Platiquemos Jokes, Cartoons,
False Cognates, Sayings and Proverbs, Colloquialisms and "Cusswords"

To really learn another language, there is no substitute for a structured, thorough program, such as Platiquemos. There is just no way around spending time, and some effort to learn. Purveyors of miracle programs which claim you can learn in a few days or weeks, and without effort, are either ignorant or lying.

Likewise, many people believe that "total immersion", or "learn like a child", is the best way to learn. I disagree. It's quite inefficient (remember that a child has 3 or 4 years of pretty much full time experimenting with the language, and a private full-time tutor (usually called "mom", or mamá in Spanish). And, at the age of 5 or 6, the child speaks only what is often called "playground Spanish", which is inappropriate for an educated adult. Also, when the child goes to school, learning "proper" Spanish is one of the goals.

Learning another language isn't particularly intellectually challenging, but the amount of time you need to to be able to almost unconsciously manipulate structures requires a good deal of absorption (more than just "learning") of initially strange stuff. Unfortunately, that means a lot of repetition of pretty simple things until they are mastered at a depth where their use as "models (perhaps we could say "templates") to construct your own meaningful utterances becomes automatic.

The mere fact of the simplicity of what you need to spend so much time to master makes it seem tedious, and sometimes "not worth the effort". If you keep at it, though, the payoff in the end will be great. A famous writer/philosopher (whose name escapes me at the moment) said "learning another language is to acquire another soul". An overstatement, but with a good grain of truth.

One of the biggest challenges for those who would help others master a language is to get them through the tedium, and maintain a sense of "fun". I first approached this with the illustrations and cultural/historical nuggets in the Platiquemos program itself (over 500 illustrations, with cultural notes), and with Cantemos, our collection of over 70 traditional and popular songs with translations and notes. Frankly, I've been a bit disappointed that a lot of folks who want to learn Spanish don't seem to understand the importance of popular culture to real communication, as well as adding an enjoyable element to learning.

Next, I wrote a Joke and Cartoon book (100pages, over 150 jokes and 50 cartoons, with translations and notes, of course) as another effort along these lines, and I hope that aspiring Spanish speakers will accept the importance of this popular culture element as well.

Recently, I expanded the Joke/Cartoon book with sections on "false cognates" (falsos amigos). Many of them are so similar to the English that not thinking they mean the same thing is difficult. There are only about 200 false cognates, and while I usually don't favor learning word lists as such, knowing the false cognates is so important that I make an exception in this case. For example, did you know that atender doesn't mean "to attend", but rather to "take care of, to help"--and other similar meanings"? Or, similarly, that asistir doesn't mean "to assist", but "to attend to take part in"?

I've also included a substantial section of sayings and proverbs (dichos y refranes). At least a superficial knowledge of these will give you a boost in the esteem of Latin Americans (and Spaniards).

Finally, I've added a section of colloquialisms and "dirty words". The purpose of the section on "dirty words" is not to learn to use them, but to be familiar with them--most of them are in daily use, and not just among the lower strata of society.

The final result is 219 letter-size pages, with little wasted space.

A substantial sample from the Joke and Cartoon book is here; ordering information (a download of the book is free with the purchase of four or more Levels of Platiquemos or the complete Español Rápido course) is below.

Right now, it's only available for download (or inclusion in the DVD package) We expect to have it on CD shortly. It isn´t a huge download, though, and most people even with a dial-up connection should be able to download it.

Finally, I need to emphasize that nobody else has anything even remotely similar!

Platiquemos E-book (download)

$39.99

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