Stelle Speaks Spanish and Tagalog (Language Learning Log) Language Learning Forum

Stelle Speaks Spanish and Tagalog
Tags: Super Challenge \| Tagalog \| Total Annihilation Challenge (TAC) \| Spanish
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Language Learning Forum : Language Learning Log

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Lorren
Senior Member
United States
brookelorren.com/blo
Joined 4253 days ago
286 posts - 324 votes

Speaks: English*
Studies: German, Spanish, Danish, Irish
Studies: Russian

Message 313 of 384

20 August 2014 at 7:00am | IP Logged

I haven't gotten to the advanced podcasts yet... I'm finishing up the intermediate ones at the moment. I have nine more of those before I move to advanced.

Buenos Dias America is the podcast that I'm mostly interested in listening to. I am getting enough of Spain Spanish through Notes in Spanish at the moment. Since I live in the southwest United States, most of the Spanish speakers that I hear speak Latin American Spanish, and that's the Spanish that goes through my head when I'm reading.

My daughter loved all of the Percy Jackson books. Since I've never seen any of the movies, I'll probably push that back until later... I'm starting with books that I've read in English, then books that I've seen the movies to before, and then Percy Jackson will be a book that I've neither read nor seen the movie to. The challenges get bigger as I progress.
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Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 4146 days ago
949 posts - 1686 votes

Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

Message 314 of 384

20 August 2014 at 8:27pm | IP Logged

The past few days I've made a conscious effort to read more of Percy Jackson, setting a timer for 40 minutes. And
I have to say that my book is a lot better now that I'm reading more than a few pages at a time!

What I'd really like to find is young adult fiction originally written in Spanish and taking place in Spanish-
speaking worlds (either real places or invented). I think that the current YA craze might only exist in English. But
I'd love to find some Spanish dystopia, science fiction or fantasy!

I've found one series, by Isabel Allende:

Ciudad de las Bestias

...but the reviews are very mixed. I also think that it might be aimed at a younger audience than what I'm looking
for. Still, it's on my list. Maybe I'll wait until we move to the city and see if we can get it from the library.
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BAnna
Triglot
Senior Member
United States
Joined 4624 days ago
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Speaks: English*, German, Spanish
Studies: Russian, Turkish

Message 315 of 384

20 August 2014 at 10:21pm | IP Logged

You might like this series:

Crónicas de la
Torre

The Ediciones SM site actually has a lot of young adult literature that you can search on in the Juvenil section (some
are translated from other languages, but many were written originally in Spanish). You may have to order them
through book depository or Amazon to save on shipping.

Here's the author's site: Laura Gallego
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Cavesa
Triglot
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Czech Republic
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Speaks: Czech*, French^C2, English^C1
Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 316 of 384

21 August 2014 at 12:39am | IP Logged

Stelle, great to read from you after a longer time.

I think you might be interested in some of the newest posts on my log as I've just put there a list of resources I got to know in Spain and you probably already know I love fantasy and sci-fi ;-)
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Cavesa
Triglot
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Czech Republic
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Studies: Spanish, German, Italian

Message 317 of 384

21 August 2014 at 12:46am | IP Logged

And thanks a lot for the podcast ideas!
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Stelle
Bilingual Triglot
Senior Member
Canada
tobefluent.com
Joined 4146 days ago
949 posts - 1686 votes

Speaks: French*, English*, Spanish
Studies: Tagalog

Message 318 of 384

21 August 2014 at 12:59am | IP Logged

Muchas gracias BAnna and Cavesa! I'll definitely look into your recommendations. What I really want is to get fully
lost in a Spanish book, the way that I do when I read English. I can easily read for nine hours straight in English -
with lots of snack breaks, of course! Ha! But Spanish...not so much. I think it's a combination of the amount of
stamina needed to read in a foreign language, and not having found "the" book yet.
1 person has voted this message useful

nj24
Diglot
Groupie
United States
Joined 4665 days ago
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Speaks: English*, Spanish
Studies: Italian, French

Message 319 of 384

21 August 2014 at 2:28am | IP Logged

Stelle wrote:

What I'd really like to find is young adult fiction originally written in Spanish and taking place in
Spanish- speaking worlds (either real places or invented). I think that the current YA craze might only exist in
English. But I'd love to find some Spanish dystopia, science fiction or fantasy!

Carlos Ruiz Zafón has written a YA series of fantasy novels (the first in the series is El príncipe de la niebla). I
haven't read them yet but have read La sombra del viento. It's one of the most beautifully written books I've
read in Spanish so I assume the YA novels are very good as well. Todo bajo el cielo by Matilde Asensi is a fun
historical-fiction adventure novel that you might enjoy. I'd love to read a science fiction novel written in Spanish but
haven't come across any yet.

When I first started reading in Spanish, I read the entire Series of Unfortunate Events and The Hunger Games trilogy.
Then I jumped right into a collection of short stories (Doce cuentos peregrinos) by Gabriel García Márquez.
Even though I had to struggle through many passages with Google Translate, it was an incredibly different
experience and so much more enjoyable to read a book that had been originally written in Spanish than one that
had been translated.

Edited by nj24 on 21 August 2014 at 2:28am
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iguanamon
Pentaglot
Senior Member
Virgin Islands
Speaks: Ladino
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Speaks: English*, Spanish, Portuguese, Haitian Creole, Creole (French)

Message 320 of 384

21 August 2014 at 3:08am | IP Logged

There were three books for me, admittedly, not fantasy. El amor en los tiempos de cólera by Gabriel García Márquez. Though Cien años de soledad is more lauded and praised, I found El amor en los tiempos de cólera more approachable. The story is secondary to the main character of the book- Colombia. If you want to virtually leave Nova Scotia for the tropics, you can't go wrong with this book from Gabo.

I can highly recommend El país bajo mi piel (Memorias de amor y guerra) which is the autobiography of the poet/writer/Sandinista revolutionary leader, Gioconda Belli of Nicaragua. Her style is engaging. This true story is exciting and engaging. I simply couldn't put it down and the language should be at about your level saving a lot of look-ups. Her style is engaging. The story is exciting. You could be forgiven for mistaking it for fiction. It's that good. It's that well written.

Gioconda Belli wrote:

He sido dos mujeres y he vivido dos vidas. Una de mis mujeres quería hacerlo todo según los anales clásicos de la feminidad: casarse, tener hijos, ser complaciente, dócil y nutricia. La otra quería los privilegios masculinos: independencia, valerse por sí misma, tener vida pública, movilidad, amantes. Aprender a balancearlas y a unificar sus fuerzas para que no me desgarraran sus luchas a mordiscos y jaladas de pelos me ha tomado gran parte de la vida. Creo que al fin he logrado que ambas coexistan bajo la misma piel. Sin renunciar a ser mujer, creo que he logrado también ser hombre.
Conciliar mis dos vidas ha sido más complejo. Ha significado la escisión geográfica. Echarme mi pasado, mi país al hombro y llevármelo no simplemente a cualquier parte sino al norte, a la nación donde se urdió la red donde el pez de mis fantasías pereció. Un año después de que yo y muchos como yo alcanzáramos incrédulos y exultantes nuestros más enfebrecidos sueños, mi país retornó a la guerra, al desangre. En vez de maná del cielo llovieron balas, en vez de cantar en coro los nicaragüenses nos dividimos, en vez de abundancia hubo escasez. Mientras mi pueblo escribía en las paredes yanki go home, yo me enamoré de un yanki periodista. Cuando de mi revolución sólo quedaron los ecos y las huellas, el amor, que nunca he podido resistir, me llevó a firmar un pacto con el amado que me condenaba a vivir parte del tiempo en su país. Por ese hechizo mágico, como las princesas de los cuentos, ahora transcurro parte de mi vida convertida en un pájaro que canta en una jaula de oro y añora el trópico de sus orígenes. Desde mi jaula rodeada de palmeras y calentada por el sol californiano trato de reconciliarme con el país que como niño grandulón me arrancó el cometa que yo echaba a volar; trato de verlo a través de los ojos del hombre que amo. Perdida en el anonimato de una gran ciudad en Estados Unidos, soy una más. Una madre que lleva a su hija al kindergarden y que organiza play-dates. Nadie sospecha al verme que alguna vez me juzgó y condenó a cárcel un tribunal militar por ser revolucionaria.
¡Ah! Pero yo viví esa otra vida.

Speaking of fiction, La Reina del Sur, the book upon which the telenovela of the same name was based by Arturo Pérez-Reverte is another libro que no podía parar de leer. When you read the first chapter, you'll know why it became one of the best ever telenovelas in Telemundo history.

Arturo Pérez-Reverte wrote:

Sonó el teléfono y supo que la iban a matar. Lo supo con tanta certeza que se quedó inmóvil, la cuchilla en alto, el cabello pegado a la cara entre el vapor del agua caliente que goteaba en los azulejos. Bip-bip. Se quedó muy quieta, conteniendo el aliento como si la inmovilidad o el silencio pudieran cambiar el curso de lo que ya había ocurrido. Bip-bip. Estaba en la bañera, epilándose la pierna derecha, el agua jabonosa por la cintura, y su piel desnuda se erizó igual que si acabara de reventar el grifo del agua fría. Bip-bip. En el estéreo del dormitorio, los Tigres del Norte cantaban historias de Camelia la Tejana. La traición y el contrabando, decían, son cosas incompartidas. Siempre temió que tales canciones fueran presagios, y de pronto eran realidad oscura y amenaza. El Güero se había burlado de eso; pero aquel sonido le daba la razón a ella y se la quitaba al Güero. Le quitaba la razón y varias cosas más. Bip-bip. Soltó la rasuradora, salió despacio de la bañera, y fue dejando rastros de agua hasta el dormitorio. El teléfono estaba sobre la colcha, pequeño, negro y siniestro. Lo miró sin tocarlo. Bip-bip. Aterrada. Bip-bip. Su zumbido iba mezclándose con las palabras de la canción, como si formase parte de ella. Porque los contrabandistas, seguían diciendo los Tigres, ésos no perdonan nada. El Güero había usado las mismas palabras, riendo como solía hacerlo, mientras le acariciaba la nuca y le tiraba el teléfono encima de la falda. Si alguna vez suena, es que me habré muerto. Entonces, corre. Cuanto puedas, prietita. Corre y no pares, porque ya no estaré allí para ayudarte. Y si llegas viva a donde sea, échate un tequila en mi memoria. Por los buenos ratos, mi chula. Por los buenos ratos. Así de irresponsable y valiente era el Güero Dávila. El virtuoso de la Cessna. El rey de la pista corta, lo llamaban los amigos y también don Epifanio Vargas: capaz de levantar avionetas en trescientos metros, con sus pacas de perico y de borrego sin garrapatas, y volar a ras del agua en noches negras, frontera arriba y frontera abajo, eludiendo los radares de la Federal y a los buitres de la DEA. Capaz también de vivir en el filo de la navaja, jugando sus propias cartas a espaldas de los jefes. Y capaz de perder.

This is why I recommend non-translated books. Sentences like these, writers like these, don't come out of translated English. Vale la pena a intentarlo, sí.

If it's sci-fi and fantasy, you're after- I can highly recommend Cuban/US author Daína Chaviano, especially La isla de los amores infinitos.

Can't wait to see the book you can't put down!

Edited by iguanamon on 21 August 2014 at 1:01pm

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