Today I once again met up with two of the preschool teachers for our intercambio (language exchange). We ended up going over to one teacher's house for spaghetti.
In addition to our language exchange, we've also started a book exchange! Last week, one of the teachers asked me if I would recommend a children's book in English for her to read. I happened to have Six Snowy Sheep in my bag because I had read a modified version of it to my 1st graders, and I lent it to her.
I know that exchanging children's books seems like a silly way to improve your English or Spanish, but it's actually amazing the type of vocabulary in these books. For example, Six Snowy Sheep has words like "feat," "snug," and "daring." Preschoolers don't know what these words mean. They just like the rhymes and rhythm of the story.
Plus, there is a lot that gets lost in translation because not every language makes distinctions between different words. While reading Six Snowy Sheep, the teacher struggled with the words "wool" and "fleece." In Spanish, they mean the same thing--so I tried to explain the subtle difference.
Today, I gave her the classic book Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? and The Indian Paintbrush by Tomie de Paola.
In turn, the teacher loaned me Elmer--which is actually an English book about an elephant who different from all the other elephants, but I learned plenty of vocabulary from the Spanish version.
I learned:
manada--herd. It specifically is used for elephants, wolves, lions and people (as in a crowd of people).
sigilosamente--stealthily. I find this word really ironic. For a word that means stealthily, it's awfully hard to say in a stealthy way.
arbusto--bush or shrub. There are plenty of these in Alicante and I've been referring to them as arbolitos (little trees) since I didn't know the word.
baya--berry. However, I don't think it's a commonly used word for berry--at least here. I think that mora is used more.
racimos--bunches. As in, he grabbed bunches or clusters of berries.
patidifusos--flabbergasted. This was definitely my favorite word! Los elephantes quedaron patidifusos.
Since my level of Spanish is higher than their level of English (and I don't have any adult English books except those on my Kindle), she also lent me another book called Perdona si te llamo amor by Federico Moccia. It's translated as well, but I'll learn a ton of words from it.
Picture of the Day:
No comments:
Post a Comment