#spanish studies abroad

[mango-peach-strawberry]

Oh yeah I never mentioned it here but the Spanish version of Uprising is so fun. They name drop all kinds of Greek mythology (off the top of my head I remember them mentioning: Morpheus, Olympus, Tartarus, nyphms, and other things) and the nicknames the characters give to one another are pretty different.

I was translating a bit of the Spanish version in the 25 Years discord for funsies and was pleasantly surprised by the changes made in the localization!

[mainfaggot]

i literally cannot escape the clutches of the spain spanish accent. this is thee third time someone has told me it sounds like i studied in spain

[casa-xelaju]

Easter’s Beautiful Flower Carpets in Xelaju

It has been a tradition in the city of Quetzaltenango to create amazing handmade “alfombras” or carpets of sawdust on some of the main streets in the city before the processions walk during Good Friday. Faithful Catholics start working the day before on the carpets. It is an event that brings thousands of people from all over Guatemala and other countries in the world.

Photos www.casaxelaju.com & www.cx.edu.gt

[ctrl-esc]

i will say education does have its merits like the time i learned “alemania” meant germany in spanish class and then later that day danced with a guy at the club who was from germany and used alemania in convo. i was like woahh ijust learned that word in my 9am and he was like what (he could not hear me)

[shadowbannedthehedgehog]

a baby (15 or 16 year old) daughter of a family friend who is also interested in pursuing french tertiary level said she doesnt want to go to france bc they dont like black ppl which ok understood BUT then she said she wants to go to switzerland instead and uh can i please be the one to tell her. also while i do agree tht france like all of europe is racist the thing is france is not only the hexagon? and esp as caribbean ppl like why dont u say u wanna go to Martinique or Guadeloupe or even one of the french DOMs in africa or ex french colonies tht still speak french in africa etc. im not saying france isnt racist but in terms of places to go for immersion imo it has some of the best offers among the european languages for poc bc u dont need to go to europe but myb tht's just my misguided n erroneous opinion. there's also literally canada.

[angryborzois]

Oh shit there's actually no way

[roaminandtumbln]

📍Reales Alcázares de Sevilla, Sevilla, España. 26 de julio de 2019.

[yoursirengirlfriend]

going to try and be serious about improving my German and Spanish this year and mb mandarin

[solarismp3]

Can anybody recommend entertainment channels or pages or movies just anything where they speak Spanish plzzz I need to practice for my exam in December

[broke-on-books]

Where are my friends that are highly, highly passionate about the same things I'm passionate about

[robertogreco]

Sinéad O’Connor’s performance at the Amnesty International Concert in Santiago de Chile, October 13, 1990

In 1990, I was a foolish 19-year-old who’d made a very lucky decision, one that came through an ongoing search for both escape and the path of least resistance, the themes of my life at the time. That same decision led a to numerous life-changing experiences, including one that brought me to a live Sinéad O’Connor performance. As an aging person, I think a lot about the past, but I have also been thinking about this all again with O’Connor’s death last week. RIP. (I appreciate the writing that Allyson McCabe has done about O’Connor, a good start being “Appreciation: Sinéad O’Connor was right all along,” “Why Sinéad O’Connor refused to be silenced,” and “Sinéad O’Connor Was Always a Protest Singer.” While I haven’t read it, I suspect that McCabe’s book Why Sinéad O'Connor Matters is very good. I also recommend Amanda Hess’s 2021 “Sinéad O’Connor Remembers Things Differently.”)

As a teen, I had really wanted to spend a year in another country and I didn’t want it to be an English-speaking one – that seemed to me as too similar to be worth the hassle. But I hadn’t really planned well and then needed to scramble to meet the two-year language requirement by signing up for Spanish classes too advanced for my level. Spanish was the only language other than English I’d ever really spent much time with and so it was my only real chance of getting there. I then applied for only one study abroad program, a newly formed one in Valparaíso, Chile. The choice was easy because as a program created at my university it meant the financial aid I was receiving for attendance at the university would apply to the total cost of the program, which even with airfare included ended up being a bit less than regular semesters on campus, and there was a guaranteed transfer of credits upon completion of the program.

My familiarity with Chile, its culture, its history, and its political situation was pretty much non-existent. Less than five months before my arrival, Patricio Alywin, the first post-dictator president, had taken in office. This was the result of the 1988 plebiscite. A lot was changing (and a lot wasn’t) in Chile and the same applied to me. I was finally open to learning in a way that I hadn’t been for years, the direct result of the informal learning inherent in an immersion program. And I was eager to experience as much as possible. One of the benefits of learning a new language can be that you are forced to speak less and listen more. I listened a lot and I learned a lot. I went places, walking and riding the bus all around Valparaíso and Viña del Mar. I didn’t travel far aside from a trip to La Serena and El Valle del Elqui with my host family and a trip to the south at the end of the semester, but I did frequently go to a few nearby places along the coast and into the interior of the Región and occasionally visited Santiago. Two months after I arrived, some classmates and I went to the Amnesty International concert “Desde Chile... un abrazo a la esperanza” (here’s an LA Times article on the concert) in the National Stadium there, the same stadium that had been the site of imprisonment, torture, and murder at the hands of Pinochet and his men. That’s where I saw Sinéad O’Connor just as you can see in the video above. Several artists played too: Luz Casal, Inti Illimani, Wyton Marsalis, Jackson Browne, Rubén Blades y Sesi de Solar, Sting, and Peter Gabriel.

By then, all that I had heard and read started to make more sense (the language too), and it began to transform me and change my perspective on the world. At the end of that year, I was in Puerto Montt and other areas of Southern Chile, and I distinctly remember arguing against the USian buildup to what would eventually become the Gulf War. I can’t imagine I’d arrived at that conclusion, among many others, if it weren’t for the series of events that had led up to me being there.

[casa-xelaju]

Cortejo Procesional, Justo Juez – Parroquia de San de Dios de Quetzaltenango.

Men (Cuchuruchos) and women (Dolorosas) participate in solemn processions carrying enormous wooden floats with the sculptures of Jesus and the virgins during Easter week (Semana Santa) in Xela, Guatemala.

Thousands of worshipers and tourists from all over the world come to observe.

Video: www.casaxelaju.com & www.cx.edu.gt

[boomerang109]

my ability to concoct insane class schedules because i am committed to the idea that i will graduate with three minors is frankly insane

[officialbillhader]

My dad asking me if i needed the subtitles while we were watching the paltform like yeah i 100% do. I can only understand basic spanish easily. Anyway i can watch lazytown in spanish without subtitles very well

[ringneckedpheasant]

this is going to sound so stupid but I’ve been having so much trouble rolling my Rs when practicing spanish and I just now had the epiphany that the solution is. to practice. as in, slowly practice transitioning to and from the rolled R. pay attention to where my tongue sits in my mouth on the previous syllable—that sort of flipped R that’s present in Spanish and Japanese requires moving the tip of my tongue a little further back against the roof of my mouth, and rolling them further still. Like it’s just muscle memory. The reason I can’t do it is because I haven’t practiced it. I spent like 2 minutes just saying “cerrado” and “perro” repeatedly and it’s Already easier. I probably remember it being easier in HS because it was, because I was practicing out loud more frequently.

[djuvlipen]

the thing with language learning is that i feel like i know a good number of languages but i don't feel like i am actually competent yknow??