Ira Riklis

Have you ever noticed that the DVDs of movies that you get from Netflix or Blockbuster have a feature on them that allows you to insert subtitles or have the dialogue in another language? Of course the most popular foreign language for these alternatives is Spanish. We are speaking here principally of English language movies.

Ira Riklis knows that just before you push “Play” you will see others options and one of those will allow you to play the movie dubbed in Spanish or have Spanish subtitles.

So how is this helpful in studying Spanish? Well, the suggestion has been made to watch the movie three times. The first viewing would be with English dialogue and Spanish subtitles just to get the gist of the storyline and notice how it is translated. The second time you would choose to play the movie with Spanish dubbed dialogue and English subtitles. Ira Riklis knows that by doing this you can really listen to the Spanish spoken and check every once in a while for the English translation. With the third viewing you would set the DVD for Spanish dialogue with Spanish subtitles and really get a workout in the language department.

Now how easy is that? Pick a favorite movie and have fun with it all the while increasing your language skills. You will be surprised at how much Spanish you pick up.

O.K. so you’ve been studying Spanish for a while and using your language skills whenever and wherever you can. Now you wonder, for the sake of mental challenge and for adding something new and different to your life, if you can add an additional language to your list of studies.

If you decide that this is what you will venture into, you need then to decide what your second foreign language will be. Do you decide on the basis of which language you might use when you travel? Let’s say you, like Ira Riklis, would like to travel in France so French would come in handy and make your travels more enjoyable. Will your decision be based on with whom you might converse? Maybe you have a friend whose native language is Russian and you then would have an opportunity to practice your Russian language skills when talking with this friend. Perhaps you might think like many Americans that Chinese is “the new Spanish” and so you will want to prepare for the future by studying some form of Chinese.

Well give yourself a break and make your second foreign language one that may be challenging but not so difficult that you might become easily discouraged such as one with a different alphabet from English (Russian or Chinese). Ira Riklis knows that you might also find that another Romance language such as French may be so close to Spanish that you will find at this time the study of both Spanish and French “cross contaminated”. So how about German? It is close enough in some ways to English, handy in travel, and different from Spanish so as to prevent accidentally using a Spanish word for a German one.

So many students of Spanish get nervous about studying and using the subjunctive tense. Ira Riklis knows that the subjunctive is required in Spanish in at least dependent clauses when the verb in the main clause expresses feelings or emotion, such as regret, fear, pity, hope, surprise etc. In other words you could say “fuzzy”.

Yes, uncertainty is a big part of life so to express oneself one needs a tense where the listener will understand what the speaker is really communicating. The subjunctive tense helps one express doubt, disbelief, uncertainty or denial about what is real.

When certain verbs are used in a question, doubt or assurance on the part of the person who asks the question determines whether the subjunctive or the indicative tense is used. Yes, Ira Riklis knows that the subjunctive tense is highly subjective! When one is discussing generally accepted fact, one uses the indicative. When there is some mental reservation, one uses the subjunctive tense.

How then can the student of Spanish hope to learn and use the subjunctive tense? Probably the best way is to familiarize yourself with the various forms of the tense most often used by reviewing a verb book (or use Internet resources). Next try to pick out the subjunctive tense usage in reading books, magazines, and newspapers. Listening for possible use of the subjunctive tense by speakers and trying to slip in a few of these verb forms in your conversation practice will help in developing skill in this area. Lastly don’t worry about the subjunctive!