Dear Members,

After searching for info on some sites and contacting my Mexican and Spanish Translators, I have reached the confusing conclusion that there isn’t and there is Halloween in Spanish.

The Spanish speaking countries used to celebrate that date as Dia de Los Muertos,  Dia de las Brujas, Dia das Bruxas……..offering celebrations in honor of the dead. Nowadays, the tradition has changed in many countries and the trick or treat has been incorporated….Dulces o travesuras….and other ways of saying it!

The modern world linked us through the Internet, linking our cultures, costumes and more. Even in Brazil, where this wasn’t a date celebrated at all, the Halloween has slowly taken over, at first in English Private Schools, now in other Schools…..costumes and dancing are no longer a Carnival privilege, costumes and dancing have been brought to October, which is also celebrated in Brazil as the Children’s month.

My nephew Daniel asked for a spiderman costume to wear at his school party and looking for the costume, while planning Spanish Speaking Halloween Classes, brought all those issues and research around this theme.

Wikipedia has a good article on it. I would definitely recommend it!

No matter what your tradition is, Halloween for the kids is about having fun and bringing their fantasies to life, whether you have a princess, a pumpkin, x-man or a transformer, let and encourage children to expose their fantasies to day dream and most of all, be happy!!

Please contact me if you wish to have a copy of my lesson plans for ages 14m up to 10 years old on Spanish Halloween and links and videos to be used in class or at home.

Spooky Saludos,

CLaudia Krusch – Director

CK Translations LLC

www.easylearnlanguages.com

Dear Members,

After listening from different sources of how much adults and children have been exposed to foreign language classes for years and they end up with book classes, the classes where you sit, repeat and when you close the book, the foreign language stays there, not with the student….

I decided to share my passion for learning a foreign language, passion which dated from early on….I worked on a program which was age appropriate, making the learning process a fun and amazing experience! I have decided to expand it and produce videos, cds and book to share my dream of making this passion available to millions, extending my classrooms beyond th walls of our five locations.

We will post suggestion on activities, class plans, songs and other materials for parents and teachers who wish to use our program. If you wish to be notified when we have a new post on activities and song, please subscribe to our blog on the front page or send me an e-mail: claudia@cktranslations.com

Thank you for being a member of our blog! I look forward to sharing our program with you!

Saludos,

Claudia Krusch

CK Translations bringing EasyLearn Programs

www.easylearnlanguages.com

Offering Foreign Language Solutions to your global needs.

Dear Members,

My sister called me to let me know about her adjustment period, after moving to a new city in a different State in Brazil. She made many comments, but what really amazed her, was the difference between the Portuguese spoken in Salvador, Bahia and the one spoken in Jundia­, Sao Paulo…..

She said that the kids made fun of my nephews accent ( regional northeastern accent) and that they kept asking them to repeat certain words such as porta, for them porrrta, for us pohta; the supplies list the teacher gave my sister seemed to contain alien terms, such as bolsa for backpack which we call mochila, pasta for binder which we call classificador and the list goes on….the teacher didn’t seem to know any of the terms used in Salvador since we were children, since our parents were children, for my sister: it was like being in a foreign language class and I had the wrong vocab and the wrong accent……

She didn’t really say that, but that is what she thought and her comment, knowing I have studied dialects, linguistic changes and orthography as the base of one of my favorite papers, had an implicit need to share her frustration and hope that I would explain it or at least let her know I understood what she was going through……

I recently had some children enrolled in our school to learn Portuguese, but they wanted to learn European Portuguese and I explained that the Portuguese we teach is standard Portuguese, basically what would be spoken and understood in any Portuguese speaking country and while I was explaining that to the parents, my sister’s frustration came to my mind…..and I caught myself thinking: she wasn’t understood in her own country, can you imagine for a foreigner, what a challenge!!

Soon I came back to the reality that we try to use the internet, songs, culture to bring the student closer to being immersed in the real language, dialects exist but they don’t stop communication from being processed, because there are always alternatives and words to explain and convey meaning…..and when everything else fails…….. the international signs to point to the target of our despair, the source of our frustration…..

I also wanted to share that despite all work involved in learning a foreign language, in dealing with diversity, there’s nothing more beautiful than opening the doors for another human being, revealing the secrets a foreign language contains……I have the privilege to be a facilitator in this process and enable many students accomplish that and hopefully one day, see them as passionate as I am for learning and speaking a foreign language!

Abracos,

Claudia Krusch

CK Translations LLC

Offering solutions for your foreign language needs.

www.cktranslations.com

www.easylearnlanguages.com