misleading information

[paulvial]

hola
i am trying out the course using the free trial , and my first impression is that it is misleading when it mentions entries "recorded in Spain " as opposed to South America , but I am pretty sure that the recorded voices have a latin american accent and definitely not a spanish (european ) accent
anyone cares to comment ?

[Joseph]

¡Hola, paulvial!

Thanks for the comment! At this point, we are recording in five different countries. When we say that a given lesson was recorded in Spain, for example, what we mean is that the lesson itself was recorded there. Sorry if this is misleading. In the future, we hope to completely standardize the regional forms of speech, so that all the Spanish spoken in, say a Peruvian Spanish Lesson, is spoken by Peruvians. And as a side note, very nice job on picking up the differences in pronunciation! Where is the Spanish from that you have learned? Thanks for the heads-up!

Saludos,

Joseph

[paulvial]

thank you for your reply
i have to say I find the idea of recording on location in Spain, but using Latin American voices, rather puzzling: what is the point ?
For the (audio) listener, there surely is no difference from a linguistic point of view wether say ,a Peruvian, or a colombian speaks spanish when in Latin America / or in Spain ...
The sceptical in me (and forgive me for that ) just can't help thinking that it is a trick to lure the unwary into thinking there is an added value when there is not .....
in my opinion the location of the recording has no bearing on a audio recording , what really matters to the student (or should matter) is the true and relevant accent of the language you are purporting to teach .
As there is nothing other than the "heard content" on a audio language course, to specify that some spanish language course are recorded in Spain , as opposed to some other in Latin America , it rather implies that the speaker in the material recorded in Spain will be made by a native Spanish speaker
I am not a legal expert, but I would suggest that there might be ground for a dispute on the "advertising"
anyway i am not looking for trouble, in fact i think your "on line"courses are rather good (shame they are a bit too "American" to my taste )
i have been toying with the idea of subscribing to your japanese course but have not done so yet, fearing i have not have enough time to spare to it to justify the expense
I thank you again for your reply and i hope my comments will have bit a bit helpful .
my priority at the moment is to improve my spanish, and i will continue my search for a good online course to complement my local classes ..and who knows I might yet come back to you !
Merry Christmas
paul

[Peter]

Hello Paulvial,

Thank you for your interest in the sight and for the feedback. Apologies again, as I don't think we properly explained.

We currently use voices and recordings from 5 countries. When we record in Peru, we use Peruvian voices. In Mexico, of course, we use Mexicans, in Spain, Spanish, and so on.
Wherever we record, we use native speakers. Otherwise, there would be no point as you said.

The misunderstanding you have is that the opening voices don't change:
"Welcome to SpanishPod101.com" MUSIC "This lessons was recorded in COUNTRY" Stop by SpanishPod101.com.

Therefore, while the opening is Latin American Spanish, what comes after is recorded in the specific country.

In short, the 1-minute intro was recorded in Latin America and is used for all lessons. However the main content of the lesson was recorded in the respective country.

E.g.

Recorded in Mexico - after intro Mexican Spanish
http://www.spanishpod101.com/2007/12/20 ... ad-mexico/

Recorded in Spain - after intro Spanish from a native of Spain
http://www.spanishpod101.com/2007/12/18 ... ona-spain/
http://www.spanishpod101.com/2007/12/20 ... souls-day/

If you listen to the lessons recorded in Spain, it is very clear from the content and accent the speaker is a native of Spain.

Does this clear things up?

Now with this explained, you have pointed out something very interesting. So we are currently having the teams in other countries record intros in the local accent, so that there is no confusion what-so-ever. We will make this change to the older lessons once finished.

If you would like, I would be more than happy to speak with you in person, as it is easy to be skeptical of the revolutionary project we are trying to accomplish. We currently have teams recording in 5 Spanish speaking cities around the world. From a managing and logistical standpoint, it is very challenging, but I can say with confidence the final result is extremely rewarding.

Here is a comparison of the Spain -Spanish and Mexican Spanish blogs:
http://www.spanishpod101.com/2007/12/22 ... christmas/

In this particular lesson we have Spanish speakers from 3 countries, with actual recordings from 3 countries.

Thank you again for taking the time to provide us with constructive criticism. We hope you will continue to help us keep improving SpanishPod101.com.

[davidperez]

Hi Paul, Merry Christmas!

I'm David, the Iberian lessons and blog's author. I'm really glad that you wonder which is the added value, if any, in recording at different locations because, when I was first contacted for developing this material, I wondered too which contribution would be so valuable.

I really think (and this is what I think we all try to transmit from spanishpod101.com) that the value is "to make you feel like you are here" (in Spain in my case). I want to show you all how everyday life is in Spain, how people really talk, what they talk about, which programs they see on TV, or which holidays we have in Spain and how we celebrate. A Spaniard who records at New York, could contribute just with the accent, but, if he/she hasn't lived in Spain for a time, he/she couldn't transmit that "flavour".

¡Feliz Año Nuevo y que los Reyes os traigan todo lo que habéis pedido!
David.

[Joseph]

Paul,

Thanks so much for your comment. I think you make an interesting point. What is the value of hearing Spanish from different parts of the world? Is this just a sales pitch to lure in students who want to get "all" the Spanish they can, without pigeon-holing themselves into one form of speech? I think these questions are completely valid, and I'm glad to have this opportunity to address them.

First and foremost, let's remember that there are very few speakers who still speak "Pure Castillian", which is the dialect off of which the official "Spanish" language is based. In the Americas, which is the largest Spanish-speaking community in the world, the variations on that mother tongue (Castilian) are tantamount. For example, you can learn that the "correct" way to ask "do you understand?" informally in Spanish is "¿entiendes?", but then, what happens when you speak with a Peruvian and she says "¿manyas?" or with a Chilean and she says "¿cachai?"...(?)

At SpanishPod101.com, we take the extra step to teach "the living language", and, as the optimist that I am, I tend to think that language is what it is because it's spoken. This does not mean to say that we turn our back on linguistics or "elevated" forms of speech; quite the contrary. We use linguistics to explain the traditional "system" of the Spanish language in comparison to Spanish in situ, as it is actually used. Our goal is simple: to teach people how to improve their communication in the Spanish language.

Now, as I continue to think about your questions, I wonder if Latin speakers had those same feelings of pessimism that you've experienced, when Vulgar Latin first came off the lips of the populace? Or when those "low" languages called French, Italian, Spanish and Romanian were first introduced into the linguistic world? I wonder what people thought then? What is the difference between language and dialect? A poet, whose name I no longer recall, once said that a language is nothing other than a dialect with a gun... Again, language is what it is because it's spoken.

It is my sense that one never "has" one language or another, but rather "participates" in it, like stepping into a moving (and therefore ever-changing) river, in which other people are already swimming.

Paul, thanks again for your participation. I think it was a great comment, and I want to thank you for giving me the opportunity to address this topic, which I'm lead to believe is more important than most people think.

¡Muchísimos saludos y ojalá decidas participar en nuestro curso!

Joseph

[Joao Paulo]

I was reading this forum and would just like to give some opinion about what was said, also based in my own experiences.

I believe it's highly beneficial to listen to Spanish spoken in many different places, also because I believe it's really simple to understand the differences. Besides, you will not find people speaking just Iberian Spanish, you may have to communicate with people from other parts of the world.

The same happens to English. I learned American English, but I have also listened to a lot of British English along the way.

More than that, English is frequently used as a "lingua franca" among foreigners and I had to deal with communicating to Indians, Germans, Argentineans, the Japanese, etc... all speaking English with influence from their native languages.

That's what communication is!!!

So, to sum up what I said, I believe you can focus your studies in one variant, but you should be prepared for others as well. It will just improve your listening/speaking abilities.

[nohablo]

I am in my 7-day trial period, but I already find myself taking issue with some of the assumptions of SpanishPod101. More specifically, I think that it's a mistake to try to teach regional vocabulary differences to people who are mostly not yet at ease in "standard" Spanish. I have spoken with people from Peru and Chile, but no one has ever said "¿manyas?" or "¿cachai?" instead of "entiendes," probably because they knew that I am an American trying to learn Spanish rather than a Peruvian or a Chilean. I am much more interested in knowing how to use and conjugate "entender" than in trying to cram in a bunch of regionalisms I almost surely won't remember by the time I might need them. If I become proficient in speaking and understanding spoken Spanish, then and only then might I try to add regionalisms to my vocabulary.

There are a few major regional differences that may be worth teaching even to relatively inexperienced Spanish speakers. For example, the "vosotros" form in Spain and perhaps the "vos" usage in a few parts of Latin American (esp. Argentina). It's also useful for people to recognize a few major pronunciation differences between Spain and Latin America. But highlighting so many regional vocabulary differences seems to me misguided.

[watermen]

I am in my 7-day trial period, but I already find myself taking issue with some of the assumptions of SpanishPod101. More specifically, I think that it's a mistake to try to teach regional vocabulary differences to people who are mostly not yet at ease in "standard" Spanish. I have spoken with people from Peru and Chile, but no one has ever said "¿manyas?" or "¿cachai?" instead of "entiendes," probably because they knew that I am an American trying to learn Spanish rather than a Peruvian or a Chilean. I am much more interested in knowing how to use and conjugate "entender" than in trying to cram in a bunch of regionalisms I almost surely won't remember by the time I might need them. If I become proficient in speaking and understanding spoken Spanish, then and only then might I try to add regionalisms to my vocabulary.

There are a few major regional differences that may be worth teaching even to relatively inexperienced Spanish speakers. For example, the "vosotros" form in Spain and perhaps the "vos" usage in a few parts of Latin American (esp. Argentina). It's also useful for people to recognize a few major pronunciation differences between Spain and Latin America. But highlighting so many regional vocabulary differences seems to me misguided.

I agree. I face the same problem too. But I really don't mind Spod101 having those lessons. As long as Spod101 has sufficient of Beginner lessons. But apparently, Spod101 doesn't have sufficient beginner lessons.

[nohablo]

I agree. I face the same problem too. But I really don't mind Spod101 having those lessons. As long as Spod101 has sufficient of Beginner lessons. But apparently, Spod101 doesn't have sufficient beginner lessons.

Thanks, watermen. You may not mind but I do, because the regional pieces result in there being fewer beginner lessons for you and fewer useful intermediate and advanced lessons for me.

[Joseph]

Hey guys,

I just wanted to jump in quickly and explain a bit of the theory behind the Regional Series. As we were designing SpanishPod101, two of the questions that we asked ourselves were these: 1) Where do we speak Spanish?; and 2) To whom do we speak Spanish? As we worked at answering these questions, we realized that we speak Spanish all over the world, and that, depending where we speak, the kind of Spanish changes. We also realized that every form of Spanish is "regional", in the sense that every Spanish-speaking community has its own cultural and linguistic tendencies.

A good question that we all can ask ourselves is "what is Spanish?" Does there really exist any pure form? What is it?

We also recognized that most other courses pretend that these differences don't exist, and in order to teach their adaptation of Castiliian, they simply call it "Spanish". We thought that this was... misleading at best, and so we set out to offer a "Standard" version of Spanish (a basic grammar that would be understood anywhere in the Spanish-speaking world, though, also a kind which one would be less likely to hear than other forms); and we decided to compliment this with our Regional Series, which provides our students with "lingua in situ", that is, language as it's actually spoken in different parts of the Spanish-speaking world.

The Regional Series DOES NOT only teach forms of speech that are proper to a given region. While they do offer expressions/vocabulary/accent proper to a region, they also shed light on how Spanish is actually spoken. At SpanishPod101, we believe that this is of the greatest importance to the learning process, since it puts our students in touch with the "reality" of the Spanish-speaking world.

It's also important to keep in mind that each Regional Lesson references a Newbie Lesson, and therefore develops on the topic of the Newbie Lesson by way of comparison and contrast.

I hope that you take these comments into account as you continue to listen to our podcasts, and I thank you for participating in our forum. Your feedback is very important to us and I encourage you to continue this discussion here.

Gracias y muchos saludos,

Joseph

[nohablo]

Thanks, Joseph, for your response. I can see that knowledge of regional usage could be useful to someone who knows for sure that he or she will soon be spending considerable time in a specific country. However, that is not my situation. I want to be able to speak with people I meet from a number of different Latin American countries. I have many vocabulary needs far more urgent than learning regional terms that I may seldom if ever encounter.

The fact that each Regional lesson references a Newbie lesson is for me a disadvantage. I am well past the beginner stage. Instead of Regional lessons that reference Newbie lessons, I was hoping for the Intermediate lessons that were supposed to appear in a couple of weeks--three months ago!

So as far as I can tell, the Regional lessons shortchange beginning students (who get repeated Newbie lessons rather than new ones) and more advanced students alike.

[watermen]

Thanks, Joseph, for your response. I can see that knowledge of regional usage could be useful to someone who knows for sure that he or she will soon be spending considerable time in a specific country. However, that is not my situation. I want to be able to speak with people I meet from a number of different Latin American countries. I have many vocabulary needs far more urgent than learning regional terms that I may seldom if ever encounter.

The fact that each Regional lesson references a Newbie lesson is for me a disadvantage. I am well past the beginner stage. Instead of Regional lessons that reference Newbie lessons, I was hoping for the Intermediate lessons that were supposed to appear in a couple of weeks--three months ago!

So as far as I can tell, the Regional lessons shortchange beginning students (who get repeated Newbie lessons rather than new ones) and more advanced students alike.

I completely agree with nohablo. It doesn't really matter to me at all about knowing those regional differences. I don't mind to have it, if you all can produce more beginner lessons. I can't even hold a basic spanish conversation, not to talk about speaking regional Spanish. I believe any Spanish native speaker will be happy enough if I can speak the standard version, I also believe they will be happy enough to guide and teach me their regional differences once I am able to hold conversation in basic spanish.

Therefore, I really think you all should focus all your power on building a progressive beginner series before branching out. You all can start branching out when Spod101 is more established, why are you all in such a hurry to tell the whole world that you all offer regional series when you all don't even have a solid established beginner series.

I know you all have your own idea, I thought it was great too, but look here, who are the learner? It is us, not you the teacher. Shouldn't a teacher teaches what the student need, instead of giving what the student doesn't need? Shouldn't you all be more student orientated? I feel that Spod101 is more teacher orientated. You all seems to try to impose an idea that majority of the student don't need it at this initial learning stage.

I am not sure about the download count of each lesson, but from the respond rate of each lesson, comparing it to the same period of Jpod101, Spod101 doesn't seem to attract many learners. Look at Spanishpod.com, almost all their lessons are full of response, they seems to be better at their strategy. They have more newbie and elementary lessons than Spod101. (if regional series is not taken into account)

Please make some changes, if you all are only interested in having many audio blogs and regional series for those few intermediate/advanced learners, Spod101 is not likely going to be successful. Your main goal and your priority is to encourage new Spanish learners and to bring this new batch of learners to a new height in their endeavor to learn Spanish. Don't forget this site is called SpanishPod101...it is 101..not 201...301....

[mariposa]

Sorry, I do not agree with you.
In fact it is already difficult to say what exactly Standard Spanish is. Most of the Europeans, like me, will say probably that's the Spanish (or Castellano) spoken in Spain. That may be a slight colonial point of view, but I think that you can in no case only teach Spanish with the vocabulary and pronunciation of the countries in Middle and South America. Maybe it is not so necessary to focus on all regional differences, but at least we need the European and the Latin American Standard with their differences.
In the Regional lessons I find a lot of additional information not only on cultural issues but also on different grammar usage and grammar and vocabulary explanations above the Newbie level.
The audioblogs could be a little more casual, but they are important for learners with some knowledge of Spanish or other Roman languages, for me they are easy to understand.
I am also not against Intermediate lessons, but probably the team is already working on that issue.

[nohablo]

In fact it is already difficult to say what exactly Standard Spanish is.

Yes, I agree. "Standard" may not be the best word to use. What I'm suggesting is that it is most useful to teach Spanish that is likely to be understood by most people. Thus, to borrow from the example Joseph offered in an earlier message, most Spanish speakers, whether they be from Spain or from Latin America, will understand me if I say "entiendes," but many will not understand if I say "manyas" or "cachai." (This was not Joseph's point but it certainly is mine.)

The audioblogs could be a little more casual, but they are important for learners with some knowledge of Spanish

I agree both that they are important and that they could be more casual.

I am also not against Intermediate lessons, but probably the team is already working on that issue.

I assume they must be working on it, since more than three months ago they assured us that such lessons would be available "shortly" and "within the next few weeks." ????