A tweet the other day about a visit to IKEA and the purchase of hats and things reminded me that I hadn’t shared my latest purchase from the great Swedish home of fun!

Those who have been reading ¡Vámonos! for a while will know that I am a great fan of IKEA for resources that can be used in teaching languages (and other things too!)

Last time I went I bought a fruit punnet and vegetable basket and this purchase continues on the food theme.

How might I use this IKEA breakfast set?

Well apart from naming the items of food e.g. pan, un huevo frito, salchichas, queso, beicon – if that’s how you spell it now ;o) – etc, you could use this set to work on negative sentences ‘Para desayunar, tomo un huevo frito’ Para desayunar no tomo salchichas.’  Or you could introduce phrases of frequency  e.g. ‘Normalmente, como pan tostado para el desayuno’, ‘A veces desayuno un huevo frito y beicon’, ‘Nunca como tortitas/panqueques’. Opinions would also work.

Alternatively you could use it for some intercultural understanding and comparison of eating habits. What is a typical English breakfast?  What would an American eat for breakfast?  And in Spain? France?  And that allows opinions too!

Think they need to add some yoghurt, cereal and some drinks to the set!

Wonder what I’ll find on my next visit?

Postcard courtesy of Landsbankinn

The first saying is –

To soak your head in water.

Water is paramount to growth and apparently soaking one’s head in water for a moment or two facilitates fruitful thinking. Don’t forget to hold your breath though!

I quite like soaking my head underwater – perhaps I should do it more often!

On our holiday in Iceland over Christmas I collected some postcards featuring Icelandic sayings from the airport (advertising Landsbankinn), and thought I’d share them with you over the next couple of months, starting today!

Come back at 6pm to see the first in the series!

As the clock in the Puerta del Sol in Madrid strikes midnight, people across Spain will be attemptig to eat 12 grapes before the ‘bongs’ finish.

As OrangePolkaDot tells us, the supermarkets sell special packs of twelve grapes to help you suceed!
Why? This blog post suggests that it is may have been due to a good grape harvest in 1909 (as does this post) or perhaps the converse.

Y en español aquí y aquí

Whatever, my advice is – make sure you have seedless, small grapes as you’ll never make it otherwise! The first New Years Eve I spent at my in-laws was hilarious thanks to my mother in law buying grapes so that I could ‘do my grape thing’ but choosing big fat seeded ones! That was a fun experience – good job I have a big mouth ;o)

Here’s a clip of a family celebrating ‘los doce uvas de la suerte’ (note the Mum doesn’t quite manage the feat!)

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

I also like the other tradition that OrangePolkaDot highlights – wearing red undies.  Sounds like a fun idea to me – but how ill anyone know if you’re ‘celebrating’?  Unless Desigual are having another promotion…

Having just watched Les Mis 25 years old, I feel inspired to post some videos from the Spanish version –

Sale el sol (One day more)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6o5JeLsvkPs

Sálvalo (Bring him home)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=srcVrBvsyS4

Soné una vida (I dreamed a dream)
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zz9DdvIFg5E&feature=related

And an amazing clip of 17 multi-national Jean Valjean’s singing Can you hear the people sing?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R4924xJl38E

In what seems like a past life sometimes when I used to teach Spanish to secondary pupils, we used a text book called Vaya.  Apart from my gripe about their assertion that Spaniards have pets ‘grillos’ on their balconies (yet to meet one!), my other main problem with the book / course was the fact that the pictures looked nothing like what they were supposed to be illustrating, particularly the food.  The ‘churros’ looked like those posh butter curls you get on hoity toity places, and if I showed you the ‘paella’, you’d be hard pressed to identify it.

Not sure why I thought of it today (perhaps I had a nostalgic thought?) but I did, and it reminded me of this marvellous group on Flickr called Comida española which features over 2000 photos of Spanish food.

So much easier to explain ‘chocolate con churros’

or ‘albóndigas en salsa’

or the scale on which paella’s are sometimes cooked

when you have a decent picture to help you!

You can search the group – for example, ‘tapas’ or ‘garbanzos’ or ‘tortilla’

To finish, here’s a picture that might come in useful in the next week or so…

NB watch out for the CC license under which images are shared – some are All rights reserved which means they’re copyright.  Look for CC Attribution Share alike that you can use as long as you say to whom they belong.

PS if anyone has ever met a Spaniard with a pet ‘grillo’ could you please let me know!

Today is El Día de los Santos Inocentes in Spain and other Hispanic countries, their equivalent of April Fools Day.  But it goes deeper than that as it has its roots in the story of Christmas when Herod ordered the killing of all baby boys, and Mary and Joseph escaped with Jesus having been warned in a dream to flee.

Find out more here in English or here in Spanish

Here, a man who runs a joke shop talks about the types of jokes people buy

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaBAZjr3tFA

And this clip shows an ‘inocentada’ involving a mouse!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTZirr32zGM

Even the Simpsons get in on the act!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X9EotIriEOo

A lovely app for iPad from Kumquat in Argentina, featuring Christmas carols in Spanish.  Beautifully and quirkily illustrated, you can choose whether you want them sung to you, or if you’d rather sing them yourself! Although it’s possible to access many of these tunes on the web, I think it’s well worth £1.79 as you get everything in one place – lyrics (which highlight as they are sung), sound files and illustration!

Shame I discovered it too late to use in school, but I know it’ll be a hit as my ‘testing panel’ love it!

¡Feliz Navidad!

Screenshots from the app.

This clip combines two of my favourite things  – Spanish and iOS devices.

Made completely on iOS devices like iPhones, iPods and iPhones, here is NorthPoint Community Church wishing you a Merry Christmas.  Funky and fun!

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcexJQM-8W0

And here’s more Christmas music from the same place if you enjoyed that.

Perhaps this one will prove more useful at the moment!

A very catchy Christmas carol about the Wise Men arriving at the stable in Bethlehem.

Click the image to access the song with subtitles, or go here for the lyrics.