick and he places emphasis on letters g and j.  Anyway, today, we just discussed how to greet each other, and then we did the alphabet, did some dictation, did some oral reading and discussed some of the nationalities!  We were really speeding so fast!  I guess Jorge is a teacher for advanced students since he was really discussing everything very, very fast!

Related articles

• Three Things I Liked About The Cold Light of Day
• 11-11-11 Not a Scary Ride
• Matches I've Seen: Roger Federer vs. Albert Ramos