|
 |
America Reads Spanish- Essential Guide | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes  Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 1 of 15 17 July 2012 at 3:27pm | IP Logged | ||
|
For those of you who are looking for something to read in Spanish, I just became aware via twitter of americareadsspanish.org. "America Reads Spanish" is an organization whose aim is to increase the use of and reading of Spanish in the US. They have an Essential Guide to Spanish Reading for children and young adults, a core collection of readings for children and young adults as well as a listing of what are considered to be the 500 essential top picks of librarians in charge of Spanish and Latin American literature (in Spanish). The descriptions relating to the Spanish language titles are in English.
This could be a useful website for learners and for those looking to compete in the "super challenge". Edited by iguanamon on 17 July 2012 at 4:15pm 15 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Sprachgenie Decaglot Senior Member Germany Joined 5710 days ago 128 posts - 165 votes Speaks: German*, Dutch, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Faroese, Icelandic, Flemish, Persian, Swiss-German Studies: English, Belarusian | Message 2 of 15 18 July 2012 at 8:21pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Thanks for providing the links. I was actually looking for something like this that specifically targets Latin American Spanish. Every now and then I would start reading a text only to realize it is written in European/Castillian Spanish (at which point I had to stop). I think the differences in vocabulary are so vast that one must choose a variant of Spanish and stick with that. These resources look quite promising.
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Gala Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4551 days ago 229 posts - 421 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish Studies: Italian | Message 3 of 15 19 July 2012 at 11:20am | IP Logged | ||
I strongly disagree. I read fiction from throughout the Spanish-speaking world and the vocabulary differences, while they exist, are certainly not vast. Even if they were, for one to pick between "Latin American" and Peninsular Spanish would be of no use, as the Spanish of the former regions is quite varied. The lexical differences between (f.e.) Mexican and Cuban Spanish seem to me to be equivalent to those between either region and Spain. The spoken language is another matter, as the accents are more different from each other than the vocabulary. I have a fair amount of media exposure to several Latin American varieties (especially Mexican, which I also get the most exposure to in real life), but little to Peninsular. As a result I find movies from Spain impossible to really follow without the use of (Spanish) subtitles. End of hijack. Thanks for the links, iguanamon. I downloaded the New Essential Guide to Spanish Reading; it really looks like a great reference to consult when deciding what to read next:) It doesn't, however, specifically focus on works for children and young adults, as you said. They have another guide on that page that does. Edited by Gala on 19 July 2012 at 11:39am 5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| Dagane Triglot Senior Member SpainRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4512 days ago 259 posts - 324 votes Speaks: Spanish*, EnglishB2, Galician Studies: German Studies: Czech | Message 4 of 15 21 July 2012 at 12:34pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I desagree too. Certainly the vocab varies, but not enough. Actually I'm from Spain and a huge amount of my favourite books were written by Latin American authors.
5 persons have voted this message useful | |||
| ElBrujo Newbie United States Joined 4709 days ago 29 posts - 52 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Spanish | Message 5 of 15 22 July 2012 at 6:50pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Neat initiative, although I'm saddened that the website provides no direction for those
who have never read Spanish. I didn't expect there to be any guides outlining extensive vs intensive reading, but anything would be better than nothing. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| kanewai Triglot Senior Member United States justpaste.it/kanewai Joined 4890 days ago 1386 posts - 3054 votes Speaks: English*, French, Marshallese Studies: Italian, Spanish | Message 6 of 15 18 October 2012 at 11:01pm | IP Logged | ||
|
I like the idea of the "Essential Guide" - but they seem to list everything under
the sun: 200+ novels, 100 poetry and drama anthologies, 100+ non fiction books, and about 80 young adult books. That doesn't really help any of us trying to figure out where to start. 1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| Spinchäeb Ape Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 4471 days ago 146 posts - 180 votes Speaks: English*, German | Message 7 of 15 18 October 2012 at 11:28pm | IP Logged | ||
|
If you're a rank beginner of Spanish, meaning you've only just begun to learn it, would it make sense to stick to Latin American Spanish sources (if that's the dialect your studying) at least for a short time in the beginning? We're talking very beginning here when you're saying things like, "The apple is green" and "I have a cat."
1 person has voted this message useful | |||
| iguanamon Pentaglot Senior Member Virgin Islands Speaks: Ladino Joined 5263 days ago 2241 posts - 6731 votes Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French) | Message 8 of 15 18 October 2012 at 11:59pm | IP Logged | ||
|
Kanewai, I know you're a literary guy from reading your log and you're right, it's not a graded reader guide to get you into reading in Spanish. What it does do is describe books- in English so you can, perhaps, get a feel for what you may be interested in reading by browsing the list and checking out the reviews/synopses.
Some of the reviews are quite extensive. For example Review of "El imperio eres tú" and Review of "Tiempo de arena". I felt a guide like this would be useful for intermediate learners whose command of Spanish isn't yet good enough to search monolingual Spanish literary blogs and book review sites. The site is more than the pdf guides. It has author bios and reading suggestions- check out the other tabs on the homepage as well. So for someone who doesn't mind a little browsing it could be useful. If you want to break into Spanish "gently" then you might have a look at the children's and young adult reviews. Isabel Allende's young adult novels are quite good and have not too overly complex language. When I started reading in Spanish, I jumped into the deep end of the pool and just did it with adult novels. Yeah, it wasn't easy, but it worked- for me. I started with Isabel Allende (Retrato en sepia), Arturo Perez-Reverte (La reina del sur) and Gabriel García Márquez (El amor en los tiempos del cólera). Your mileage may vary. I'm sorry this doesn't help you. Maybe I need to take a break from advice suggestions. Edited by iguanamon on 19 October 2012 at 12:00am 2 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
