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Post by Yvonne

A Compendium of Useless Spanish Phrases

June 23rd, 2009 | No Comments

…you can probably guess what I watched today from this list:

  • ¡Inconcebible! Sigue usando esa palabra. No creo que significa lo que cree que significa.
  • ¡No soy zurdo! ¡No tampoco zurdo!

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Post by Yvonne

Retroactive Interference in Action

February 18th, 2009 | 3 Comments

I’ve been volunteering at the Children’s Museum of Houston where maybe half of the visitors speak Spanish. I’d like to get to the point where I’m confident enough in my Spanish to at least mix it in with English in teaching these kids, especially since some of them don’t speak English yet.

My brain is not cooperating. I can switch off easily between English and Chinese as I’ve been doing that my whole life. However, my brain has grouped Spanish and Japanese together in a category apparently named “Languages I Speak Brokenly.”

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Post by Yvonne

About Me, About the Blog

January 27th, 2009 | 3 Comments

The first complete English sentence I could speak was, “I am big, you are small.” The perils of letting your child learn the language of your adopted country via Sesame Street.

In the nearly three decades that have passed since I first proudly uttered those words, English has become, by far, my dominant language. The switch took place when I was around seven years old, much to my parents’ chagrin.

I remember being a small child on the playground, struggling to find an English retort to some bullies. Now I can sling English wisecracks like any native speaker, but my repertoire of Mandarin insults is sadly limited: pig, turtle, and various types of bad eggs. 笨蛋!—ben4 dan4!—stupid egg.

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