Did you know that there are actually three levels of preschool/kindergarten in Mexico?  The first two levels serve children ages 3 and 4, and the third level serves children ages five and six.  Up until quite recently this schooling was not required by the Mexican government, but a new law went into effect at the start of the 04-05 school year and mandated that all children attend the third level.  Then, at the beginning of the 05-06 school year, the second level became mandatory and, finally, beginning this school year (08-09), the first level is now mandatory.  In summary, it is now Mexican law that all children attend preschool and kindergarten.  Of course, while this may be the law, that is not to say that all children have the opportunity to actually attend.

It is often a very challenging task for school administrators to accommodate newly-arrived students from Mexico.  There is often confusion as to which grade level they should be placed in.  Report cards and transcripts are difficult to decipher, as the Mexican Education System is different than the U.S.  What about the grading system?  Why is it not unusual for a 13-year old to advise you he just completed the 2nd grade?  All of these issues are addressed in our latest publication, The Principal Steps, A Step-by-Step Guide to Spanish for School Administrators.  This important resource not only addresses all of these issues, it also assists you in building sentences for written correspondence, and has dozens of already translated comments for you to just copy and send home.  What a terrific resource for the beginning, middle and end of the school year!

Are you the designated translator at your school or district?  Whether it’s an article, a newsletter for the Early Childhood Education Department, standard school forms, letters home to parents, a flyer, the student handbook, etc., every translator, native to the language or otherwise, knows that there is always a word or phrase that is a challenge to translate.  And, what about those little grammar and spelling questions that always seem to come up?  Should that word have an accent mark?  Is that word a false cognate?  Step Up Your Spanish Translations is is full of pointers to help avoid the errors made most frequently by translators.  Some of these are common to native Spanish-speakers, while others are more common to native English-speakers.  Why not avoid these road blocks!  This 45-page workbook also contains a glossary of more than 1800 commonly-used vocabulary found in various school documents.

Translators know that a very frustrating thing is the variety of vocabulary found in Spanish, not just from country to country, but even from region to region.  Good translators always consider their ‘target audience.’  In other words, if you know that the majority of your readers within your school district come from central Mexico, you wouldn’t translate ‘peanut butter’ as ‘mantequilla de maní,’ but rather as ‘mantequilla de cacahuate.’  The glossary in Step Up Your Spanish Translations gives you vocabulary equivalents that are considered to be the primary vocabulary (most widely-used) and, whenever applicable, offers other choices that may be particularly inherent to a certain area.

Add it to your arsenal of resource books!  After all, if you’re translating a document for school and come across the acronym NCLB, you more than likely won’t find that in your standard Spanish/English dictionary!  Think of all the valuable time you can save trying to find the best equivalent, simply by flipping to your glossary.

TIPS FOR THE DAY:  (from Step Up Your Spanish Translations, page 8):  Substituto is NOT a word in Spanish.  The correct word is sustituto.  How about this . . . while absentismo IS a Spanish word (used instead of ausentismo primarily in Spain), absente is NOT a word in Spanish.  The correct word is ausente.

Summertime is a great time to kick back, soak up the sun and catch up on all those things that you’ve been wanting to do.  If one of those things that you’ve been wanting to do is to better communicate with your Spanish-speaking students and their parents, there is no better time to do so than right now!  Why not impress your colleagues, and your students AND their parents with all that you’ve learned when you head back to school!  Spanish With Class and The Extra Steps are great, light-hearted workbooks that will assist you with speaking Spanish at school and at school events.  And, they’re fun.  (Come on, how many times have you said to a colleague, “You know, I’d really like to learn a little Spanish.  I just don’t know where to get started).  Formal classes can bombard you with too much vocabulary that you don’t need and grammar that you can’t use.  Why not learn just what YOU need to learn for school?

When you do head back to school, you can immediatley start practicing what you’ve been learning.  One thing that many administrators and teachers may not realize is that they have an invaluable and accessible resource everyday at school to help them even more as they learn Spanish.  What is that resource?  Your Spanish-speaking students, of course!  Be they 5 or 18-years old, these students will LOVE to help you practice and learn.  Make sure that when you pass them in the hallway or see them in class, that you get help with a vocabulary word or phrase.  They absolutely relish the idea of being able to help you learn their language.  Not only that, they’re flattered that you’ve taken an interest in their heritage, culture and language.  Don’t be shy!  You will invariably get a giggle out of the younger ones, and the older ones will just kind of grin as they help you.  And don’t stop there!  When Mom and Dad come for Back-to-School Night or Open House, let them know that you’re learning as well.  Nothing can bridge the gap of communication more than being honest about your intentions to speak their language.

So relax, have fun and take it one step at a time.  Remember, learning a language is NOT a goal.  It’s a journey, (and should be a fun one at that)!

While no one can really say with absolute certainty, experts estimate that the English language contains somewhere around 600,000 words, making it the ‘wordiest’ language in the world.  That’s really interesting, especially if you think about how many words native English-speakers typically use in their average day . . . about 2,500!!  It’s also estimated that the average native English-speaker has a vocabulary of 15,000 to 20,000, (again, no one knows for sure).  That seems like an awful lot of words going to waste! 

Something that people learning English struggle with are those little things called phrasal verbs.  It’s tough for them to grasp that simply by adding a preposition to a verb, you can completely alter the meaning.  Take the verb ‘to take’ (in Spanish, tomar).  Now consider the difference in meaning when we add that preposition: to take out, to take off, to take in, to take away, to take back, to take over, to take up, to take on . . . you get the idea!

There’s a lesson here for folks learning Spanish.  A good suggestion is to remember that, while you may read, write and speak your native language like the well-educated adult that you are, your ability in the language you’re acquiring is much more childlike and your vocabulary is not as extensive.  Don’t try to translate everything ver batim from English.  A story was once told about the Spanish teacher who was grading essays and came across the words, ‘Yo tomé espalda el libro.’  Scratching her head, the teacher was baffled for a moment but, because she was a native-English speaker and knew the thought process of the composer, she knew that the student had looked up ‘to take’ in his dictionary, and then proceeded to look up, ‘back’ (espalda).  Putting the two together he came up with ‘tomé espalda.’

The moral of the story?  if you get into a bind trying to translate something like, ‘to take back,’ the first thing you should ask yourself is, ‘IS THERE ANOTHER WAY TO SAY THAT IN ENGLISH.  You will more than likely think, “Ah yes, TO RETURN!” (devolver)  This will assuredly make using your Spanish-English dictionary much easier and produce more fluid results. 

So, remember, if you’re stuck . . . rethink it in English first!

Have you ever felt overwhelmed as you’ve attempted to learn a new language? All of those vocabulary words and what about those verb conjugations!?! But, learning Spanish really can be simplified.

First of all, there literally are THOUSANDS of words in Spanish and English that are cognates. Now, some of these words are exact cognates, and some look so close in writing that it’s easy to determine their meaning. OK, now let’s stop right here for a few considerations. Of course, it’s a lot easier to recognize or produce these words when they are in in written form than it is to understand them or to say them aloud.

This is the beauty of many of Spanish Steps products. By simply learning a few things about written Spanish, you can communicate volumes to Mom and Dad through your written correspondence. Going Home With Spanish and Home Again With Spanish contain hundreds of already translated comments from English to Spanish. But, an added benefit is that each workbook also TEACHES you why you’re writing what you’re writing. The goal is for you to write more and more comments on your own as you continue to learn the language.