Category: languages

And on day 6, ¡Vámonos! gave to you…

Gatatumba – not familiar with this one but it’s fun! Even if you don’t know any other words, you can join in with the ‘Gatatumba’!

httpv://youtu.be/aZ36Mzb4MaA

And on day 5 ….

Noche de Paz – or Silent Night as we know it in English.

httpv://youtu.be/hQFOD4x7-Rc

Day 4

Another traditional Spanish carol today – Arre borriquito

httpv://youtu.be/DuplM3DEhEY

Day 3 – Campana sobre campana

A traditional Spanish carol abotu the bells ringing over Bethlehem (Belén)

httpv://youtu.be/vfsjnRoTbR8

Day 2 – Navidad Navidad (Jingle Bells)

httpv://youtu.be/hZa1prx1uME

Up until Christmas, watch out for a Spanish Christmas carol a day.

Day 1 – Feliz Navidad.

httpv://youtu.be/K9ULvb_FD-s

It’s nearly Christmas so here’s a lovely little video brought to my attention by @Mother Goose Club.

The Spanish Christmas song Navidad, Navidad (To the tune of Jingle Bells) with cute animation and karoake lyrics too!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eRS1PjprrTQ

A little story featuring Caillou to mark Thanksgiving.
Hope you enjoy it as much as I did!

httpv://youtu.be/1K4Z8wtJH2A

Thank you to June da Silva for pointing this out via primarylanguages@mailtalk.ac.uk.

November 21st is World Hello Day on which people are encouraged to greet 10 people to demonstrate the importance of personal communication in maintaining peace.

  World Hello Day was begun in response to the conflict between Egypt and Israel in the Fall of 1973.  Since then, World Hello Day has been observed by people in 180 countries.

    People around the world use the occasion of World Hello Day as an opportunity to express their concern for world peace.  Beginning with a simple greeting on World Hello Day, their activities send a message to leaders, encouraging them to use communication rather than force to settle conflicts.

    As a global event World Hello Day joins local participation in a global expression of peace.  The World Hello Day web site address is http://www.worldhelloday.org.

As June says in her email, what an opportunity to promote communication in other languages too. I will be attempting to greet 10 people in Swiss German and / or their native language. I’m sure I can find 10 people who speak 10 different languages at home amongst my boys’ new classmates and parents…

www.ipl.org/div/hello will help me in my task as will http://www.digitaldialects.com/ 

And how about these lovely song?

httpv://youtu.be/kjwkMmdqmH4

Zachary Jones’ site Zambombazo is a great source of inspiration for all things Hispanic.

And I love it because it proves time and again that there is always something to learn about a language you thought you knew quite well.

I’m often challenged by pupils when I can’t recall the word for ‘meerkat’ or ‘spark plug’ that ‘you’re supposed to know Spanish’ to which I reply I don’t know every word in English. Especially when it comes to colloquial useage. I mean, my son tells me that when he says soemthing is ‘sickage’, that’s great. I’m not so sure…

So, I particularly like this map that Zachary has made – ¿Cómo se dice ‘cool’ en español?

As he points out in his post, the answer to that question depends on lots of factors including the country or even region you’re in, your socioeconomic status as well as your age. The post also offers ideas on how you might use the map to increase vocabulary, to encourage intercultural discussion and to promote discussion of current linguistic useage.