LAS LENGUAS INGLESA Y ESPAÑOLA de Delfín Carbonell

I always found William F. Buckley (1925-2008) unbearable, effete, and pedantic to the full extent of those words. His manner of speech was patronizing and stuck in his high horse. He is described by Wikipedia as "an American conservative writer, public intellectual, and political commentator." He always gave me the impression that he thought he was above the riffraff, the ragtag and bobtail of the American public. An obnoxious character. Check him out on YouTube. Today I listened to an interview he held with Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1886), again on YouTube , that treasure trove of arcane information. I was struck upon hearing Borges in English. He had the cadence, and sing-song musicality of Argentinian Spanish transferred to the English language, slurring most words into obscure sounds. Whether an interview is successful depends on the interviewer as much as on the interviewee and in this instance, Mr. Buckley blundered. Still, I urge you to hear Borges in English.     ...

Austin Williams has a YouTube channel on frugality, austerity, and simplicity. He speaks well, has a way with words, nice voice and I just plain like him. He spent two years in Ecuador teaching English and he manages to sprinkle a few words and sentences in Spanish in his talks. But, horrors and procrastination, he tries to imitate Equatorian street Spanish, to sound more authentic I presume, but the result is a disaster. Somehow -I ignore where this has come from- learners of languages try to mimic low-class, low-brow, uneducated Spanish and English believing this type of language is more "authentic" and "real." If Williams ever tried to land a job using this kind of language, he would not get it, unless he was applying for a dog catcher position in New York City. So, please, try to sound literate and educated in any language because you will be better understood and win more friends. Do not say in Spanish:  Na, pa, haiga, amos, sausté, m´ha dicho, bailemos, ca......

Sabida es mi aversión por el "speed reading" que me obligó a escribir un artículo en inglés sobre el tema, "Speed reading vs slow reading", (cited in Milena Tsverkova´s "The speedreading is in disrepute." 2017.) Sin embargo soy partidario del "speed listening": escuchar textos a más velocidad de lo que se considera normal. YouTube (una maravilla) tiene la opción de velocidad: normal, lenta, muy lenta, rápida, muy rápida, que es una bendición para los estudiantes de idiomas. Podemos escuchar la novela Eugénie Grandet , de Honoré de Balzac, a velocidad lenta, y luego, una vez nos hayamos familiarizado con el texto, a velocidad del francés normal, y luego más rápido. Y en inglés, y alemán, y sueco... Los estudiantes de idiomas quejicas no saben la suerte que tienen con la "nueva" tecnología. El que no aprende idiomas bien (como Pablo Iglesias, politiquillo español) es porque no quiere; facilidades las tiene todas. 

Aviators, airplane pilots, never speak of their experience in terms of years. They accumulate experience in terms of flyint hours, actual flying time: 3000 flying hours, 5000 flying hours. Our experience in a language should also be gauged in terms of exposure hours. But this is difficult, of course. However, time is of the outmost importance, especially in LISTENING , in acquiring sound experience; in giving our brain sound input in the new language. The more the better. Our brain must get hold of the new sounds, become familiar with them; frequency of input will ease the learning process and familiarity with the "foreign" sounds. May I suggest you listen to English or Spanish on a daily basis? YouTube is there to offer all kinds of accents and levels and subjects... Please listen to your language of choice 10 or 15 minutes a day, everyday! You will learn sounds, words, expressions... But listen actively. Do not allow your brain to roam listlessly... Listen!

The American poet Billy Collins (I love his poetry) says that Bugs Bunny is his hero and his source of inspiration. In my case, my hero and my fountainhead of inspiration is Daffy Duck.  My favorite quote from him is when Porky Pig asks him whether he is ready to go, and Daffy Duck says: "I was born ready!" Few can say that in earnest. His appearances in Looney Tunes are short and can be found in YouTube . A lot can be learnt about the English language from him, and it is a great training of the ear to capture the sounds of the language. I urge you to listen to his wisdom and his English.

A certain Vanessa, self-appointed teacher of English, declaims on YouTube about proverbs. She says that foreigners find them difficult to learn because they have "many words together" (?). She also says that many "native" speakers do not know English proverbs, so why bother? She tells us "not to use A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush " because it sounds "pretentious, snobby" and native speakers might think you are not a "normal person." Vanessa is a very young woman and we must make allowances for her youth and enexperience. She is also a native speaker, and so she depicts all the misconceptions people have about English monolinguists, those who manage in one language only. "A bird in hand is worth two in the bush" has been in the English language for centuries, since 1530 when it was rendered as "A byrde yn honde ys better than three yn the wode."It is part of the cultural and linguistic lore of Engl...

No empleamos la tecnología para aprender idiomas. Preferimos ir a Londres a escuchar cómo los ingleses destrozan su idioma. Creemos que ese viaje actuará como bálsamo de Fierabrás. Pero no. Aprender un idioma requiere un esfuerzo fuera de lo común y una asiduidad constante, de 24 horas al día, siete días a la semana, 365 días al mes. Nada menos. Sin esfuerzo, sin molestias, sin interés, nunca aprenderemos un idioma, ni siquiera el propio. Todos los días, en la oficina, leeremos los titulares de periódicos, diarios, en internet, como el New York Times, The Guardian , The Huffington Post . Y así sabremos qué es lo que pasa en el mundo y seguro que en cada titular encontraremos una palabra nueva o con un sentido nuevo para nosotros. Todos los días escucharemos una charla corta en YouTube sobre cualquier tema que nos interese. Y escucharemos activamente: cómo pronuncia el orador, la fraseología que emplea, las pausas que hace. El inglés tiene muchos sonidos, pero no son infinitos y ...